Consumption: Destructive

1
Consumption Destructive Transformative

• From quantitative to qualitative development
  Consumption the Purpose of Production

2
Top 10 National Consumer Class Populations, 2002
Country No. of People in Consumer Class Share of Population
United States 242.5 84
China 239.8 19
India 121.9 12
Japan 120.7 95
Germany 76.3 92
Russian Federation 61.3 43
Brazil 57.8 33
France 53.1 89
Italy 52.8 91
United Kingdom 50.4 86
3
The New Significance of Consumption I The
Importance of End-Use to Qualitative Development
The Waste Economy as an avoidance of
Redistribution Needs-based Development

• Permanent War Economy / Cold War
• Today the war on terror the incarceration
  industry
• The Suburb Economy
• Oil / Autos / Subdivisions
• Today Wal-Mart globalism the electronic waste
  economy

Creation of Effective Demand Increasing role
of Debt as money Institutionalization of
work-and-spend cycle
4
The New Significance of Consumption II Current
trends in mainstream enviro regulation

• 60s-70s end of pipe point-source pollution
• mid-80s on eco-efficiency pollution prevention
• mid 90s on consumption patterns product
  design

5
Limits vs. Transformation

• The Oil / Suburb / Debt / Mass Consumption
  economy created a structure of development.
• A green economy must create a logical structure
  of its own.

6
Consumption in a Green Economy

• Human dimension from products to services
  serving need resources as means to the end.
• struggle to define need
• Resource dimension Cycles in closed loops the
  Lake Economy / biomimicry
• efficiency / harmony / stewardship

7
Questions

• can substantial human self-development take place
  without dematerialization?
• can major conservation/recycling take place
  without human development?
• can Capitalism (a system where money is the
  end-goal) become a form of Qualitative
  Development?
• the potential and/or limits of natural
  capitalism
• a question of not just the structure but the
  driving forces of economic life.

8
Democracy Consumption Whats the relationship?

• Who decides what human need is?
• Knowledge-based development participation
• eyes to acres relationship in green production.
• Mass collaboration Peer production in the
  electronic Commons
• Info economy direct democracy
• Industrialism representative democracy
• the stakeholder corporation

9
Knowledge Consumption

• Info-intensity and product/process design
• Deskilling of the Consumer role of eco-literarcy
• Market Transformation Collective Consumerism
• Distributed Regulation finance, certification,
  scale, etc.
• Distributed Production food, energy, building,
  craft, preventive health care, etc.

10
Knowledge in a Postindustrial Economy

• information about products, processes
  production
• knowledge as gratification / fulfillment
• money as information an information system for
  the deployment of human and natural energies.
• new forms of work relationship
• Prosumption home community-based production.
• LFP value-brokers
• Knowledge mass collaboration
• Wikipedia
• Local Motors

11
Self-Development Consumption

• evolutionary trends toward individuation
• class power dependence
• violence Wholeness
• Culture-based development Individuation
• Neo-Primitive Development Global Village,
  Electronic Commons, Bioregionalism, Field
  Consciousness
• culture-based production Gift relationships

12
Dematerialization Strategies

• limits of private consumerism
• EPR ecodesign and closing loops transformative
  consumerism
• sharing
• information needed to redefine value.
• ESCO model of material wealth creation
• The transformation of Retail
• Media, Education and Conservation
• Green Procurement market creation
• Finance Regulation

13
Retailing

• New Commanding Heights of capitalism Wal-Mart
  and cost-cutting business model.
• reflects importance of end-use
• localization strategies key to closing loops
• Retailers as conservation utilities?
• -as learning centres?
• -as used materials depots?

14
Regenerative or Transformative Consumerism

• Goes beyond protectionism to ecological
  alternatives
• Decreases material consumption, makes it more
  cyclical
• Overcomes both the isolation and the passivity of
  the individual consumer, through sharing and
  prosumption.
• Regenerates humans, community ecosystems.
  Encourages social justice, quality of work life
  and the integrity of natural systems.
• Effects ripple
• upstream to affect extraction processing, and
• downstream to affect disposal.