
We are not consumers - v4us
http://mnmlist.com/unconsumers/
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xenophanes
> that we can grow our own food, make and trade and share everything we need

Grow our own food? I don't want to be a farmer. It's hard. Division of labor
is awesome.

As for sharing, how do you rationally decide who to give something to? The
idea of "whoever needs X should have it" _sounds_ nice, but the tricky part is
figuring out who needs X. Prices have information about that, and we need
information to make a rational decision. Also prices have information about
when you shouldn't use X (because it's too hard to make) and should substitute
Y instead.

And as for trade, it's basically the same thing as buying except if you take
away money you have to find someone who wants your stuff, and has stuff you
want, instead of only one or the other, so it's harder to trade.

~~~
geuis
You miss the point. I am a person, then a customer if I buy from you, a client
if subscribe to your service. This is not an argument about economics, but
instead the framing of who we are in the economic system.

~~~
potatolicious
How is this not an argument about economics? The author makes specific
arguments for growing one's own food, and returning to a barter economy. He
makes a slight jab at the notion of not merely being consumers, but also
creators, but it seems like the crux of his argument is that we should be
disconnecting ourselves from corporations in their current form.

Note: I think this idea overall is pretty dumb. A rejection of corporations in
favor of cottage industries and barter economies? I'm pretty sure there is
free love and tie-dye shirts in his future.

~~~
DannoHung
Personally, I'd settle for a rejection of the notion of "wealth" as the key
indicator of success to something like, "long term sustained production
capacity", where production capacity includes knowledge production and long
term is on the scale of multiple human lifetimes.

~~~
billswift
George Gilder wrote some weird stuff later, but his "Wealth and Poverty"
presented some really good ideas. One of the best was his distinction between
"wealth" and "riches". "Riches" are resources used for pleasure and
consumption; "wealth" is anything used to increase or improve future
production. As he pointed out many things can be either depending on how it is
used, but the distinction is very useful when thinking about the future and
how to use your current resources.

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euroclydon
If you value your time, then it really pays to investigate the ways in which
you spend money, and the system that is in place to encourage that spending
and even make it seem normal.

There are questions you can ask, for instance, if you are an employee of
someone else:

How much do I get paid per hour?

How much money do I need to sustain my lifestyle?

How many hours per week do I need to work to sustain my lifestyle?

What if it's only 25 hours?

Are there full-time professional jobs out there which only require 25 hours of
work per week?

Why not?

Is it because we're supposed to spend the money earned in the other 15 hours
on stuff we don't need?

When did I make the decision to work 15 more hours to buy stuff I don't really
need, and could I be enjoying my life more by having those 15 hours instead of
the stuff?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Are there full-time professional jobs out there which only require 25 hours
of work per week? Why not?_

Because by definition, 25 hours/week is part time.

Incidentally, if you wish to work little, you can do so. 80% of the poor don't
work at all, and nevertheless live a lifestyle which a few decades ago would
have been called "middle class". I don't see much reason you can't do the
same, unless of course you actually want some of the stuff that extra 15
hours/week can buy.

If you do skilled labor, you can almost certainly consult less than 40
hours/week (on average, over a year).

~~~
dhyasama
Do you have data to support the statement that 80% of poor people don't work?
How do you define poor? How do you define middle class? I have a hard time
believing someone poor enough to receive food stamps for example is living a
life anything like what my parents were living when they were my age (30 years
ago).

~~~
yummyfajitas
Poor is defined by the US poverty line.

The actual number of poor people who don't work (and aren't looking for work)
is 78% as of 2008. <http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2008.pdf>

Lifestyles of the poor, in terms of consumer goods and services.
[http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2004/01/Understandi...](http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2004/01/Understanding-
Poverty-in-America)

~~~
dhyasama
Thanks for the info. The BLS paper is useful, but I have to question anything
from Heritage. To grossly paraphrase Groucho Marx, "I don't want to be a
member of a club that counts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as members."

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Isamu
"Consumer" is a role. Roles are not exclusive. A role makes sense in a
particular context, e.g. where there is a producer of a particular thing and a
consumer.

I am absolutely a Consumer. And I am a Producer, or a Creator, which provides
my income for my consumer lifestyle.

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csallen
What's so wrong with buying? What was so great about the tribal lifestyle?
Trading and bartering are just raw forms of buying: You work, grow potatoes,
then trade those potatoes for something you need. Why is that better than
working, earning money, and trading that money for something you need?

I'd be more inclined to indulge the author's suggestion that we stop being
consumers if he actually provided some supporting arguments.

~~~
trafficlight
Exactly. Would people a thousand years ago still have bartered if they had a
stable currency to use instead? I doubt it. They bartered because a currency
the king offered might be gone next week if he died in the latest city siege.

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mbubb
A good point and a valid concern. I didnt read this as a return to barter nor
tribalism but instead a comment of the reduced subject.

Late Modernist and Postmodernist debates on subjectivity tend to see the
Enlightenment idea of a coherent subject as being completely fragmented to the
point of collapse.

It is a double-edged issue. The 'death' of the subject means on the one hand
we are free to imagine and invent new relationships. But on the other hand
because our notions of freedom derive from notions of subjectivity there is
danger of losing freedom.

Consumerist culture exploits this exact split - as consumers, we are told how
free and unique we are as an advertising ploy and then end up all wearing the
same thing... We are also easily manipulated by mass media distracted by
nonissues while serious threats to freedom remain relatively ignored.

If we 'buy' too much into this identity, what is left are relationships in
which subjectivity is inverted. Subjectivity in this case lies more in the
corporation than in the human subject. (As reflected in that bizarre Supreme
Court decision of the last year.)

We do need to fight this. And it is not a right nor a left issue. Both sides
decry the erosion of freedom but see different causes.

What is generally lacking in us today is what Kant referred to as 'Speculative
Reason' or more colloquially the ability to think - creatively,
imaginatively,actively and constructively.

Consumers dont do that - nor do constituents nor employees, etc.

"Hackers and Painters" do. Makers do.

That is a key - we (as consumers) forget that we can make, create. And if we
as humans have any purpose, that is it. In fact we are only knowable in what
we create (Vico "verum factum")

I had a long rambling talk in the dogrun last night with an intelligent and
non-technical lawyer who reads Popular Mechanics for fun.

So I babbled on for awhile about makezine, OReilly press, Linux, Arduino stuff
he did not know about. And it made me think of how exciting this field can be
at times - not because of the technical advance but of the remarkable
creativity.

So I dont think the point is for 'tiedyes' and subsistence farming but to
become very conscious of the breakdown of subjectivity and the potential
danger in the greatly reduces roles that are left in its fragmentation.

------
rosser
I've always preferred the term "citizen", myself.

~~~
Saad_M
James Kunstler said it best:

“Please, please, stop referring to yourselves as ‘Consumers.’ OK? Consumers
are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, rights,
responsibilities and duties to their fellow human beings.”

[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_howard_kunstler_diss...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html)

~~~
masterj
Kunstler's demeanor rubs me the wrong way a lot of the time, but he makes very
good points. That TED talk changed the way I look at a lot of things in life
after I saw it years ago.

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gruseom
Use of "consumer" as the default for a human being in our society is
emblematic of everything that is wrong with it. Consumption is a natural part
of normal life; it is not who we are. Every time I hear that word -- which is
whenever I listen to media, approximately -- I think of pigs at the trough.

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wdewind
Lacks depth: in order to be innovative we need focus, in order to have focus
we need to be specialized, in order to be specialized we need to not focus on
growing food when we program (or do brain surgery or rocket science). These
support structures are necessary for competitive innovation (though I
completely feel your pain).

So if you want to make this argument, you need to figure out a way that it
doesn't matter if the US competes globally anymore. That's the only way this
works. Otherwise you just make us non competitive in the global market. When
everyone else stops growing we can too, but unfortunately until then it's
going to be pretty hard to convince people to stop consuming.

~~~
roqetman
I think he was trying to get us to focus on not being called consumers first.
Personally, I agree, it's an assumption that puts too much power in corporate
hands. I agree with you as well, though, that it would require quite a large
change for us to stop being consumers.

~~~
potatolicious
I think he has conflated two words: "consumer" and "buyer" - he doesn't seem
too concerned with consumption as he is with buying things.

We are all consumers - I eat 3 square meals a day, I burn some amount of fuel
to keep myself warm, and I breathe an awfully large amount of air. The author
here doesn't seem too concerned with whether this consumption is excessive,
though.

Whether or not we start producing more of what we consume, or we go back to a
barter economy (which, if you'd pardon the bluntness, is one of the dumbest
ideas I've heard recently) doesn't change our level of consumption, so his
real problem is with buying crap.

So let's not confuse the two terms.

~~~
shpxnvz
But we are also producers; most of us have to be in order to acquire money
with which to purchase goods to consume. His point, initially at least, was
that choosing to label ourselves as consumers leads to a discussion framed in
terms of that behavior, at the expense of really evaluating all our options.

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colincopley
I'm poor so I don't buy a lot of things, books from charity shops, refurbished
computers, so I feel like big corporations are after me because I'm a bad
consumer. Am I a bad person?

~~~
mbubb
At times it seems like an undeniable conclusion. Notsure exactly why but your
pithy post reminded me of the Ginsberg poem "America"

------
theorique
The things you own, end up owning you (Tyler Durden)

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SkyMarshal
You are a Citizen, not a consumer.

------
alsomike
This is naive. Creation is just the new form of consumerism!

Think about how much money changes hands today based on work of millions of
creators all trying to be the latest YouTube star. To cope with the
meaningless and alienation of modern life, they're buying attention instead of
commodities, using what they create as currency. In that sense, it is a barter
economy, except the middle man takes his cut by selling ads on top of the
content. And, oh yeah, don't forget about all the actual consumption you have
to do in order to be a creator: a nice computer, a video camera, some video
editing software, fast internet connection, etc. I guess that doesn't count as
consumption if you're a "creator".

It's weird how profitable all this "anti-consumption" is! Is this really
liberation? It's certainly marketed that way by the people who profit most
from it. What if it's really just exploitation marketed as liberation?

