Fred Hirsch does more, however, than explore and develop these important themes. He uses them as the basis for his theory that there are social limits to growth -- social limits that will undermine advanced capitalist societies well before these societies crash into the physical limits to growth posed by the twin dangers of resource depletion and environmental degradation.
Why "the affluent society" is an illusory goal for most people
For most of human history, the ruling class pursued ruthlessly its extravagant impulses while the rest of humanity- slaves, serfs, peasants, proletarians -- were condemned to live hard-scrabble lives, frequently on the brink of destitution. The glory of capitalist productivity has been the creation of a large "middle class" and the diffusion of material advancement to ordinary working people. Workers, and in particular the new professional-managerial class of white collar workers are now able to acquire comfortable homes, fridges and stoves, microwave ovens, flat screen TVs and even packaged winter vacations somewhere warm and sunny.
But, the capitalist revolution did more than transform the living standards of ordinary working people. It also promoted the erosion of such traditional values as community and mutual self-help. These values didn't vanish entirely but gradually they came to be overlain by a culture of rational individualism. Over a period of several centuries, competition displaced co-operation; material acquisition became more important than collective struggle. Working people, aspiring to middle class status, began to cast their votes for the likes of Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Regan in the USA.
As the second half of Hirsch's book demonstrates, when societies make the great leap from starvation to sufficiency the scramble for wealth, power and status does not ameliorate. Instead, the competition for collective advancement transmogrifies into an increasingly fierce competition for individual advancement. In Thatcher's Britain, people proudly displayed buttons on which was written the word "Graspies" -- an acronym for "greedy, amoral self-promoters". Personal self-aggrandizement becomes the ruling ideology of such societies. In the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko's mantra, "greed is good", was probably meant to be perceived ironically. Instead, it elicited widespread endorsement.
However, as virtually every Western nation is discovering to its cost, no society can long survive and flourish when everyone is on the make and everyone is on the take. Political economist Robert Heilbroner concisely sums up Hirsch's thesis in this way: "A market society in which all buyers and sellers, workers and managers, householders and corporations cheated, lied, stole, used violence or trickery would not work". [vi]
Arguably, most advanced capitalist societies have now reached that point or are perilously close to reaching it. The bill of indictment is depressing: "democratic" elections are won by the candidate who can attract the most money, politicians are bought and sold, police officers take bribes, universities have become handmaidens to powerful corporate interests, accountants validate the books of fraudulent companies (think: Nortel, Enron and WorldCom), doctors are little more than marketing agents for the pharmaceutical industry and lawyers are a joke, nations are bankrupt by fraudulent banks but the top banksters are nevertheless offered staggeringly large bonuses.
We are discovering, a little late in the day it must be admitted, the truth of Hirsh's thesis that capitalism only functions well when most people live according to pre-capitalist norms of honesty, restraint, trust, truthfulness and self-sacrifice. A world of rational gratification- maximizers is discovering that our individually rational choices can quickly add up to collective self-destruction.
The final word should go to the prophetic Irish poet William Butler Yeats.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The Ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. [vii]
[i] Donella H Meadows, Dennis L Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W Behrens III, The Limits to Growth (1973).
[ii] Donella H Meadows, Dennis L Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William W Behrens III, Beyond The Limits (1993).
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