More on Sustainability and Political Philosophy

In response to my piece on Sustainability and Political Philosophy, a reader asked me if I’d comment on greed and where it comes from.

I would say that our society over the last 75 years or so has become increasingly tuned to promoting consumerism = you’re inadequate if you don’t have more stuff = you need more money to buy more stuff = there is no limit to how much stuff you need to have and enjoy = the real winners are the people who have unbelievably large quantities of stuff. 

Of course, when we look around in the real world, anyone can see immediately that this is patently false.  When you’re cold and hungry, a sandwich and a warm coat increase your happiness immeasurably.  Ensuring that you won’t run out of food and clothing will produce an important level of incremental happiness on top of that.  But 2 million sandwiches and 3 million coats will provide very little incremental happiness.  The case is the same for 300-foot yachts with gold-plated shower-heads, professional basketball teams, and 25,000 square-foot mansions in Beverly Hills.

We’ve been sold a bill of goods.  All this yearning for more material things is not bringing us happiness, and it never will.  Of course, this is anything but a new idea. I invite you to read through some progressive ideas on Gross National Happiness.  In this article, you’ll notice a quote from Paul Hawken, legendary environmentalist and one of my true heroes:  We are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP.