DH Matt and I are logical, reasonable people. Logical, reasonable people look at the "consumerist" culture and realize that it doesn't work. A cycle of continuous unplanned growth is not an economy; it's cancer. It's not logical that a middle class consumer can/does constantly purchase designer label goods (cars, clothes, shoes, accessories, electronics, travel) to, what, aggrandize their ego? Allow them to feel that they've arrived? Nor does it make much more sense, except in the sense that they can actually afford it without credit, for even the wealthy to purchase these same items, again to aggrandize their ego. The non-gap between rich and poor had reached such a crescendo that the rich were going into hock to pay for leather tile on their walls or custom tile patterns so that they could demonstrate their wealth. Since the upper middle class already had all of the previous emblems of wealth. The standard was pushed higher and higher.
Someone has to pay for the lifestyle when the middle class are aping the wealthy. And, again for the record, historically the wealthy who have to demonstrate their wealth don''t remain wealthy. But, for the wealthy, demonstrating their wealth is at least half of the fun. This period in American history distinctly reminds me of the pre-French Revolution era.
"Much like the bourgeoisie, the nobility utilized gardens to display their wealth. The difference, of course, was that the nobility displayed their wealth not in the garden, but through the garden. By building large and interesting gardens on his property nobles were able to gain notoriety. The size and the various elements of the garden, such as aviaries, menageries, and fountains were all components of a garden that could speak of a noble's status."
Every gardener knows that when you reach for fountains and statues then things get expensive, fast. Well, of course I would put all of the excess in recent years into gardener's terms...replace "house" for every garden reference...or better yet, "McMansion" and you have the real state of things (or, pardon my pun, the real estate of things). Where has all of this faux wealth come from? Again, to put it into historical terms we should look this time at "Empire England" in the colonial days. The fashion after the French Revolution was for faux austerity, modeled in women's fashion by Indian cottons printed in new patterns. And tea, coffee, spices and chocolate. Eventually England built up such a trade imbalance that the British Empire collapsed. Sounds uncomfortably close to today, doesn't it? Fact is, all of our "comfort" has come upon the backs of Chinese and Indian laborers who were desperate for jobs. Not so they could purchase garden statues, just so that they could eat. Today these same people aspire to a standard of living that we enjoyed in the 1950's. Some meat on the table each week...a dishwasher...a washer and dryer.... a car per family...and some privacy.
DS Matt and I are "faux impoverished". Sure, small house...limited resources. Big land. All 160 acres of it. This, for the record, is a retirement investment in timber. We're not stupid enough to attempt to establish an estate on middle class currency. We have convinced ourselves that we are "environmental stewards of the land".It's just a pure coincidence that we also have the true wealth currency of the era...privacy...and paid for. So, we have despoiled a previous wilderness. Logged previously, more than once, of course. Surrounded by other timber/ranch parcels, of course. In other words, virgin land is rather a myth.
The point I'm trying to make in all of this is that there is no "righteousness" in choosing sustainability as a lifestyle. We chose it because the alternative is death. We as a culture drown in both debt and excess....and waste. Someone has to be on the next wave to model a lifestyle that consumes as little as is reasonable. That consumes as little as the person in India or China so that they can have their place in the sun. We don't have a "post consumer" ego about that, it's simple logic. Do I really for one minute think that by recycling and purchasing used instead of new that I can "lift up another culture and the guy in India can buy a motorbike? No, that too is bogus reasoning. But I and others like me might mitigate the post-empire collapse this country is about to endure. We're just pioneers, sign posts on the road. What we're doing on our land is actually much easier on a smaller parcel...much easier in communal living, or much easier in a planned suburbia.
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