Stuff it!

A couple of days ago, I blogged that we are addicted to stuff. I added that getting rid of this addiction is impossible.

I continue to think about this and, frankly, it scares the life out of me.  Yes, as I wrote there, there are the awful impacts on the natural environment that sustains our existence.  But, there is more to worry about.  Something more existential.  If we are working long hours primarily because it is not about mere survival but to get more stuff, then "today’s discussions need to move beyond the old point about the marvels of technology, and truly ask: what is it all for?"

The metaphorical tasting of an apple from the forbidden tree is about this aspect of our existence.  Through our curiosity, over the hundreds of thousands of years, we have essentially become people running faster and faster on a treadmill.  What is it all for?

It doesn't have to be this way though.

If we wanted to produce as much as Keynes’s countrymen did in the 1930s, we wouldn’t need everyone to work even 15 hours per week. If you adjust for increases in labour productivity, it could be done in seven or eight hours, 10 in Japan (see graph below). These increases in productivity come from a century of automation and technological advances: allowing us to produce more stuff with less labour. In this sense, modern developed countries have way overshot Keynes prediction – we need to work only half the hours he predicted to match his lifestyle.

But, such short work weeks did not happen, nor will it ever happen.

Globally, people enjoy a standard of living much higher than in 1930 (and nowhere is this more true than in the Western countries that Keynes wrote about). We would not be content with a good life by our grandparents’ standards.

We humans are a strange species!

To complicate things, there is this:

If the pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries over the past two centuries continues through the 21st century, most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan, and other countries with long life expectancies will celebrate their 100th birthdays.

Have we paused to consider what this will mean?  How long will those kids who grow up to be adults be on treadmills so that they can get more stuff?

It is also not the first time that I have blogged about the implications of a 100-year life.  But, it simply sucks to be in the minority worrying about all these things.

I know I don't want to be on a treadmill for ever.