Part III: More of less, or less of more

So now that I've taken some superficial look at actual meaning of my "no crap" philosophy, I want to take a just-as-superficial look at what drives this need to consume.

In college, I took a course that dealt with environmental politics. The professor was an ardent communist who started with the same 15-20 minute rant every class, and I ended up dropping the course after a couple of weeks. The one primary take away from the class was the idea that society, when given the choice between more production/same time or same production/less time, invariably chooses the former (I fairly certain this was from EF Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful", but I could be wrong).

In other words, work is favored over leisure. On a strict time comparison, we do work less today than decades ago (the average US worker worked 100 hours less in 2005 than in 1970), but the level of production is many times greater. Schumacher's point was that what if we trade some of this production for more time? If the production rate increases 20% from 100 to 120. Instead of working the same amount of time to fully realize that increase, how about working 90% of the time, so production is still up (108), but that is accompanied by a 10% reduction in work time?

And the answer, of course, is that growth/wealth/consumption drives the competition that results this greater productivity. The notion of giving up production/profits for time is antithetical to the operations of a capitalist free market. To some degree this happens in certain markets--most of Western Europe generally ranks ahead of the US for quality of life issues, part of which is the work/life balance.

An interesting point--a column i read this week equated the tax burden with the work burden. A key point of the tax debate is relief for the middle and lower class. But the middle/lower class, on average work fewer hours (more leisure) than those earning higher salaries, but you never hear anything about "time relief" for the wealthy.

Accepting that this is more correlation than causation (or work time is dependent on salary), why is that?

Well, going back to the WSJ column in part II, work gives them some level of fulfillment/accomplishment. And more resources in which to consume and consume well (ie pay the incremental cost of perceived quality without having to invest anything in the decision making process).

But I'm digressing again. Let's get back to the consumer side, rather than producer side.

To simplify, if given a choice between a pay raise and the same pay for fewer hours, what would you pick? That may be unfair, as few get the opportunity to make this "choice", but the default is to take the raise. So know you have more money, consumption ensues.

There are a myriad of social factors for this: marketing, keeping up with the joneses, inexplicable wants, personal satisfaction/interests/hobbies, adventure, etc.

Now it's come full circle (or at least let's say we have), you're going to consume. Do you consume for convenience, for value, for quality, some combination? And who's going to notice/care what you get (outside of your house and car) anyway? And who cares what they think? Then again, you have to live with what you get, so that's who needs to be impressed.