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I would say “in addition to,” not “rather than,” but for the purpsoes of this discussion the poit is the same.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, in 50 or 75 years, the US employs several times more people in agriculturee than currently, with much higher per-acre yields and much lower inputs of fossil fuels and chemical fertilizers.

Yes, I’d agree…sort of. I’d expect the skilled labor in R&D rather than in farming itself. I’d expect to see higher per-acre yields and lower inputs of fossil fuels, chemical fertlizer, and farm-workers—but higher inputs of ag engineers, plant geneticists, entomologists, etc. I’d not be at all surprised to see autonomous farm equipment, for example (a much easier problem to solve than the Pentagon’s effort to create autonomous road vehicles). Hell, make that solar-powered autonomous farm equipment.

Right. Substituting skilled labor for raw materials is a gain from just about every perspective.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, in 50 or 75 years, the US employs several times more people in agriculturee than currently, with much higher per-acre yields and much lower inputs of fossil fuels and chemical fertilizers. And these jobs will likely be much more skilled and well-compensated than farm labor today. At any rate that—rather than a global depression—is the direction that the green consumption trend points in.

Economic growth does not require ever increasing tons of pig iron and cement. Economic growth is perfectly compatible with lighter, smarter, more efficient, better (and also tastier, prettier, and safer).

Except for houses and cars, virtually every manufactured product one buys now requires less in raw materials than the equivalent product did 25 years ago. And houses and cars have certainly shrunk before (while still continuing to improve).

If, say, the replacement cycle for new cars dropped from whatever it is now to, say, twice as long – when cars do, after all, have a very long lifespan after their first user passes them on – what impact would that have on the auto manufacturing sector?

But the replacement cycle for new cars has steadily lengthened as cars have become more reliable:

http://www.wheels.ca/article/191892

And it really doesn’t matter how long the original purchaser keeps the vehicle, what matters is the overall service life. (On the other hand, how long do you really want the current low MPG fleet to last)?

You’re not wrong so much as very confused.

Shifting consumption via relative prices (or preferences, in the case of voluntary actions) has nothing whatever to do with aggregate demand.

The closest one can get to a snesible idea from your comments, is that more sustainable patterns of consumption will include a higher proportion of nontradables reltaive to tradables, and so may pose challenges to countries whose development model is highly dependent on exports.

But if your question is, as it seems to be, “is there an economic law that says 10 percent of household expenditure must be on cars and other durable goods,” the answer is, No.

Eh?

I was recalling, amongst other things, the near-legendary exhortation of GWB to the American consumer after 9/11 to keep shopping….

It remains the case, and I fail to see what bearing any of slocum’s remarks have on that case, that the pointless extravagance of the consumer marketplace is what keeps the global economy functioning at its enormously high level of activity, and that any trend of large numbers of individuals towards a more considered, long-term approach to their own needs and desires, especially in relation to any, entirely laudable, aspirations to consume less at an absolute level, could and would be disastrous.

If, say, the replacement cycle for new cars dropped from whatever it is now to, say, twice as long – when cars do, after all, have a very long lifespan after their first user passes them on – what impact would that have on the auto manufacturing sector? Or, ceteris paribus, if only half as many people this year as last replaced their washing machines, or their fridges? And if that effect was duplicated across all the other consumer-durable sectors, while people also spent half as much on long-haul holidays, etc etc…

After all, isn’t that spread of prudence and caution exactly what the US financial system is desperately hoping won’t happen, and probably already has, re. housing?

Will someone explain how I’m wrong, and how the global economy will keep going just fine if extravagant consumer habits end? I’m not pleased about this, y’know, but it does seem to be the reality of the situation. I’d be, in fact, quite glad if it wasn’t.

p.s. I’m Dave, the other guy was Mike, you’re confusing us – both four letters, tough I know.

Wrong on all counts.

If every individual policy choice has to be distributionally neutral or progressive, then it becomes almsot impossible to get anything done. (Which is often, though of course not always, exactly the reason tehse issues get raised.)

The feasibility—both administrative and political—of any kind of tax or fee depends on its being as transparentpredictable and painless to pay as possible—but these goals are often in sharp tension with trying to vary the tax or fee by income. And at the end of the day, the impact of e.g. steep air travel fees on the distribution of income is trivial. If it is regressive—which is questionable—the effect is utterly swamped by thousands of much bigger factors.

The distribution of income should be addressed directly by the tools suited to taht purpsoe—strong unions, labor-market regualtions, progressive taxation of income and wealth, social insurance. Enironmental policy should address environmental goals—that’s hard enough on its own!

“Once you’ve tasted turkey, you ain’t gonna settle for tripe.”—Jed Clampett, “The Beverly Hillbillies”

Ah, it’s not the shit itself that’s pointless, it’s the frequency of the upgrades? Well, that’s a completely different point. So would you agree that a 60” HDTV is a wonderful thing—but just not enough more wonderful than a 42” model to justify the upgrade?

Well, here—this should make you feel better. As of last year only a quarter of Americans had an HDTV at all:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/04/13/28-percent-of-americans-now-own-an-hdtv/

So the fraction who’ve upgraded from a 42-incher to a 60-incher must be very much lower than that.

But mere comfort is a pretty low standard—even though, of course, for most of human history even that was rare. That it is widely available now (in the developed world, anyway) is, itself, an outcome of consumer culture and mass-production.

But why (other than your own aesthetics) do single out the cell phone but not the land-line phone as unnecessary? Or, come to that, why pick on the cell-phone and not the internet connection? And why the MP3 player and not other forms of recorded music? And my understanding is that electric razors have a smaller energy footprint (when you account for the years hot water and shaving cream used during the life of an electric).

But in any case, ‘unnecessary for comfort’ isn’t the same at all as ‘pointless shit’, is it?

No doubt. The question is, at what price do we continue to manufacture billions of these amusing little trinkets? In the absence of unlimited energy and resources, I submit that a culture that values cool toys over fundamental requirements has a skewed sense of priorities.

Well, at least you’ve upgraded your estimation from ‘pointless shit’ to ‘amusing little trinkets’ to ‘cool toys’, so that’s a lot of progress in a short time. But even there—it’s a big stretch to call anything my list a ‘toy’ or ‘trinket’ except maybe the iPod*.

I just don’t understand the advantage of sneering.

But whether you sneer or not, the answer is the same—price the resource usage into the products and let people decide on their priorities (and let the manufacturers figure out how to minimize the resource usage to keep the prices down).
—————————*What the hell is it about lefties and iPods? They all have ‘em and use them all the time, but they seem to love to trash them. But when you compare my tiny little 2 oz iPod with the receiver, turn-table, tape deck, speakers, and hundred pounds of vinyl I used to have (or even the huge stack of CDs), obviously the iPod represents a vast reduction in resource usage. Not even taking into account the fact you don’t have to physically ship recordings around the world and schlep them home from the store. No need for the factories, or distribution centers, or fleets of trucks, or record stores. Isn’t the MP3 player the perfect example of how we can keep (or even improve) the function while drastically reducing the footprint?

Aren’t you just reformulating the broken windows fallacy here?

I mean, duh. And since my point was that we’d ALL be up shit creek, economically, if the general population did in fact stop wasting its money, and that’s the system we’re in whether we like it or not, I find your reply simple-minded in the extreme.

Nobody [barring a few, statistically insignificant, domestic accidents] NEEDS a new TV in the next 12 months, but can you imagine the economic impact if no one BOUGHT a new TV for a year? Or a new car, on the same premise? When an economy cannot function without encouraging people to put themselves into debt in order to own things they don’t need [one trillion pounds of personal debt in the UK]; that’s pointless shit.