Written by Richard Sidy   

“We have been misguided in dismissing what people say about how happy they are and simply assuming that if they are consuming more … they are better off.” says Richard Easterlin, economics professor at the University of Southern California. There are efforts to devise a new economic index that would measure well-being gauged by things like satisfaction with personal relationships, employment, and meaning and purpose in life…. "

  “What about Gross National Happiness?” by Nadia Mustafa, TIME magazine Jan 10, 2005

I was angry when I saw the delivery truck loaded with aluminum cans filled with sodas. Returning home from a concert at the middle school, I thought of the music teacher who had to make do with a bunch of second-rate musical instruments begged and borrowed from all over the school district just so her kids could at least have the semblance of an orchestra. "How sad that we live in a society where soda commands more resources than teaching music to children," I thought.

Our priorities are a statement of who we are. How we spend our resources reflects our values and our concept of worth. I therefore call our economy “imaginary” because it is based on choices that frequently have no real value and are often shaped by habits or glamorized images instead of by real needs. As a society we willingly spend to consume or entertain ourselves and unwillingly spend to meet important human needs. Salaries in America reflect these priorities.

Soda cans filled with sweetened water, some flavorings and assorted chemicals symbolize just how much energy, money and natural resources we are willing to spend for something of no real (and largely negative) value. So many people in American society consume with no consideration of the consequences of their consumption, and no reflection on how their resources could be better used. Our economy is so dependent on this type of thoughtless consumerism that there are serious risks to our economic stability if we change that way of life.

If the consciousness of American consumers changed just a little in terms of what we habitually buy and how we obtain it, our economy would suffer an immense impact. If people ceased buying sodas many jobs would be lost from the mining, manufacturing, distribution, advertising, retail, and waste disposal sectors of our economy.

Multiplying this impact throughout our consumer economy to the myriad other unnecessary and potentially harmful products we willingly spend our hard earned incomes on, and it is evident that America cannot afford the upheaval to live in a sustainable economy. We are happy to live in the imaginary economy of limitless goods, limitless resources and a limitless earth in which to dispose of the waste they produce. In the global economy, if American consumers changed their habits they would negatively impact the economies of the many nations who depend on American consumption for jobs and trade.

The roots of the imaginary economy and the vigorous consumption that drives it are the results of psychological factors and economic theories that equate material wealth and possessions with prosperity, security, popularity, and a meaningful life. It is the job of advertising to create the myth of happiness or life style that equates personal value with what one has. Indeed, advertising and its governmental counterpart, politics, must sell Americans a package that ties their perceived well-being and national identity to a “way of life” and the accessories that define it.

The result of participating in an imaginary economy is personal and national debt caused by spending beyond our means on items of imaginary worth from soda to war. The sub-prime mortgage debacle is a painful example of lenders and borrowers staking their financial resources and their futures on imaginary value.

Sustainable living is the opposite of the thrill of buying whatever one desires. On the contrary, it is a mentality of delicate balance where one thinks of the material and social consequences of what one uses. Sustainable living and consequently sustainable economy come from trying to consider taking and giving back equally. It is based on the natural rhythm of life that is sustained by systems that are interdependent and cyclical. Inhaling and exhaling, consuming needed nutrients and calories in order to maintain weight, energy and vitality are the biological counterparts of economic health. Overindulgence of the body results in ill health. The psychological counterpart of excessive appetite is selfishness that breeds dissatisfaction, fear and greed. These are the debt producers and the viruses that produce the symptoms of a sick economy.

Ultimately the forces of the imaginary economy may only change when people change from valuing what they have more than valuing who they are. When health and quality of life for oneself and others replaces consumerism as the primary motive of work and spending, then the nations whose excessive habits are putting the survival of the planet at risk will willingly transform themselves to sustainable models of economic development.

Related Articles:

"The Imaginary Economy - Part I" by Richard Sidy - http://www.snspress.com/pages/Vol07_no3.htm

"The Imaginary Economy — Part II" by Richard Sidy - http://www.snspress.com/pages/Vol07_no4.htm

 “What about Gross National Happiness?” by Nadia Mustafa, TIME magazine Jan 10, 2005 - http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1016266,00.html