John Thornton says I do not understand Marx's argument about wants being generated socially. I beg to differ. What Marx is saying in the Grundrisse about wants is most definitely not, what John says 'objecting to the capitalist imperative to consume'. On the contrary, Marx thinks this is one of the positive sides of Capital, 'the great civilizing influence of capital' its tendency to develop the individual as a cultured being. John writes that under capitalism the 'desires' of the masses are 'manipulated by
advertising imploring them to consume'.
[WS:] James, it does not take rocket science to understand that the relationship between consumption and standards of living is curvilinear - is some range increase in consumption substantially adds to the standards of living, but in some other range this effect diminishes, flattens out, or even becomes negative. That means that both you and John are correct in some limited way.
I think much - but not all- of the first world consumption is in the second category - the mounds of overpriced, throw-away schlock make people worse off, because they still have to toil to be able it, yet they do not really need it and throw it away - either because they do not really need it, or more frequently, because of planned obsolescence.
The relationship between standards of living and consumption is not an either/or think - but about making strategic choices - support what increases general well being discourage what on balance makes society worse off. I do not think that individual consumers and the markets are best equipped to make those decisions - the arguments are well known, transaction costs, externalities, mob psychology, indeterminateness - so there is no need to elaborate it here.
The bottom line is, however, that the current system of consumerism does promote enormous waste that makes everyone worse off and is not sustainable. Something will give, sooner or later. This, of course does not mean going back to primitive pre-capitalist austerity and 'rural idiocy.' It means implementing different mechanisms of distribution that are conducive for more rational consumption.
Wojtek