A few months ago, the editors of Orion issued a challenge: what words and terminology does the environmental movement need to adopt in order to bring everyone, not just concerned environmentalists but everyone who lives on the planet, into its fold to become active stewards of the earth?

We need terminology that invites everyone into the effort to transform the way we live on the planet—people of all economic means, all political persuasions, all ethnicities, and all nationalities.

I would expand that challenge to not just protecting the environment but also freeing the people from the poverty, conflict, and misery brought about by the same forces — capitalism, greed, inequality, exploitation, and general thoughtlessness — that harm the planet. I think it’s an interesting idea, because sustainability and environmentalism, and social justice, are everyone’s concern, but the concepts themselves have been successfully marginalized in the mainstream as issues that only bleeding hearts and malcontents care about.

But I have to say I disagree with how the editors of Orion framed the issue:

More and more, morality is what the work of saving the planet is all about. For many of us, human morality and the survival of the planet are now one and the same. The only way to transcend the morass is through love of nature, love of our neighbors, love of family, and the recognition that the needs of all are one and the same. The fact is, we are only going to get serious about the challenges that lie ahead when each of us arrives at a deep and abiding understanding that to do anything else is downright wrong. And everyone needs to be invited to participate in that process.

I don’t think it’s a moral issue when human survival depends on it: it’s a practical issue that affects everyone. And as a practical issue, people are not going to be persuaded by being told their actions aren’t morally correct. You don’t have to have gone to Catholic school to bristle when some moral authority wags its finger at you. And if we have to rely on people’s love… yeah, the cynic in me says that pretty much gets trumped by hate, pettiness and selfishness every time.

I say frame the issue as a selfish one. Sustainability starts in one’s own pocketbook. Living unsustainably is not just bad for the environment and for the people of the world who support lifestyles in the developed world with their cheap labor and subtracted resources, it’s expensive.

The idea of living simply has been out there for a long time, but I agree with Orion that it has become too closely tied to terms and notions that people are suspicious of. The trend of shopping at eco-friendly boutiques is not the answer. Neither is seeking out technologies that are inconvenient to adopt or only available to the affluent. And neither is adopting the kind of moral dogma or enforced spirituality that runs through the voluntary simplicity movement. None of these have a universal appeal, because too many people either just can’t afford to take part or don’t see themselves in those terms and don’t want to.

There needs to be a recognized way of living simply that is something you can do without even thinking about it and that doesn’t require you to fly a flag. Living more sustainably in our culture is as simple as not buying or consuming what you don’t need to survive or reasonably enjoy your life. It doesn’t have to be a credo or moral philosophy. Yes, it also has to do with picking and choosing to some extent — buying items with less plastic and less packaging, or foregoing meat for vegetables, for instance — but for the most part it’s about refraining from consuming beyond what is needed, which is not only better for the environment and for social justice but better for our own strained pocketbooks as well. If the argument can be framed in terms of what’s better for you, not just better for the earth, then there doesn’t need to be a convincing moral thesis attached.

I’m not suggesting that everyone in the US or the rest of the developed world has a lavish lifestyle. The reality is far from that, of course. Most people live on a very modest income and many have trouble making ends meet. But in spite of that, the average lifestyle is unsustainable, partly because, as a result of globalization, the prices of consumer goods have fallen dramatically, which has increased unsustainable practices.

Between 1996 and 2002 the number of pieces of imported apparel purchased by each American consumer rose 83 percent and the average American bought 48 new items of clothing that year. The average American child is now acquiring 69 new toys per year. In 2001, 22.76 million computers were consumed domestically, just about 3 million more than were discarded three years earlier. Estimates are that next year a staggering 63 million personal computers will be “retired.” The trends are similar for other electronics, such as televisions and cell phones.

The issue has to be addressed from a public policy perspective and not just in terms of individual choices, of course, but individual choices are within our more immediate control, so I think they’re worth talking about.

The editors of Orion are right that there need to be terms to describe what it means to be an environmentalist — and, I would add a social egalitarian — so that the idea of living more sustainably can formulated in some way, even just as a means to talk about it, but it’s not an easy challenge.

I’ve been watching C-Span in the mornings, a program called the Washington Journal, in which newspaper articles on a given topic are read, and later on guests come on to speak on a specific subject, and viewers are invited to call in and give opinions, comments and questions.

Though it’s far from perfect, I find it much less distressing than watching news commentary on commercial TV stations, for obvious reasons. I don’t think I need to mention the alarming lack of truth or even common sense on CNN and the other news and opinion channels. But while C-Span attempts to be balanced by alternately taking calls from Democrat, Republican and Independent (which includes all other than Democrat or Republican) callers, and by inviting guests whose own positions are deemed right-leaning or left-leaning, it’s striking how far from a balanced sampling of political opinion this is. It’s the same problem that plagues all mainstream media: there’s an absence of truth in the very premise. Republicans and Democrats hold positions that range from the far right to the moderate center, and the political left is essentially entirely absent, even on C-Span, save the very occasional actually-left-leaning caller.

The Political Compass website has created an enlightening graph that places those who ran for the US presidency in the spot on the spectrum that represents their political leanings, according to their positions and public statements. It’s interesting to note, and obvious enough, except that almost no one seems to be aware of it, that none of the presidential candidates fall to the left of center, except Kucinch and Nader. The site notes that Hillary Clinton would be considered a conservative in Europe. Yet the American public seems to accept the lie that she and Obama are left-leaning, and the media obviously encourages that belief. And actively suppresses any possibility of anyone saying otherwise on the airwaves.

Granted that an absence of leftist opinion is probably representative of the US public in general, but I have lately been more and more disturbed by the simple lack of acknowledged fact on what constitutes political thought across the spectrum. Leftist ideas are not merely suppressed by the media, they are made nonexistent. Moderate centrists are decried as raving liberals by right wing hate-mongers, and we are asked to accept this view as a legitimate opinion. Calling out those who support or enact harmful policies is treated as bad table manners, and meek centrists, when they’re invited to speak on television, barely even dare to state their bland positions for fear of seeming impolite.

This is nothing new of course, but it seems to be getting worse.

The internet was supposed to free us from the monolithic viewpoint of mainstream media, but it has utterly failed to accomplish that goal as far as I can tell, and it too seems to be getting worse. Widely-read political blogs have become cemented within a particular clique of followers, and each site attracts only those who already agree with the authors’ positions, except for trolls who stop by just to stir up trouble. The internet is so fragmented that there isn’t room for any particular viewpoint to take any kind of hold. For every blogger who talks sense, there are hundreds of loudmouths who perpetuate misinformation, and the result is a spectacle.

This is the best explanation of consumerism that I’ve come across: Lived Effects of the Contemporary Economy: Globalization, Inequality, and Consumer Society, by Michael Storper [pdf].

I’ve always been perplexed by the phenomenon of overspending in the United States, which seems to hurt the very people who engage in it. The explanations I’ve read have never felt satisfactory. The theories that are usually put forth are either that Americans are hopelessly vain and childish, and therefore can’t resist the lure of advertising and feel an overwhelming need to acquire the latest fashions and gadgets, or that items that in previous decades were considered luxuries are now necessities because society is harsher and more competitive, so that, for instance, living in the more expensive housing that is available in safer neighborhoods with better schools, or driving a luxury car with the latest safety features, have become the norm for middle class families if they want to retain a middle class standard of living and give themselves and their kids a chance to succeed.

I don’t buy the first explanation because I simply don’t believe that a majority of the public is fatuous and foolish, to the point of going deeply into debt simply because they can’t control themselves. And I find the second explanation condescending as well. It amounts to an apologist point of view that essentially says: Things are tough, the world is confusing and scary, so give the poor overspent middle class Americans a break if they sometimes make costly choices in order to try to provide the best possible life for themselves and their families.

I’m all for giving people a break. None of us always makes the best possible decisions and none of us should be crucified for not being perfect. But you’re not a giving someone a break when you justify, and therefore offer no possibility of breaking, a cycle that is screwing them over.

I also find it alarmingly classist. The subtext is that the middle class shouldn’t have to put up with crime ridden neighborhoods, unsafe cars, and substandard schools: those are for poor people.

Elizabeth Warren, who puts forth what I consider to be this apologist theory of consumerism — including explaining away why the middle class live in larger houses today than they did in the 70s, even though housing prices have since quadrupled — writes:

There are always options, but for families with children, these options signal that their middle-class lives are slipping away.

Somehow the implication is that if you’re middle class, you have the right to better life. What if instead we worked to create a society in which everyone can have a decent life? That goal is not going to be accomplished by clinging to and constantly trying to increase whatever privilege or status one can scrape together for oneself. That’s a zero-sum competition that no one can win and that ultimately harms everyone, whether they engage in it or not. Those who take part are going to find themselves stretched thinner and thinner, and will have to spend more and more money just to keep up, and those who don’t or can’t participate are just going to be left out.

Status seeking, as Storper explains, is the very mechanism that creates inequality. He writes:

A more powerful explanation for the stagnation of satisfaction, on average and at the top, comes from the notion of positionality in economics. A portion of the satisfaction we get from certain kinds of goods or services has been shown to depend on their position in a quality and status hierarchy…. The only way to slow down status consumption is collectively, with mechanisms that simultaneously limit what our status competitors are doing. This is a situation where rational individual choices lead to collective outcomes which most would not prefer…. Thus, even though the USA is awash in private wealth, it is very difficult to convince even the increasingly wealthy upper-middle-class to reallocate more of their income to public goods, because most of them do not feel rich enough.

It seems to me that the status seeking that Storper is referring to is literally the need to “keep up with the Joneses.” It’s not necessarily a desire to outdo the Joneses, but an effort to try to at least keep up, so one is not left out of the normal course of society. It doesn’t have to do just with saving face, it has practical implications as well. When everyone has a cell phone, being out of touch while you’re away from home because you don’t have one can mean missing out on opportunities. It could mean not getting a call for a job, for instance. Not having a computer or a car can have the same consequences.

But because humans are social animals, saving face is a major issue as well. Not having the same lifestyle as others in your social circles makes you a weirdo. And people can’t necessarily choose to just disassociate with status-seekers. Whether it’s the workplace or the children’s school, there are many areas where people have to maintain, to some degree, their position and social standing. But even if they could, people would generally not choose to opt out of social interactions. By definition, most people want to belong and be part of the mainstream and are not willing to be seen as eccentric oddballs.

So what’s the solution? One is political, of course. Storper writes that in Europe, where public goods are much more available, there is less jockeying for position in the acquisition of private goods than in the United States.

There is a variation of almost 20% between the USA (30%) and most of the high public expenditure Continental countries (50%). Considering that military expenditures account for a relatively high percentage of US public expenditure, there are big differences in the quantities of public goods provided to the citizens of these nations. Public goods are often distributed so as to equalize access to certain kinds of necessities and thus should offset some of the postionality effects of status consumption.

The privatization of public goods not only takes away income from citizens directly, because they have to shell out for basic necessities out of their own pockets, but it also increases inequality because those goods then become a source of status seeking, so people have to pay for increasingly better and costlier services in order to keep up with their socio-economic equals. College education is an obvious example.

But the other solution lies in the consumption patterns of individuals. If we were able to create social circles in which status seeking is not the norm and where choosing a more frugal lifestyle is accepted and no longer considered eccentric, then people who have access to those circles would be freed from having to keep up with the Joneses.

It seems so simple, but the caveat is that it has to be a collective effort. There needs to be a movement to create meaningful groups within which people can live frugally without shame or stigma. Many such movements have existed, but they are dying out, more and more. The hippie movement of the 60s is an obvious example. But even as recently as the 80s it was fashionable among some college students to wear thrift store outfits, and in the 90s there was the widespread grunge look of ripped jeans and old flannel shirts. Today even little kids wear designer clothes.

Part of the reason for this is also discussed by Storper. The same phenomenon that has resulted in the loss of jobs and lowering of wages in the United States — globalization — has also produced a surfeit of cheap consumer goods. The price of clothing, for instance, has declined since the 1970s, and so have the prices of electronics and household appliances. On the surface, that may seem like a bright spot in the gloomy economic situation of American low and middle income families. But its effects are pernicious.

Storper writes:

It is estimated that in the USA, a 3% direct decline in the real wages [of unskilled workers] has been compensated by a 3% consumer surplus for this particular income group. One of the reasons why there may have been less protest over the emerging income distribution than might be expected from the income figures per se, is that many of the same producers who are losing in relative — and even in absolute — terms, are still gaining as consumers in absolute, material terms.

In other words, even as low and middle income families are less able to afford basic necessities, they are better able than in past decades to secure positional goods like new clothing and appliances. The result is that poverty has become hidden, which only adds to its stigma. Since all anyone can see on the surface is that their neighbors have nice clothes and fancy appliances, but not that they can’t afford to see a doctor, how will we as a society ever get out from under the tyranny of status seeking and positionality?

I think the answer lies in initiatives like freeganism, which is too big a topic to undertake here. But I also think groups like these probably need to make more of an effort to become less off-putting to the average mainstream person. Even within the anarchist movement, squatters, punks, and assorted crusties are seen by some as offending more mainstream activists with their dirty and ragged clothes. I’m on the side of the crusties, who are at least trying to create real alternatives to rampant consumerism, and who live what they preach. I think the rest of us need to jump on board instead of decrying lifestylism, and create more nuanced choices. People should be able to choose what degree of thrift and nonconformity they are willing to adopt, and not be alone in those choices but part of larger societal movement that works to make frugality and poverty nothing to be ashamed of.