Spending has become so central to our way of life, to our society, to our economy that when we pause in our spending our government throws money at us. Well, it doesn't throw money at me but it throws my money at you, which I'm trying to see as almost as satisfying. Without spending we're doomed, says government, and I suppose it is true that the economy we know is doomed if we don't spend as we've always spent.
The problem is that to spend as we've always spent we need to spend more. Without us spending an ever-increasing amount there is no growth and when there is no growth, according to economists, there is doom. The sun of prosperity would set, although, perversely, we'd have a better view of its setting because factories wouldn't be spewing as much gunk into the atmosphere.
The retailing tycoon Gerry Harvey and others say the good times will return because we will always want more and better, and they are right. Shopping has become a sport, its own end, and somehow the spending has become more important than the goods. But did we always want more and better? Was there a day in modern times when enough was enough, when, even, enough was wonderful? Or was it simply that our grandparents and theirs were content with the slower arrival of more and better?
It occurs to me that a break from the spending whirl, an enforced reassessment of what we have, what we need and what we want, may be timely. Consumerism and materialism has become a mania, a compulsion we dismiss as the normal urge to improve our lot. Instead, I think, this compulsion has usurped aspirations that gave a life meaning and purpose.
Do you agree that it is high time we spent less, that we'll be happier for spending less?
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