Un-Merry Christmas: The Perverse Incentives To Over-Consume And Over-Spend

What happens when most people have not just the basics of life, but a surplus of stuff? Where is the growth going to come from if people already have everything?

peoples trust toronto

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Isn’t it obvious that if we set out to design the most perverse, toxic and doomed system possible, we’d end up with the Keynesian Cargo Cult’s insane permanent growth/Landfill Economy?

Few topics are off-limits nowadays: the personal and private are now splashed everywhere for all to see.

One topic is still taboo: the holiday’s perverse incentives to over-consume and over-spend, lest our economy implode.This topic is taboo because it strikes at the very heart of our socio-economic system, which is fundamentally based onpermanent growth, the faster the better, as ifunlimited expansion on a finite planet is not just possible, but desirable.

In the current Mode of Production, the solution to every social and economic ill is to “grow our way out of it.”

The solution to unemployment: jump-start growth by expanding consumption, spending and borrowing.

The solution to stagnant wages:…

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