In the aftermath of the economic recession of 2008, economists and politicians alike have called for decreased spending on the part of the federal and state governments. Judicious money management in the form of budget cuts would help to offset the massive foreign debt and stabilize budget crises.
The flipside of the aftermath coin reveals a less prudent mindset for the country’s economic future. An increase in consumer spending would push the economy into an upward swing. Nevertheless, the expectation that consumer spending can alleviate economic depression is corrosive. To avoid future crises, a new economic paradigm has to be invented that does not rely on citizens’ material appetite to remedy market woes.
A culture of consumption has led American society into the territory of addiction, of perennial dependence on an endless cycle of consumption. All moral objections aside, if the values of thrift and monetary prudence, or an anxiety in the face of a grim future, tighten the average citizen’s pursue strings, but the ideology of economic positivism that feeds the American political body still counts on unimpeded growth and material consumption, the definition of a cure for economic ills will dissolve.
With it will go the formula for remedying a single recession and avoiding total economic collapse. An alternative paradigm of economic health has to be devised so that citizens can prepare themselves for what will be an inevitable dysfuntion encrypted in the way they live with and on material goods.
One must acknowledge that it is hard, almost foolhardy to refute consumerism as a cultural practice and mode of self-evaluation in the United States. As a result of the “nuclearization” of the family from the 1950s onward and the promise of modest luxury for the middle class which persists to this day, consumer spending has become the foundation of modern American capitalism.
The Christmas and New Year shopping seasons often provide a jolt for a lagging business sector, and indicate to financial analysts how prudent people have become with their money. But, two months beyond that crucial fiscal quarter, and over the open water of our economy in 2011, the country must reconsider its approach to material prosperity and stability.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama used the rhetoric of stagnancy at the small town level, in production and consumption, to iconify the recent economic plight. Saying that the world of job security has changed, he concluded that “for many, the change has been painful. I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts of once busy Main Streets.”
Obama’s Main Street metaphor localized the hurt and allowed him to individualize his rhetoric even further when he characterized the obverse scenario, marketplace progress. “We measure progress by the success of our people,” he said, “[…] by the prospects of a small business owner who dreams of turning a good idea into a thriving enterprise.”
The effect of the President’s rhetoric counted on a constant, if implicit, factor in the success or failure of the small town economy: the role of the consumer, or investor, as the case may be, to feed entrepenurial spirit. In turn, that spirit circles back to bolster the country’s unshakeable, positive perception of its future economic well being.
But what if that spirit is broken in bad times, and for want of money, or a change in attitude, consumers do not rally in good times to spend frivalously again? The simple answer lies in the current methods of production. An item is made from raw materials, packaged, shipped, put in stores, advertised, purchased, used and thrown away.
The success of each commercial entity along that path, from the procurer of raw materials to the shop where the eventual product is sold, depends on the desire, complicity and pocketbook of a consumer. On a massive, nationwide scale, this same exchange structures the foundation of the American economy, and guarantees it health from year-to-year.
The one-way flow of that trade arrangement might invigorate each participating party, but, to be impervious to the kind of shake-up that the 2008 recession brought, the system must be closed. Renewable energies offer an alternative, for example. Trade regions could be shrunk, a kind of marketplace “locavorism” based on metro-rural partnerships or bio-spheric perimeters.
Sustainability is the buzzword for this kind of future vision, but more accurately, such a paradigm has to be self-sustainable and self-monitoring. The notions of salvaging, recycling and thrift must extend beyond the realms of environmentalism and socio-political values.
The American economy, with its instruments of production, delivery and consumption, ought to measure itself in terms of homeostasis. If the single-track system, fed by the external force of citizen consumption, pushes on unabated, the nation will take sick again, and recovery might not come as predicted.