Below, Patrick Ellis sets out the environmental campaign for a voluntary reduction in consumption. Such campaigns are old hat (and generally not as voluntary as they seem). In Britain, as a child, I and my schoolmates were encouraged to 'Save it' (energy) by the Prime Minister Edward Heath during the so-called 'energy crisis' of the 1970s. Ads ran on the television with a hand turning off an electric switch, just like Mr Ellis advises. My parents lived through a rather more sustained campaign against consumption, the austerity measures of the Second World War ('Is your journey really necessary', 'make do and mend'. Housewives were even bullied into giving up their pots and pans to make Spitfires - only to find all the pots in a big warehouse, after the war.)
Fortunately parents and even some teachers could see through Mr Heath's wheeze. He wanted us all to accept personal responsibility for his economic crisis. In particular he wanted to minimise the coal miners' bargaining chip. We dashed through the school turning on as many lights as we could.
These campaigns appear to be voluntary, but they quickly take on an authoritarian twist as those who prefer not to do their bit to reduce consumption are vilified as traitors, wreckers, or enemies of the environment.
In point of fact, they very rarely have a direct effect on consumption but serve the ideological purpose of persuading people to take personal responsibility for capitalism (not nature)'s limits. Once softened up, all are prepared for cuts in wages.
(Or to use Charles Brown's terminology, if the rate of profit (P') is given by surplus value (S) divided by wages and constant capital (C+V) combined, then the fall in P' consequent on a rise in C can be offset by a reduction in V.)
In message <5.0.2.1.2.20010405100313.02624a70 at mail.jps.net>, Patrick Ellis <patricke at jps.net> writes
>
>But I'm more than happy to concede a "reduced" living standard is part of
>the package if we consider reducing energy waste as a "reduction" in living
>standards. In fact, some of us here in California have been doing a pilot
>project on this recently. Turns out it just ain't that big a deal, for
>those of us who have bothered to try. For instance, we've reduced our
>living standards by:
>
>- Having lights on only in occupied spaces
>
>- Heating to 65 degrees and cooling to 80 degrees, with heat turned down to
>55 degrees when sleeping and off when at work
>
>- Setting computers to 30-minute sleep modes and turning them off overnight
>
>- Unplugging "always on" devices when not in use (which has been calculated
>to equate to 10% of California electricity use, more than enough to end the
>current "crisis" by itself)
>
>A few other living standard "reductions" the US might consider to meet the
>ridiculously minimal Kyoto standards could include:
>
>- Use of more efficient personal vehicles (how many of the new hybrid
>gas-electric cars would $1.6 trillion buy, and what that would mean in
>reduced CO2 & other emissions?)
>
>- Less use of personal vehicles by more short-distance walking and greater
>use of public transit (funded & made more attractive by a gradual rise to
>European-level fuel prices?)
>
>- Use of rail for long-distance freight transport instead of trucks (move
>much of the highway subsidies back into the railroads, although I'm only
>guessing this would make a significant emissions difference)
>
>- Increased use of "alternative" non-polluting energy sources (given the
>fast-rising cost & demand of less-polluting natural gas, payback on these
>has got to be improving fast)
>
>- Etc.
>
>Yup, it's true, each one of these measures would "reduce" the living
>standard, and if did them all we might even notice it. Somehow I think
>we'd muddle through. Admittedly there'd also be some economic dislocation
>from that second set of suggestions, but I think it'd be a tad less of a
>problem than the flooding of coastal cities and subsequent glaciers moving
>down the Hudson Valley when the climate reverts to an ice age as it always
>has after a warming cycle.
>
>Sure, maybe we just happened to be heading into a global warming cycle that
>was merely coincident with a vast increase in human burning of
>fuels. Maybe it's all hooey. Maybe we should all just buy waders.
>
>Patrick
>
>James Heartfield wrote:
>
>>All in all it strikes me as hypocrisy to demand a reduction in
>>consumption and then complain that you didn't mean that you wanted to
>>reduce living standards.
>
>As Wojtek pointed out this is a false premise, not to mention a red herring.
I guess I'll leave the theologically minded amongst you to work out the difference between a reduction in the standard of living and a reduction in the standard of living. -- James Heartfield