Blindness, absurdity and meta-economics

No hear, no see, no speak

Blindness

Blindness to the true human condition - even within ourselves - is amplified by the doom and gloom coming from our media and our politicians:

We all constantly hear in the news how high street sales etc have gone down, and how terrible this is for an economy that is (still) in recession. "We hope that sales will pick up soon!" And then, we will all be happier, will we?! Okaaay...
So, if people buy more stuff (which ends up somewhere being unused or thrown away), this means they are happier and healthier people and the country is doing well? Is buying that unnecessary 7th pair of shoes that will give you bunions really an indicator of your wellbeing?

What is really lacking in our lives? We all know it ..., it's just a matter of opening our eyes, listening to what our heart is telling us, and not being afraid to admit it. It's quite simple, really.

Absurdity

The absurdity in producing 1 tetra pak for 1 litre of orange juice (OJ). Once the OJ is gone, what happens to the container? It is either recycled or - worse still - simply thrown into the rubbish. Multiply that by every carton of OJ that you buy....

Imagine all the materials (mostly wood according to Tetra Pak) and energy and effort that has gone into producing that pack, and all that energy that will go into recycling it, 'conserving' it in a dump, or incinerating it! You just need to look at the Tetra Pak Recycling website to see for yourself what a process the recycling is. And all that just for the carton to be used once, for it to stand in your fridge for just a few days. (Oh yes, and refrigeration is a whole other topic in itself...)

I don't mean to demonise the Tetra Pak - there are plenty of other absurdities out there, in our lives, too. It's just that this example came to mind so readily.

I don't have the perfect solution to offer at the moment, but our throw-away culture is all quite absurd when you think about it! And it pervades every aspect of our lives...

Meta-economics (part one)

I took a break from Hungry City today and delved into the wonderful world of another favourite and a real classic: "Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered" by E.F. Schumacher. I found myself in his chapter on "The proper use of land" and found direct parallels to what Steel has been writing about in Hungry City. To think that Fritz Schumacher wrote this in the 1970s.... we haven't come that far! (This commentary in The Guardian online about the book more or less sums up my thoughts on the matter.)

I resort again to an extensive quotation from this book, as I really could not put it any better. Coming from an economics background and having battled my way through a Natural Resource Economics course this year, I think this notion of "meta-economics" is great!! Read on to find out more about it...

First, an introduction to the topic, ...

... quoting from the epilogue of the book, which sums up my above thoughts on blindness and absurdity very nicely:
"In the excitement over the unfolding of his scientific and technical powers, modern man has built a system of production that ravishes nature and a type of society that mutilates man. If only there were more and more wealth, everything else, it is thought, would fall into place. [...]

The development of production and the acquisition of wealth have thus become the highest goals of the modern world in relation to which all other goals, no matter how much lip-service may still be paid to them, have come to take second place. [...]

There has never been a time, in any society in any part of the world, without its sages and teachers to challenge materialism and plead for a different order of priorities. The languages have differed, the symbols have varied, yet the message has always been the same: 'seek ye first the kingdom of God, and these things (the material things which you also need) shall be added unto you.' They shall be added, we are told, here on earth where we need them, not simply in an after-life beyond our imagination.

Today however, this message reaches us not solely from the sages and saints but from the actual course of physical events. It speaks to us in the language of terrorism, genocide, breakdown, pollution, exhaustion. We live, it seems in a unique period of convergence. It is becoming apparent that there is not only a promise but also a threat in those astonishing words about the kingdom of God - the threat that 'unless you seek the kingdom, these other things, which you also need, will cease to be available to you'. [...]

We shrink back from the truth if we believe that the destructive forces of the modern world can be 'brought under control' simply by mobilising more resources - of wealth, education, and research - to fight pollution, to preserve wildlife, to discover new sources of energy, and to arrive at more effective agreements on peaceful coexistence. Needless to say, wealth, education, research, and many other things are needed for any civilisation, but what is most needed today is a revision of the ends which these means are meant to serve. And this implies, above all else, the development of a life-style which accords to material things their proper, legitimate place, which is secondary and not primary."

Secondly,...

... I have realised that this post will be too long if I go on to define what Schumacher means by meta-economics, so this will follow in another post as "Meta-economics (part two)"! Ta for now :)