After 9/11 George Bush told people to go shopping.
America's economy depends on constant consumerism.
The planet's survival can be destroyed by constant consumerism.
These two statements can both be true and a total dichotomy.
A high school friend gave me a book about our home town of Reading, MA in the early 1920s. The town was full of small businesses including some factories. A large percentage of the population was self employed or worked in town.
It was not a poor town. Folks had what they needed and probably a few extra things. Some people had more than others.
Today, the picture is different. Jobs come from corporations. Local business may be a few shops, chains, funeral homes, insurance reps, that sort of thing. People leave town to go to work.
The industrialized world over-shops. Duplicates, triplicates of things abound. Garages, attics, basements are stuffed with things bought and cast aside as in the picture above.
Most of those things provided jobs for people to also overstuff their homes feeding the economy.
Meanwhile those things also used up planetary resources. Although we don't have an aluminum crisis yet, there is still a limited amount on the planet. Everything has a limit.
I'm not an economist. But it doesn't make sense.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment