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Americans are smelling their leftovers, asking "is this still good?" and digging in for the first time in 40 years. Some call it an economic crisis, others see potential for lasting change.
Now that the economic crisis has officially been dubbed a recession, and November employment stats have surpassed our most miserable expectations, let's take a moment to look on the bright side of this dismal situation. As history shows us, economic crises do have a way of producing positive outcomes, like great art, the New Deal and the charmingly depressive music and fashion of the 1990s grunge fad. But this current, entirely 21st century recession may promise to bring a different kind of change, ushering in a whole new era of postconsumerism.
Ever since the years just after World War II, when the United States was reinventing itself as the world's economic superpower, the American people have increasingly equated "citizenship" with "consumerism." The promotion of consumerism was part of a 1950s economic stimulus plan, in which the Eisenhower administration deliberately spun the nation into a vicious cycle of production and consumption with the end-goal of increasing employment and building a healthy economy.
Over a half-century later, the long-term result of this strategy has been the establishment of a nation with a chronic shopping disorder and an obsessive fixation on brands (are you a Mac or a PC?). We consider shopping a patriotic duty, and receive a constant supply of encouragement from our friends on TV, and occasionally from our president in the event of a national catastrophe. And while We The Consumers have gone above and beyond the call of duty in keeping up our end of the deal, America's manufacturing sector has crumbled, and millions of jobs have been lost as companies move overseas and American goods lose out to cheaper foreign-made products.
The economic gains of the production-consumption cycle are no more, but the consumerism remains, and we have mountains of waste to show for it. In fact, Americans throw out nearly twice as much stuff as we did 50 years ago, and twice as much as our European counterparts do today. Ninety-nine percent of the things we buy end up in the landfill within six months of their purchase (for more on this, watch The Story of Stuff).
Part of this can be blamed on industry, which has mastered the practice of design for obsolescence, but ultimately the responsibility lies on the shoulders of the American people, who have forgotten the lessons handed down by their Depression-era parents and grandparents. With the dawning of another recession, however, many Americans, plagued by debt and joblessness, are bringing back some of the Depression-tested techniques of their forefathers and choosing conservation over consumerism.
In November, the Chicago Sun-Times published the results of an informal survey where it asked people how they were saving money during the economic slump. Some of the common responses included eating more leftovers, buying fewer "nonessential groceries" and choosing generic goods over their favorite brands. Overall, Americans have been buying less these days, with November retail sales hitting lows like we haven't seen since the 1960s.
Considering the holiday rush and a Black Friday marked by frenzied shoppers-turned-manslaughterers, it's hard to believe that we're actually shopping less, but it's true. And now that the economy is already a mess, and Americans are simply unable to be the good consumers they once were, this economic crisis offers an opportunity to break the production-consumption cycle and create lasting change in our culture.
See more stories tagged with: environment, water, consumption
Gwen Schantz is a freelance writer and environmental consultant based in Brooklyn, New York. Her background is in sustainable food and agriculture, water conservation and international sustainable development, and she has lived and worked in West Africa and Southeast Asia. Gwen has a Bachelors Degree in International Studies from Vassar
College in Poughkeepsie, NY.
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