Scaremongering

 

If we buy into environmental scare-stories about the need for consumption restraint, as opposed to more and better technology, we risk endorsing the apocalyptic scenarios fostered by the ruling class that fears the future.

The future is depicted by brushstrokes and at present just a sketchy outline but an important one. The pressing situation right now is how to achieve the position of being able to implement our model, what are the most efficacious means and methods to change the present society for a new one. Our outlook is based on collective, political action involving us in political activity to capture the State and dismantle it along with capitalism.

Capitalism has already created all the necessary prerequisites for socialism. Years ago the task of socialising food distribution in any country could have been formidable, requiring the establishment of social control over endless thousands of independent small retailers and suppliers; today, most people obtain their food supplies from four or five big outlets. The supermarkets are already a model of efficient central planning. It is, however, planning with no democratic control or scrutiny, and the whole operation is aimed at realising maximum profits rather than at the general welfare; but the mechanisms of procurement and logistics of distribution are there.

All we need to do is expropriate the owners and turn the work of administration and decision-making over to the various organs of participatory democracy.

We take hold, we adapt and we modify and we re-use, recycling capitalism into something different, not re-packaging into another brand of the same.

We are already an organisation that perhaps shares much of the aspirations of environmentalists. You should join the World Socialist Movement. The technical details of applying the vital tenet "from each according to ability, to each according to need" can still be debated and discussed.

 Why do people West desire to have a high level of conspicuous consumption?

Erich Fromm seems to have sought a psychological explanation.

We are a society of unhappy people, lonely, anxious, depressed, self-destructive, and full of dependencies. The psychological premise of capitalism is that the pursuit of individual egoism leads to harmony and peace It is rejected by Fromm.

To be an egoist, he says, means :
“I want everything to myself, that possessing, not sharing, gives me pleasure; that I must become greedy because if my aim is having, I am more the more I have. I can never be satisfied because there is no end to my wishes: I must be envious of those who have more and afraid of those who have less.”

Fromm, therefore, concludes that the character traits engendered by or socio-economic system are pathogenic, and produce sick people and a sick society. Given that fact, we are headed for an economic catastrophe unless we change our social system, not just the ecological basis of it. The physical survival of the human race depends on it.

“It is through one's possessions that one attains the power and freedom to be oneself; one's sense of self-identity and self-worth - in short, one's social status - is tied up with, and expressed through, one's possessions.”

This is what Fromm means by a "having" mode of existence as opposed to a "being" mode.

Fromm concludes that “…the pursuit of happiness does not produce well-being”.

So it does not matter how modest one's real needs may be or how easily they may be met; capitalism's "consumer culture" leads one to want more than one may materially need since what the individual desires are to enhance his or her status within this hierarchal culture of consumerism and this is dependent upon acquiring more than others have got. But since others desire the same thing, the economic inequality inherent in a system of competitive capitalism must inevitably generate a pervasive sense of relative deprivation.

What this amounts to is a kind of institutionalised envy and that will be unsustainable as more peoples are drawn into alienated capitalism.

 

A ‘World of Abundance’ often referred to by socialists has never referred to the open-ended consumerism encouraged by the advertisers but has rather as its target a stable and more satisfying way of life in which the scramble to accrue things is no longer central. With material survival removed from the marketplace by the abolition of commodity production we can expect that individuals will calm down their acquisitive desires and pursue more satisfying activities.

Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilised at the level required to satisfy needs. It will create an ecologically benign relationship with nature. This will be the opposite of today's capitalist system's cheap, shoddy, “throw-away” and "built-in obsolescence" destruction of resources.

We know that humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in. Human behaviour reflects society. In a society such as capitalism, people's needs are not met and people feel insecure. People tend to acquire and hoard goods because possession provides some security. People distrust others because the world is organised in a dog-eat-dog manner.

Under capitalism, there is a very large industry devoted to creating needs. Capitalism requires consumption, whether it improves our lives or not, and drives us to consume up to, and past, our ability to pay for that consumption. In a system of capitalist competition, there is a built-in tendency to stimulate demand to a maximum extent. Businesses, for example, need to persuade customers to buy their products or they go out of business. They would not otherwise spend the vast amounts they do spend on advertising.

There is also in capitalist society a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions.

The prevailing ideas of society are those of its ruling class then we can understand why, when the wealth of that class so preoccupies the minds of its members, such a notion of status should be so deep-rooted. It does not matter how modest one's real needs may be or how easily they may be met; capitalism's "consumer culture" leads one to want more than one may materially need since what the individual desires are to enhance his or her status within this hierarchal culture of consumerism and this is dependent upon acquiring more than others have got. But since others desire the same thing, the economic inequality inherent in a system of competitive capitalism must inevitably generate a pervasive sense of relative deprivation. What this amounts to is a kind of institutionalised envy and that will be unsustainable as more people are drawn into alienated capitalism.

We should not project onto socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism. In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one's command would be a meaningless concept. The notion of status based upon the conspicuous consumption of wealth would be devoid of meaning because individuals would stand in equal relation to the means of production and have free access to the resultant goods and services. Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? In socialism, the only way in which individuals can command the esteem of others is through their contribution to society, and the stronger the movement for socialism grows the more will it subvert the prevailing capitalist ethos, in general, and its anachronistic notion of status, in particular. The sense of mutual obligations and the realisation of universal interdependency arising from this would profoundly colour people’s perceptions and influence their behaviour in such a society.