DIVERGING FROM THE ROAD TO NOWHERE: ESCAPING THE TREADMILL

OF OVERPRODUCTION AND OVERCONSUMPTION

By

KELLY DAVISON

Integrated Studies Project

submitted to Dr. Angela L. Specht

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts – Integrated Studies

Athabasca, Alberta

December, 2009

2

Abstract

A textual analysis of the environmental discourse suggests one reason for the lack of progress toward sustainability is the failure to connect environmental damage with overconsumption in the developed world—currently the fundamental cause of environmental disorganization.

A perusal of popular and academic environmental literature indicates, however, that reducing the overconsumption by both producers and consumers has not been targeted for behavioural change by policymakers. Environmental concern is, instead, re-directed to small acts performed by individuals, also known as the small-steps approach, that do not threaten consumption levels. Schnaiberg’s (1980) Treadmill of Production theory has considerable explanatory power for this discrepancy between sustainability goals and sustainability policy.

Schnaiberg’s theory posits that a great many social institutions and powerful economic actors are beholden to the acceleration of both production and consumption and that overconsumption will, therefore, be maintained (if not enhanced) by these structures and actors. 3

Table of Contents

Introduction...... 5

Treadmill of Production Theory and Rational Choice Theory...... 17

Neoliberalism and the Individualization of Responsibility...... 25

Overconsumption versus Consumption...... 27

The Problem of Information or Awareness...... 32

Access to Information...... 33

Environmental Organizations...... 41

Misinformation and Casting Doubt...... 43

Obfuscation of Green Consumerism and Cause-Related Marketing...... 46

Illicit Strategies...... 51

The Myth of Runaway Technology...... 52

Distancing...... 54

Education and Religion...... 58

Framing the Issues...... 62

The Freedom to Buy: Consumer Sovereignty...... 66

Individualization of responsibility...... 69

Externalization of Costs...... 75

Rational Choice’s Hierarchy of Preferences and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs...... 77

Expanding Production Necessitates Expanding Consumption...... 82

Creating an Insatiable Hunger: False Needs and Infinite Desires...... 87

The Commoditization Trap...... 90

Primitive Accumulation: Capturing the commons and expanding wealth...... 95

Possible Alternatives...... 101

Alternatives to the Increasing Accumulation of Wealth by a Small Elite...... 102 4

Alternatives to the Movement of Workers to Wage Labour...... 106

Alternatives to the Expansion of Production to Compete for Profit...... 109

Alternatives to the Manufacturing of Insatiable Desires...... 111

Alternatives to the Concern of Government for Economic Development...... 112

Alternatives to the Communications and Education of Treadmill Values...... 118

Organizing...... 121

Conclusion...... 128

Revisiting Individualization of Responsibility...... 129

Works Cited...... 137 5

Overconsumption must be reduced in the industrialized nations if humanity is to avoid global ecological collapse and attain sustainability. Oskamp (2000), in his look at how psychology can help find solutions to environmental problems asserts that if humanity cannot collectively address its problems of overconsumption and overpopulation, these two behaviours may “eventually . . . make Earth nearly uninhabitable for future generations” (p.

496). Policies created to promote the goal of sustainability, internationally agreed at Rio in

1992, however, rarely address overconsumption (Princen, Maniates, and Conca, 2002b).

This failure to address overconsumption has seen levels of environmental destruction continue to rise. Increasing levels of toxic heavy metals and chemicals seethe from electronics dumped in the landfills of developing nations, food stocks are decreasing as harvest levels from the seas and land decrease, acid rain kills our trees and the fish in our rivers and lakes, and millions of people die each year from air pollution (Booth, 2004;

Diamond, 2005; Flannery, 2005). The most urgent problem, perhaps, is that of anthropogenic climate change by emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHG) carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, methane, and nitrogen oxide which are causing our planet’s climate to change at a rate faster than the rate at which species can adapt (Godrej, 2001). This global change in the earth’s ecosystems endangers the survival of all species that have evolved during very different climatic conditions. Climate scientists predict that without an 80, or even 90, percent reduction in GHG emissions within the next decade, ecological catastrophe will result

(Brown, Larsen, Dorn, and Moore, 2008; Lever-Tracy, 2008; Pachauri, 2008; Taylor and

Tilford, 2000), yet this reduction is not likely to occur with consumption levels rising around the world.

Policies intended to create sustainability in Canada and America, where overconsumption is rife, have focused primarily on the small-steps approach directed at individual consumers. This approach is based on the idea of consumer authority and rational 6

choice; that is, each individual decides rationally which change is possible and best for his or

her interests and consequently shows his or decision in the market place either by purchasing

or by not purchasing certain products. Much of this behavioural change is channeled into

green consumer action—for example, purchase of products that are deemed better for the

environment such as compact fluorescent light bulbs, energy-efficient appliances, or hybrid

automobiles—purchases that are expected to eventually accrue to create widespread

improvement in ecosystems if sufficient numbers of individuals decide to make these

purchases. The problem with this approach is that although a good number of people are

taking the small steps such as buying eco-products and recycling, this change is not enough to create sustainability because it is not reducing overconsumption. There needs to be a tremendous drop in consumption in the developed nations if we are to retain the services of the earth’s ecosystems—such as atmosphere or oceans—upon which life on the planet depends.

In order to effect the magnitude of change required for true sustainability, both

overproduction and overconsumption must be drastically reduced—reductions that would

require new forms of energy, transportation, and food provisioning as well as new social

expectations. These changes are impossible to accomplish with the band-aid solution of the

small-steps approach. While certain small steps, such as using less motorized transport,

would help create less energy consumption and GHG emissions if the entire population

participated, many people do not participate for reasons that are often beyond their individual

control: lack of public transportation, lack of dedicated bicycle paths, or workplaces and

residential areas located far apart so that public transportation involves many more hours of

commuting than private transportation. One must also acknowledge social expectations—

often created by manufacturers and their marketing forces—expectations such as the

overwhelming pressure to own one’s own ‘wheels’ in North America. Attaining a driver’s 7 license and ownership of an automobile is a rite of passage that signals independence and financial viability (thus, adulthood) for many and is thus a social expectation that is difficult to dismiss as unnecessary even if more ecologically sound alternatives are available and convenient. Furthermore, the solutions that involve eco-products or recycling entail further production and, thus, further consumption, a position that avoids the first recommendations of reduce and reuse in the waste management hierarchy. Additionally, with the small steps approach, the amount of energy use and pollution avoided in collective actions such as turning down thermostats is miniscule compared with the amount that could be saved if governments were to subsidize renewable energy systems and the refitting of private residences with these alternatives. It is also miniscule compared with the amount of energy and pollution involved in consumption at the production end an issue that beneficially for producers gets lost once attention is directed solely at consumers of the finished products.

Far more energy is consumed and pollution added to the global commons in the extraction and furthering processing of the earth’s resources in manufacturing than that which is used at the consumption end. Without a focus on the environmental damage caused at the production end and without the radical overhaul of infrastructure and societal expectations, the dramatic change required to steer humanity toward sustainability will not occur.

The small-steps approach has not created any significant progress toward sustainability; however, what it does accomplish is the maintenance of a status quo that benefits the elite. Overconsumption in the West is primarily created for the treadmill elite; that is, the owners of mass production facilities and the state, which require the treadmill of production and consumption to continually expand in order for this organization of surplus allocation to be maintained. Mass production originally fulfilled standardized needs: the cars that Henry Ford produced fit the basic requirements of the masses who were beginning to enjoy rising standards of living—these new consumers wanted what everyone else had but 8 were satisfied with limited options such as the one colour of car, black, which Ford offered.

When these standardized needs were largely met and mass consumption threatened to slow, manufacturers introduced the concept of planned obsolescence—making products obsolete before their normal lifecycle was finished. An early example of this planned obsolescence is that of the electric starter for automobiles which, Slade (2007) tells us, “in 1913, . . . raised obsolescence to national prominence by rendering all previous cars obsolete” (p. 4). To own the latest and the best product affirmed one’s social status and group identity. This technique to increase consumption worked until the 1960s when the anti-establishment movement encouraged young adults to rebel against corporate dictates ‘to keep up with the Joneses’ through material acquisitions. At this point, advertisers began to target the higher psychological needs involved in the expression of individuality. This marketing approach captured the anti-establishment movement by encouraging rebellious youth to express their differences, yet at the same time, unity with their identity group through fashion and other unique products. Advances in manufacturing allowing more ‘niche’ production helped producers meet these higher needs of the newest consumer generation by manufacturing specialty products that market researchers deemed attractive to certain types of consumers.

Despite this manipulation of the public to overconsume by treadmill elites and despite the damage from this overproduction—withdrawals from and additions to essential ecosystems—causing the bulk of the destruction, responsibility for this environmental damage is usually placed on the consumers’ shoulders. Control of the media and governments by the owners of production allows the diversion of attention from the responsibility of producers onto consumers with the end result that consumers are framed as the main culprits in crimes against the environment—if consumers did not want the products in the first place, the producers would not create the products, or so the reasoning goes. With this framing of environmental issues, individuals are taught that the responsibility lies with 9 them—that if we all do our part, we can switch from the environmentally destructive path we are on to one that promises a sustainable future, yet individual behavioural change at the consumer level is only a small part of the solution. The dramatic efforts that are actually required at the individual level such as boycotting mass produced items, radically reducing consumption of non-essential items, and supporting public campaigns for tax dollars to be directed toward public transportation and subsidized alternatives to fossil fuels are studiously avoided in order to maintain overconsumption for the benefit of the treadmill elite. If any substantive awareness of the necessity to reduce levels of overconsumption in order to allow ecosystems such as forests or rivers to recover obtains public attention, it is marginalized with several types of oppositional tactics from the dominant classes.

Acknowledgement of the problem of overconsumption in the western nations is primarily met by the counterargument of economic concerns. Mere mention of unemployment levels rising due to lack of consumption usually suffices to silence those who express environmental concern because most of us depend either directly or indirectly on obtaining wage labour from industry in order to meet our basic survival needs. White (1995) notes that this manoeuvre has been most successfully adopted by the Wise Use movement to protect the “special ‘right’ of large property holders and corporations to hold the natural world and the public good hostage to their economic gain” (p. 172), but White also chastises environmentalists for not coming to terms with the necessity of work in nature and how the environmental impact of their own work is often obscured. Gould, Weinberg and Schnaiberg

(1993) show that it is true that jobs are often lost when environmental regulations are put into place, but that this is more a lack of environmental and social justice than a necessary progression. Elites allow less powerful groups to pay by cutting their jobs rather than taking less profit. This tact ensures profit levels continue and, by connecting any change for 10 environmental improvement to loss of jobs, frames environmentalism as an anti-working class movement.

These claims of the overriding risk of unemployment are disingenuous at best: most producers would suffer tremendously decreased profits if overconsumption ended, a consequence not presented in mainstream media. Treadmill elites frame reductions in consumption to suggest that decreases will only hurt workers’ paycheques and the standards of living to which consumers have become accustomed. In similar fashion, the Wise Use movement, funded primarily by corporations, has erected a successful campaign to promote the rights of those who wish to use the commons for profit or enjoyment regardless of the damage caused to the environment or others’ enjoyment. These activities, such as the use of off-road vehicles (ORVs) in federal parks or wilderness, often involve tremendous profits for the industries of monopoly capital that manufacture the motorbikes and all-terrain vehicles or provide the petroleum fuel for their use, as well as setting important precedents that allow further encroachment upon public lands for profit. If corporations did not have the control of this commons that they currently exercise, individuals could use these resources for self- employment rather than being employed by corporations. If, for example, the clear cutting of forests were outlawed and individual loggers with licenses had their own limited access to public land, the higher-priced wood they produced from cutting selectively would be the only lumber on the market. The condition of forests would improve if careful distribution of the forest plots to individuals required careful maintenance in order to derive livelihoods. It was this type of equitable distribution of the commons for which the rubber tappers of Brazil fought in the late 1900s: “the principle of collective property, worked as individual holdings with individual returns” (Hecht and Cockburn, 1990 cited in Foster, 1999, p. 141).

Another way to dissuade the public from considering the overconsumption issue is to label those who question this environmentally dysfunctional behaviour as eco-freaks or 11

extremists, or, even worse in the United States, as socialists. Other tactics to avoid

addressing overconsumption is to play on the emotions of the public. Words or concepts

such as freedom, love of country or equal rights once connected to regulations of the

commons, stir the public to react strongly against any imposition of limits to production or

consumption. In most cases, the work against any option of limiting consumption has already

been accomplished with pervasive advertising. This advertising creates expectations and

standards for lifestyles and teaches that individual or social identities are to be established by

the consumption and display of mass manufactured goods or services. These expectations

and standards have become so ingrained in what western society considers normal that

accusations of unsustainability are easily dismissed by the slimmest margin of uncertainty in

any evidence suggesting that these normalized behaviours are unsustainable.

As public environmental awareness grew, more overt tactics met this challenge to

treadmill expansion. Monopoly capital has increasingly countered scientific evidence that

seeks to protect the environment from excessive additions or extractions with scientific

evidence from the think tanks and other research facilities they fund. Other approaches to

marginalizing environmental concern include disseminating warnings that environmentalists

are trying to form a world government1or biblical interpretations of human stewardship of the

earth that argue that humans are entitled to use the earth for whatever economic purposes

they decide, especially, as those who hold an apocalyptic ideology believe, we shall all soon

ascend to heaven with the Second Coming of Christ and will no longer be in need of our

earthly home (Simmons, 2009). In much the same way that tobacco companies succeeded in

convincing millions of smokers to avoid the discomfort of quitting their deadly habits by

sowing doubts about scientists assertions that tobacco was responsible for deadly illnesses,

producers threatened by changes in consumption or production levels jump on any chance to

1 For example, see Bill Wilson’s article “Copenhagen Climate Conference Ruse to Establish Global Government Even to Rule Over American Youth” http://www.bible-prohecy-today.com/2009/10/copenhagen-climate- conference-ruse-to.html# 12 magnify uncertainty in messages from environmental experts. Many consumers grasp at these unlikely scenarios in order to avoid uncomfortable truths and disruptive change in their lives.

The solution to our environmental crisis cannot be found in current, mainstream approach of small-steps designed to maintain overconsumption for those who profit from overproduction; instead, we must create fundamental change in our consumptive habits which means the way we live in the developed nations must be ultimately radically altered. Even if it is only the richest nations and individuals that overconsume, our planet cannot support this level of consumption for much longer. That there are billions of others [that is, people from developing nations] lining up for their fair share of the comforts and luxuries displayed in the western media makes this level of overconsumption even less sustainable. Once Western overconsumptive lifestyles become the global norm, the possibility of achieving sustainability will become even more remote. We must cut back on our extractions and additions to the world’s ecosystems to maintain the conditions within which human civilization evolved if we agree that human civilization is worth saving.

To make these changes to consumption levels will not only allow ecosystems such as the atmosphere, river systems and soil conditions to improve, it will also provide an alternative model for billions of others in developing nations who seek to emulate our lifestyles. Rather than modeling overconsumptive, wasteful and environmentally destructive lifestyles, richer nations need to model restraint and respect in the use of the earth’s resources. Without these major changes occurring first in the richer nations, it is not fair for international environmental accords to call for any changes of reduced consumption in the poorer nations because these populations have not been the primary cause of the damage or shared in the benefits of overconsumption. Reduced levels of production and consumption in the richer nations will also equalize the present unfair distribution of wealth that has created 13 environmental and social injustices around the globe. We do not have much time and there is much work to be done; but, if individuals could be made aware of the dire need to drastically reduce their consumption and to pressure government to make the necessary changes to infrastructure, we could create a better world for all, including those extant now and those yet to be born.

My research into the tension between environmental policy and effective action on the ground, has found Schnaiberg’s (1980) Treadmill of Production theory to have significant explanatory and predictive power in understanding why overconsumption has not been and will likely continue not to be targeted for behavioural change, the ostensible global goal of sustainability notwithstanding. In this paper I use Schnaiberg’s basic premise of the treadmill as the central organizing principle of our modern industrial societies and the understanding that the interests of those who control and benefit most from this organization of surplus allocation, otherwise known as treadmill elites, dominate the framework built to deal with environmental concerns. It is the treadmill elite’s domination and control of the commons, as well as solutions created to solve its environmental damage, that constrains the efforts of individuals to create the necessary behavioural change for sustainability. My primary argument is that social dynamics and physical structures created and maintained by the interests of the owners of production and state officials do their best to prevent the necessary reductions in consumption and production so that these elite individuals may maintain profit and power. While ostensibly accepting the necessity of sustainability and maintaining that it is their goal and concern, these powerful economic actors proffer the small-step approach as the only reasonable approach to our global environmental predicament, yet this approach only serves to obfuscate our true environmental circumstances so that the overarching paradigm of treadmill expansion or unlimited growth may survive unscathed. 14

Princen et al. (2002b) are so skeptical of the term “sustainable development that they condemn it as “an obscuring principle” (p. 3) because it diverts attention from the necessity of reducing overconsumption. Daly (1996) is also critical of the term sustainable development because it focuses more on the development aspect and that the development considered is only that which pertains to economic growth. Daly goes into a great deal of detail regarding the economic reasons why sustainable development is an empty term. As an economist for the World Bank’s environmental department, Daly pushed for greater clarity of the term ‘sustainable development,’ yet “the Bank [ . . . ] wanted to keep the concept vague, to dull its sharp edges enough to keep it from cutting into business as usual—that is, pushing loans in the interest of export-led growth and global integration” (p. 9). Sustainable development has come to mean, instead, meeting the needs of the present and the future generations whilst these needs are allowed to become greater and greater. This approach has its obvious benefits for those who manufacture the solution to these enhanced needs.

Maniates (2002b) explains: “The task becomes meeting them [needs] through the enlightened use of high-efficiency technologies paid for by a rapidly expanding globalized economy” (p.

203). Any alternative paradigm that competes with the dominant paradigm of this growth and expansion is labelled an anathema to economic viability.

The theory of Rational Choice forms an important complement to Schnaiberg’s theory of the Treadmill of Production. Rational Choice Theory explains why individuals seemingly make free choices to overconsume even though it is harmful to them personally (either financially, spiritually, or health wise), and on a grander scale, socially and environmentally.

Beginning with the individual actor and the influences upon the decisions of the individual actor, this theory posits that the aggregation of all decisions by all actors eventually accrues to a specific social outcome. Rational Choice then is particularly pertinent for my argument because the flow of individual action to social outcome is influenced by constraints that 15 parallel the dynamics Schnaiberg describes as treadmill components. Constraints described by Rational Choice Theory, such as the influence of information or opportunities and costs, show the fallibility of relying on the small-steps approach and market dynamics to solve global crises such as climate change.

I also looked at the avoidance of overconsumption within environmental policy and focus on individual effort through the lens of neoliberalism as described by David Harvey

(2007). Harvey’s theories expand upon the focus on the role of the individual in both

Schnaiberg’s Treadmill theory and the Rational Choice theory. The neoliberal perspective of economic and social organization, which became dominant in world politics in the late 1970s, uses the rational choice argument to support its logic that all social outcome is down to individual effort thereby making society (and its benefits) virtually nonexistent. The implications of neoliberal thought and rational choice are important for my argument because it through their logic that the environmental crisis can be framed in a way that individuals are responsible for ecological destruction; and thus, by extrapolation, it is individuals who must take the necessary steps to solve the crisis. Neoliberal thought posits that state and capital, although qualified to exert overarching control in economic and security spheres, are unable to effect change because change is dependent upon the actions of each individual—an outlook that was increasingly promoted as the embodiment of democratic freedom after the neoliberal turn. From this perspective, democratic freedom more or less has devolved to the free choices consumers make, often referred to as consumer authority or consumer sovereignty. Solutions for environmental repair from the neoliberal perspective are centered on the small steps that individuals can take, such as recycling or buying green, steps that consumers choose when expressing their democratic rights as shoppers, not citizens.

The primary concern of treadmill elites is that consumption levels be maintained or amplified in order that the output of mass production has a market. The primary purpose of 16 production is to provide profit for the elites that own these facilities, yet this production of goods and services has also become the primary means of employment for the masses through the process Marx labelled “primitive accumulation;” that is, the privatization of public lands and other public goods so chances for ordinary individuals to work as independent entities are reduced and the riches of a small elite are increased. Additionally, governments have come to rely on the owners of production for both political and financial support, and taxation. Expansion of production creates jobs that make voters happy. Taxes on workers’ incomes and campaign donations from capital make governments functional and happy. In this way, the economic concerns of capital have become the economic concerns for all three groups: the elite, the general public, and state officials. For the treadmill to continue to grow, however, precludes any limits to withdrawals from or additions to ecosystems. Although governments and elites who own production are privy to far more expert knowledge and opinion on ecological mechanisms and conditions—including the knowledge that unlimited growth is an impossible goal—than most of the general public, the consensus is that the small-steps approach that allows unlimited growth and profits is sufficient for solving our growing ecological crisis.

The negation of any contradiction between the unlimited growth paradigm and laws of physics—specifically the laws of thermodynamics which preclude unlimited growth on a finite planet—is either an extreme state of denial by this dominant class, or an obscene display of inconsideration for others who must suffer the consequences of this ecological exploitation. My position is that this small-steps approach has not created the large-scale change required to prevent ecological catastrophe. If scientists are correct, that we indeed only have a small window of opportunity left to change the unsustainable path we are on and, in particular, avoid the critical problem of dangerous climate change, more than small steps is 17

necessary—drastic cuts to overproduction and overconsumption in the developed nations

must occur rapidly.

Schnaiberg (1980) believed that it would be necessary to educate non-elites in order

to effect these radical changes. He predicted that true sustainability would only be attained

by the “structuralist or radical” approach that challenged the treadmill structures rather than

“meliorist” approach of ‘small steps’ which sought change at the individual level (Schnaiberg

and Gould, 1994, p. 158). Because the dominant treadmill structures of capital and state

impede this level and rate of change, awareness must be raised beyond the levels of

information provided by treadmill interests. The most realistic method of raising this

awareness is via the environmental organizations that have risen to global prominence, the

so-called ‘Big 10’2. If the ‘Big 10’ environmental organizations, with their large

memberships and social capital, were to initiate awareness campaigns that called for these

large steps rather than the small-steps path they currently promote, citizens might be able to

attain the level of awareness and political motivation that is necessary. Organizations that

have been pushing more radically for these changes to overproduction and overconsumption,

such as Adbusters, need to increase their efforts to raise public awareness regarding the

socialization to overconsume and reach beyond their current membership files to encourage

the boycotting of mass-produced products. It is only by amassing impressive numbers of

voters who are willing to become more active in their resistance that those with

environmental concerns will be able to convince elites to accept decreases to

overconsumption and overproduction as necessary and inevitable.

Treadmill of Production Theory and Rational Choice Theory

2 As listed (along with the organizations’ respective dates of inception) by Chatterjee and Finger (1994): “The Sierra Club (founded 1892) the National Audubon Society (1905), the National Parks and Conservation Association (1919), the Izaak Walton League (1922), the Wilderness Society (1935), the National Wildlife Federation (1936), the Defenders of Wildlife (1947), the Environmental Defense Fund (1967), Friends of the Earth (1969), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (1970)” (p. 68). 18

Foster (2005) has provided an excellent distillation of Schnaiberg and Gould’s (1994) description of the seven basic dynamics comprising the logic of the treadmill. I use Foster’s six elements of social structure that comprise Schnaiberg’s original Treadmill of Production framework to loosely organize the topics in this paper. These six social dynamics derived from Schnaiberg’s (1980) seven dynamics of the treadmill are as follows:

First, built into this global system, and constituting its central rationale, is the

increasing accumulation of wealth by a relatively small section of the population at

the top of the social pyramid. Second, there is a long-term movement of workers

away from self-employment and into wage jobs that are contingent on the continual

expansion of production. Third, the competitive struggle between businesses

necessitates on pain of extinction the allocation of accumulated wealth to new,

revolutionary technologies that serve to expand production. Fourth, wants are

manufactured in a manner that creates an insatiable hunger for more. Fifth,

government becomes increasingly responsible for promoting national economic

development while ensuring some degree of ‘social security’ for at least a portion of

its citizens. Sixth, the dominant means of communication and education are part of

the treadmill, serving to reinforce its priorities, and values. (p. 8)

I consider all six dynamics in my discussion of overconsumption and the small-steps approach but focus more on the constraints these dynamics pose at the individual level, constraints that render the small-steps approach ineffective. I combined the first two structures under the heading of “Primitive Accumulation”. The third structure is found in discussions of capital’s constraint to improve productivity. The fourth structural constraint is treated in the section titled “Expanding Production Requires Expanding Consumption”. The fifth structure has been discussed throughout the text under references to capital and state, especially as regards the former’s increasing involvement and power in the latter and the 19 latter’s reliance on the former for employment for the masses. The sixth dynamic is discussed under the section titled “The Problem of Information or Awareness”. These dynamics are inextricably woven into the social structures or institutions of our modern, industrial societies—government, the military, education institutions, religious organizations, and so forth and are pervasively expressed in the mainstream media as the norm—making it near impossible for individuals or small steps taken by individuals to effect the type of change we need to avert catastrophic changes to our earth’s ecosystems.

In his Treadmill of Production theory, Schnaiberg (1980) uses the metaphor of a treadmill to describe the ever-increasing, never-ending drive and competition for profits by the dominant class as the principle that organizes societies in the developed nations and increasingly in the developing nations. This quest for increasing levels of profit, evident since the beginning of the industrial age but amplified since World War II, requires persistent investment in the technology of mass production to effect reductions in labour costs and increases in productivity. This technology involves advanced machinery and the use of chemicals that then result in increasing levels of withdrawals from and additions to the natural environment. Schnaiberg explains that as the increases in productivity levels evolved into mass production, more consumption (beyond consumption merely to satisfy basic needs) was required of the public: “a collapse of this demand would threaten the present high-capital and high-energy enterprises, in terms of both profits and employment” (Schnaiberg, 1980, p.

168). Overconsumption, therefore, was mandated by the output of overproduction (Gould,

Pellow and Weinberg, 2002), a reversal of the commonly espoused perspective that production merely acts to meet consumption needs, an orthodox view that serves, conveniently for those who profit from production, to displace responsibility onto individuals. 20

Schnaiberg (1980) asserts that the treadmill of production is the central organization

of the modern industrial society today, whether it is capitalism or socialism that is the

primary political orientation of the society. The treadmill is Schnaiberg’s metaphor for

describing the orthodox belief that expansion of production and consumption is best way to

for society to provide necessities and other social goods for its members, or, in Schnaiberg’s

words: “the treadmill [of production] describes the dominant direction of surplus allocation”

(p. 208). The use of the word ‘treadmill’ in his metaphor includes the feeling of futility or the

idea that ultimately this social organization produces stasis. It is from this metaphor I derive

the idea of the ‘path to nowhere’. The treadmill, as originally devised for prison torture,

created great suffering, and is therefore a very apt metaphor considering the consequences

this paradigm has had for both social and environmental justice.

The logic of the treadmill is reproduced by the durable structures or institutions of modern society. Schnaiberg’s treadmill theory posits that these institutions3 and their

organizations have become dependent on the treadmill expansion for support or for benefits.

For utility in discussion of the treadmill, these social institutions are divided into three

sectors: “capital, labor, and the state” (Schnaiberg, 1980, p. 209). Although Schnaiberg

allows that there has been differentiation in labour, such as the creation of more white-collar

jobs, especially in the last century, he places all those workers who do not own production as

‘labour’. The ‘state’ refers to all levels of government, whether municipal or national or

international governmental organizations. Schnaiberg explains that all three sectors are

linked in “cooperative and competitive relationships in modern capitalist production systems”

(p. 210).

When referring to capital, Schnaiberg primarily has in mind what is commonly known

as the large multinational corporations. Schnaiberg notes this type of capital is also

3 Defined by Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) as: “a relatively stable clustering of social rules, roles, and relationships which operate as a set of guiding principles for major activities in the society, in spheres such as education, the economy, the cultural media, and the family” (p. 92). 21

sometimes called “technostructure, . . . monopoly capital, [or the] oligopolistic sector” (p.

220). There is also “competitive capital” (p. 221) which has less productive capability, less

technology and bureaucracy, less power and control over production and distribution, more

direct management, and is more vulnerable to competition and consumer demand. It is the

former type of capital that controls much of the decision-making apparatus in regards to the

developed countries’ overproduction and overconsumption, including the decision-making

within the spheres of competitive capital. It is also monopoly capital that has extended this

power and control to encompass the entire globe in the historical process of globalization. It

is this sector that I argue needs to be held accountable for the lack of movement toward

sustainability because of their control over decision-making.

Schnaiberg (1980) explains that, for a time, amplification of the treadmill allowed

more employment, and thus more taxes from both capital and labour. The state and labour

sectors were generally supportive of this expansion, even if it meant more power was

consolidated by capital or more damage was caused to the environment. Labour gave up the

freedom of self-employment and access to the commons because growth initially provided

more secure employment and better pay with which to purchase the newly available

conveniences of modern life; for example: automobiles, electric appliances, and homes in the

suburbs. This support saw the treadmill dynamics, and processes that supported it (such as

mass production and commoditization), increasingly institutionalized as social structures in

these societies (Foster, 2005). New behaviours, such as increased consumption, congealed

around these new practices, both in society and in private; for example, as automobile

producers became more productive, the state decision-makers, influenced by this industry,

built highways with taxpayers dollars. As monopoly capital4 bought and dismantled the trolley system in American cities, more workers bought automobiles. As more highways

4 Schlosser (2005) lists General Motors, Mack Truck, Firestone, and Standard Oil of California (p. 16). 22 were built, developers cheaply bought agricultural land and built suburbs further from the urban centres of employment. As the state provided low-interest loans for these homes and items to fill them, more workers moved to the suburbs. Completing this path of dependency, moving to the suburbs necessitated the ownership of automobiles bringing the entire process full circle back to the profits of the producers of automobiles and related industries that profit from the use of automobiles. The state was heavily influenced by those who stood to profit from these decisions: elites that owned production of automobiles, those who owned the production of rubber used to make tires, or those who bought up the cheap ‘wasteland’ for development of suburbs and shopping malls.

The power of monopoly capital to structure the organization of our societies in this way and many others is often overlooked. There were alternatives to the decisions that were made, alternatives that would have been more sustainable, yet these alternatives did not benefit this elite and thus were not considered. Alternatives such as investing profits in worker training or the more efficient use of energy and materials, for example, would have improved worker productivity and cut costs of materials; however, the first alternative would have given labour more power by making capital more dependent on human power, so this option was discarded, and the second option was considered unnecessary since capital had cheap access to the resources and sinks of the commons. These decisions have impacted both the environment and workers, but because capital requires a constant expansion of profits and because these impacts are costs born by others, these externalities are unimportant. To use the previous example to illustrate this problem, the funds for the massive infrastructure

(automobile factories, mining industries, oil extraction, highway construction, and suburban development) created to enhance the profit and power of capital may just as well have been diverted to construct mass public transport or develop healthier and more vibrant urban residences. Expansion of urban residences rather than expansion into rural areas would have 23 preserved more of the agricultural land thus allowing the more efficient family farms to survive and prosper. Instead of investing their profits in mass production facilities, taxes imposed on capital profit could have been more equitably distributed to build educational facilities that encouraged workers in skilled trades and cottage industries—smaller capital enterprises that would not have consolidated the power of monopoly capital and that would be easier to regulate as regards ecological limits. Schnaiberg (1980) teaches that less bureaucracy and more direct management by those who own smaller production facilities allows increased efficiency and reduced environmental destruction, yet the treadmill of overproduction and overconsumption is not concerned with either of these benefits, for its central tenet is one of unlimited profit from unlimited growth.

The structures and social dynamics promoted to benefit the treadmill of overproduction and overconsumption, such as the use of taxpayers dollars to build highways and the idea that private transportation ownership is a necessity, provide the reality within which that individuals use to make their rational choices. This everyday reality provides information about the state of our economy and our ecosystems, information about how best to solve our ecological problems, information about how we should live (that is, what is normal), and information about what will happen if we collectively do not ascribe to the dominant view. This normative information is geared to maintaining the behaviour that has evolved to benefit capital—namely, the behaviour of overconsumption. These structures and dynamics also limit the opportunities and costs, described by Rational Choice theory, such as that of the availability of public transportation and costs of owning an automobile.

Seemingly a negation of the Rational Choice theory which is so often used to support neoclassic economic policies, and so often used to argue that market forces will result in the greatest good for the greatest number, Schnaiberg’s Treadmill of Production theory (1980) actually underscores the Rational Choice argument that structures external to individuals 24 constrain individual rational choice. Friedman and Hechter (1988, p. 295) depict the fundamentals of Rational Choice theory in a schematic diagram as replicated in below:

Actors

Information

Hierarchy of Preferences Opportunity Costs Institutional Constraints

Aggregation Mechanism

Social Outcome

Examples of Institutional Constraints provided by Friedman and Hechter are “familial and school rules; laws and ordinances; firm policies; churches, synagogues and mosques; and hospitals and funeral parlors” (p. 296). These institutions are related to the treadmill dynamics above in that they often express treadmill values and concerns and benefit from treadmill activities. The ‘Opportunity and Costs’ of Rational Choice theory are the considerations of what the individual will stand to benefit for what cost is incurred. The constraint of ‘Hierarchy of Preferences’ is what Rational Choice labels individualistic tendencies toward different values or competencies. The authors maintain that these individualistic elements have been considered rather difficult to ascertain due to individual variability; and, therefore, “rational choice theory is mute about what these preferences might be and where they come from” (Friedman and Hechter, p. 296). The authors maintain that it is information and the other external constraints that have the most influence over individual choice rather than hierarchy of preferences. Further on in my discussion, I argue that these individualistic considerations have been amply described by Maslow’s Theory of the

Hierarchy of Needs and that Maslow’s ideas about what might constitute individual motivations and preferences have been proved accurate by their successful applications in the practice of marketing.

Neoliberalism and the Individualization of Responsibility 25

The currently dominant political paradigm of neoliberalism, which Harvey (2007) argues was born of the desire of the elite class to regain ground after the erosion of their political power and wealth since the 1920s, expands and amplifies the effects of the treadmill dynamics described by Schnaiberg (1980). This attempt to recapture the wealth and power the elite previously had has become increasingly zealous since the 1970s when the

“neoliberal turn” (Harvey, 2007, p. 9) provided a cohesive rhetoric to justify the means and methods of this expansion of power:

Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that

proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual

entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by

strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. . . . [It] values market

exchange as ‘an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide to all human action, and

substituting for all previously held ethical beliefs’ . . . . It holds that the social good

will be maximized by maximizing the reach and frequency of market transactions,

and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market. (pp. 2-3)

This focus on the individual negates any benefit derived from institutions and organizations built by societal members, often with their private financial contributions over many decades.

Organizations such as unions, social services such as healthcare, and even infrastructure such as public transportation or communication lines are examples of social goods that were largely either dismantled, aggressively attacked and made ineffective, or privatized with the neoliberal turn in the past several decades. The focus then turned to market forces to remedy all problems and create the highest social good. Solutions such as these commoditized all human needs whether biological necessities like nutrition or clothing, social needs such as group affiliation or connection with others, or manufactured needs created by industry for profit such as the fuel-guzzling sports utility vehicles (SUVs). 26

Facilitating the increase in power of the treadmill elite were regulatory organizations that protected their concerns, such as the International Monetary Fund and The World Trade

Organization (Ellwood, 2003), which allowed multinational corporations and other treadmill concerns to establish greater control over the earth’s resources, including human labour.

Regulations regarding the global movement of capital provided greater mobility for corporations setting up business in developing nations that offered cheaper labour forces and weaker environmental controls for foreign investment. New technologies that enabled better communications, transportation, and manufacturing processes sensitive to changing markets also enhanced the global power of multinational corporations and the further global expansion of the neoliberal agenda.

The other dynamic of neoliberalism that has had major implications for the environment and society is the belief that social problems and problems of the individual are the responsibility of individuals—a perspective that is derived from the idea of rational choice. From the neoliberal perspective, government should not be expected to solve social problems consequently fewer public funds are allocated for social goods such as education or health care; instead, it is argued, private business concerns and consumers operating in the

‘free’ market will provide these services much more efficiently and democratically.

Democratic freedom is thus expressed by consumer choices on a daily basis and occasionally in elections at which point individuals can vote for individuals who represent their interests— or so it is reasoned.

The neoliberal model has adopted the small-steps approach in dealing with environmental problems arguing that it is the most democratic and effective solution to environmental problems because it is market based. The argument from this perspective, is that consumers can recycle their cans and bottles, if they so desire; they can purchase products that are environmentally friendly; or, they can donate money to worthwhile causes 27 by purchasing products from companies that have adopted a socially significant cause. The fundamental belief is that the rational choices of all individuals will accrue to the social outcome desired by the majority—a process thus supporting democratic principles of freedom of choice and majority rule. Individuals have mostly accepted this small-steps approach because they have accepted the neoliberal rhetoric that consumer authority or sovereignty is the most efficient, as well as the easiest, most democratic, and most socially accepted way of helping the environment, yet it is undeniable that this approach is having no ameliorative affect upon environmental damage. Important questions about this market approach include whether or not individuals would choose actions as consumers rather than as citizens to decide the fate of the environment if they had the complete picture, if the aggregate decisions and actions of consumers compares in power to the aggregate decisions made by powerful entities such as capital or state, and if information received for the consumers/citizens to make decisions is accurate enough that choices can be deemed rational.

Overconsumption versus Consumption

It is important to make the distinction between overconsumption and consumption that is necessary or sustainable. Princen et al (2002b) define overconsumption as, “the popularly understood sense of using more than is necessary”(p. 4). Many would argue that this is a judgement call—a judgement that only individuals can make about what is necessary or unnecessary for a good life;5 however, Princen (2002a) qualifies this basic definition with the assertion that: “overconsumption is the level or quality of consumption that undermines a species’ own life-support system and for which individuals and collectivities have choices in their consuming patterns” (p. 33). Schnaiberg (1980) teaches that societies usually use as much of their resources as they can, creating novelties from surpluses that over time evolve

5 One must also consider the definition of what is meant by the term ‘common good’. This paper will not delve into the environmental ethics presented by this definition; it will accept that preserving humanity’s sole habitat—the network of connected ecosystems on our planet—is a goal expressed and accepted implicitly as a common good in the international agreements that have been set forth in such devices as the Kyoto Protocol. 28 into items perceived as necessary for a ‘normal’ life in that particular time and space.

Princen’s qualification, perhaps necessarily, eliminates the criterion of what is judged a requirement for a ‘normal’ life; instead, focusing on the consequences of choices: if one choice undermines our ecosystem upon which we depend more than another choice, we should choose the latter; and, in most cases, the latter will be the option that involves less consumption.

When one considers that entire civilizations, and species, have disappeared, or have been irreparably and undesirably altered once they have overshot the ability of the ecosystems upon which they depend to regenerate (Diamond, 2005), the demarcation between what is consumption and what type of consumption is overconsumption becomes clearer: consumption is the use of resources to meet the basic requirements of life without endangering that species in a particular population’s ecological niche. If certain consumptive activities enhance our social lives yet threaten our biological survival, as did the Easter

Islanders’ production of the gigantic stone statues that were used to signal social status, these activities can then be defined as overconsumptive. Additionally, consumption that threatens the biological viability of future generations should also qualify as overconsumption—so using substances that do not cause environmental damage in the present but damage the reproductive ability of future generations is also overconsumption. Overconsumption is unnecessary consumption that is unsustainable—unnecessary because even if it improves the quality of our lives, it is not imperative for the optimum functioning of our biological systems and unsustainable because it threatens the continuation of our biological survival.

Sustainable consumption is consumption that meets the requirements of life, not just for the immediate time and space, but that which also allows future generations and those in distant lands to meet their basic needs also. The idea of sustainable development according to both Schnaiberg (1980) and Daly (1996) is that it must include the equitable distribution of 29 resources across space and time. This equitable distribution pertains to the earth’s resources and the surplus derived from the earth or human labour. Overconsumption that results in unsustainability may be localized, as in the famous case of the Eastern Islanders, whose civilization disappeared after they consumed trees for monuments beyond the point at which their ecosystem could rejuvenate; or, it may be global, for example, the likely collapse of global manifestation of human civilization if humanity continues to disregard the limits of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The two separate behavioural problems— overpopulation in the poorer nations and overconsumption in the richer nations—have seen little in the way of amelioration despite the necessity of change in these areas to move toward this ecological sustainability.6

The idea of sustainability is based on the acknowledgment that behavioural change must occur on a global level if we are to meet our present needs without imperiling future generations of humans and other species.7 In the rich nations this means consuming less and in the poorer nations it means having fewer children if consumption levels there continue to rise.8 However, overconsumption in the West causes far more environmental damage today than the overpopulation in developing nations (Fuchs and Lorek, 2002; Venetoulis, Chazan,

6 Overconsumption cannot yet be considered a problem in the developing countries; for in these nations, people are dying because they do not consume enough or because their desperate efforts to obtain resources often decimate the productive capacity of their respective environments (Durning, 1992). Neither can overpopulation be considered equal to western overconsumption in its ecological impact when consumption levels are this low (Schnaiberg and Gould, 1994; Worldwatch Institute, 2004); however, once subsistence consumption levels are attained, the problem of overpopulation must be addressed or the increasing levels of consumption will push the ecological limits of the planet far further and faster than any solutions may be able to remedy. This problem of increasing production and consumption is already the case in India and China where the newly rich have elevated these nations into higher categories of energy consumption and environmental degradation posing health risks to their populations (Worldwatch Institute, 2004). 7 Based on the definition of ‘sustainable development’ promoted by the Brundtland Commission in Our Common Future: “development which meets the needs of the present without sacrificing the ability of the future to meet its needs” (cited in Booth, 2004, p. 145). 8 Total consumption in nations such as Bangladesh fall far below that of rich nations such as Canada and the United States because the poverty in these nations prevents people from consuming even survival levels of materials and energy. In these cases, it is argued by many experts, of whom Schnaiberg and the Worldwatch Institute represent a small sample, that consumption levels here must actually increase. It is, however, necessary to add the caveat that if consumption begins to attain levels beyond what is required for survival, population rates must slow. 30 and Gaudet, 2004) and it is most urgent that consumption levels be reduced in light of the small window of opportunity to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change.

What constitutes ‘just enough consumption’ and the point at which this level of consumption becomes ‘overconsumption’ is difficult to ascertain. Consumption that merely maintains our biological requirements cannot be considered adequate unless it is in emergency situations, for the material world is also symbolic for humans and has been since early in our evolution. A certain amount of consumption over this amount is likely necessary to create the sociocultural matrix that humans have evolved in order to live in communities or, in other words, how to express group identification in order to maintain social cohesiveness. Much of what maintains a society’s identity is often considered what is

‘normal’ or what has been normalized as social practice for that particular group; for example, in the developed nations, it is consider right and normal to bathe regularly and wear clean clothes in good repair. To not practise these activities would endanger one’s social life: one may lose one’s employment and friends—perhaps even family—if these practices ceased. Some social activities that are more environmentally benign and result in lowered consumption are discouraged with financial punishments or expulsions from certain communities such as the drying of laundry outside. I argue, however, under the section in the conclusion entitled “Possible Alternatives,” that Daly’s (1996) ideas of qualitative development show that it is quite possible to meet the sociocultural needs of social cohesiveness and identity in ways other than the present conception of quantitative growth as the sole path to human enjoyment and social good.

What is important for my argument here, however, is that which is considered normal in developed nations is primarily that which producers have decided and what is thus advertised (either overtly or covertly): needs are created and ‘normal’ is constructed in order to benefit the treadmill of overproduction and overconsumption. Furthermore, to expand the 31 example above, clothing that is merely clean and in good repair is often not enough. We need to have the right fashions, the correct levels of formality or informality, and depending on the social class, the appropriate monetary value; for example, to wear a denim jacket to the opera is often considered inappropriate, a mink coat acceptable. Cleanliness may not be sufficient, antiseptic applications to displace any hint of food consumption, or physical exertion are expected, and recently, whitening agents that remove ‘unsightly stains’ from one’s teeth are de rigueur.

These needs continue to be created with no concern for the environmental impacts involved or even how human health is impacted, yet studies of happiness levels in different countries suggest that higher levels of unnecessary consumption do not create happier or better functioning societies. On the contrary, the happiness levels in America have actually decreased since the 1950s (Bok, 2010). These studies conclude that the isolation of individuals from others, the animosity created by wide disparities in wealth, and the prolonged hours of work to procure the financial resources necessary for to maintain ‘proper’ lifestyles contribute to higher levels of depression and other mental illnesses, increased levels of crime, and lack of social cohesiveness. These social problems are projected to increase as the treadmill of overproduction and overconsumption results in more environmental disorganization and destruction.

The created needs as displayed in the media are problematic because it is difficult for individuals to transcend what have become social traditions—even if these traditions are essentially unnecessary and ultimately harmful—when they are continuously displayed as what society values, or even demands. This is, ultimately, a problem of information; for, if we were to understand that our unnecessary consumption, that is overconsumption, was presenting a very real and present danger to the survival of our species, and other species, many of us would rationally change our behaviour. If we were not just individuals but 32 instead a functioning society we would be able to decide democratically that a reduction in our overconsumption is what is necessary, unfortunately, according to Harvey (2007), the functioning of a healthy society—including communication and democratic decision- making—have been heavily curtailed since the neoliberal turn and neoconservative measures to limit democratic processes.

The Problem of Information or Awareness

In their description of Rational Choice Theory, Friedman and Hechter (1988) assert that information is a “highly significant” (p. 297) variable when individuals make choices.

Information is the first element depicted in their schematic diagram showing the path from actor to social outcome. It is also included in the six elements of the treadmill logic described by Foster (2005) under ‘communication and education’. The theory of rational actor points firstly to having the correct information, yet misinformation contained in the messages promulgated by treadmill elites prevents individuals from realizing the connections between their overconsumption and ecological destruction and thus making choices which are truly sustainable. It is through the ownership of media that the power of elites is translated into control over the information individuals receive about the state of the environment and what action should be taken. According to Schnaiberg (1980), in the developed nations, actors are receiving neither sufficient information nor information that is sufficiently accurate to make rational decisions regarding the safety and security of their environment for themselves and their descendents. It is also through the lens of economic concern that the dominant framing of any environmental concern is made so when these concerns are publicly voiced, one of the first steps is to consider the economic repercussions. This, results in insufficient information for the general public to make rational choices—it is information that is incomplete and highly biased toward one perspective: that of making a profit for the dominant elite. 33

In addition to an economic framing, policy makers often avoid the necessary adjustments to the overconsumption required by treadmill structures by teaching that progress toward sustainability requires more individual effort, thus the primary solution is considered to be raising public awareness so that individuals can change their behaviour. The type of awareness that these policymakers then encourage is not critical of overconsumptive lifestyles. Recommendations, when issued, carefully elude any radical personal change away from habits and traditions of overconsumption. Recommendations are for small tweaks in behaviour and, more often than not, involve more consumption—purchases of eco-products such as compact fluorescent light bulbs for instance—rather than less consumption. This policy position is not due to ignorance on the part of leaders. The knowledge that time is running out for people of richer nations to change their over consumptive behaviour has been clearly and increasingly expressed in both academic and popular writing for several decades to which experts in government have ample and easy access. Unfortunately, the individual who does not have this easy access or is without considerable expenditure of time to source alternative viewpoints relies on information from the mainstream media, schools, the family, and the workplace—all locales for reproduction of treadmill ideology. Without time to source alternative viewpoints, the public follows the directives of those who are ostensibly leading society toward a sustainable future.

Access to Information

For those in certain fields of study and expertise, or those members of the public who have the time and motivation to search, the awareness of the destructive effects of overconsumption on our ecosystems, most noticeably since the industrial age, predates the last thirty years. Jackson (2006) follows the history of this concern regarding overconsumption from the early nineteenth-century preservation and conservation goals inspired by the romantic movement, to the influential Club of Rome publication, The Limits 34

to Growth, in the late twentieth century. Redman (1999) locates recommendations for

reducing overconsumption even further back in our history: citing Cicero and Mencius over

2000 years ago. In the popular press, one can find publications that deal with environmental

degradation if one is actively searching. Every decade or so, it seems, a book appears to

remind us that overconsumption is threatening human survival. Rachel Carson’s Silent

Spring, published in 1962, is perhaps the best-known example. Carson’s work on the impact

of pesticides and pollution on the environment is credited by many as heralding the

environmental movement of the 1960s. Indeed, Silent Spring is even considered as a revival

of the preservation and conservation movement that began about a century before (Beck and

Kolankiewicz, 2000). Jeremy Rifkin’s original work in 1980, Entropy: A New World View, and the revised edition in 1989, Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World, predicted a world rife with global disasters if humanity could not live within the limits of our physical world.9

Rifkin is blunt in his assessment of this path humanity is following: “Our social structure, geared as it is for a maximum energy flow, is no longer sustainable [. . .]. Excessive material wealth is recognized as an irreversible diminution of the world’s precious resources” (p. 240).

McKibben’s (1999 [1989]) contribution, The End of Nature, has often been compared to

Rachel Carson’s book because McKibben introduced the wider public to the threats of global climate change in a similar way that Carson’s Silent Spring introduced the public to impacts of pesticides and pollution. Guggenheim’s 2006 award-winning documentary, An

Inconvenient Truth, like Silent Spring has targeted public awareness in an attempt to direct it toward the severity of global climate change and its effects on almost every aspect of our lives and the earth’s condition. Even with this amount of information available for the environmentally concerned the constant barrage from the mainstream media to ‘buy, buy, buy’ dominates the public sphere, deadening any rational fear or other motivation to change.

9 To explain why we need to live within our ecological limits, Rifkin cites Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s argument that the entropy principle, the second law of thermodynamics, reveals a basic reality that shows that the idea of unlimited growth (a fundamental tenet of capitalism) is an impossible goal. (pp. 20-21) 35

More recently, copious publications from academia which outline with disturbing statistics

the damage incurred over time to our global ecosystems due to overconsumption (Booth,

2004; Cohen and Murphy, 2001; Costanza et al, 2007; Gould et al, 2004; Princen et al,

2002a) have become available.

It is also true that scientists and other experts have also gone beyond their usual

theatre of academic publications to plead with the public to live within the planet’s ecological

limits. In the West, these appeals, such as the warnings publicized by the Union of

Concerned Scientists in 1992, have urged reductions in the consumption of fossil fuels,

forests, and food grown or transported in ways that needlessly damage the environment.

Unfortunately, the ratio of this type of news to other news that conforms more to treadmill

ideals and that privileges treadmill concerns is very low. Booth (2004) reports that “In one

study of press releases on environmental issues, 42 percent came from government agencies,

23 percent from corporations, 17 percent from universities and other institutions, and 17

percent from activist groups” (p. 225). Booth also observes “While government is no doubt

seen as credible source of basic factual information on environmental issues, government

agencies are unlikely to be the author of revolutionary solutions to problems that upset

existing economic arrangements” (p. 225). Connections between global environmental

problems and the overconsumption in the richer, western nations were also made, perhaps

most accessibly and explicitly by Alan Durning (1992), in his oft-cited publication How

Much is Enough which describes the astonishing levels of environmental damage wrought in

only a few decades by the increased consumption levels of the post-war consumer society.

The same year saw the groundbreaking United Nations’ Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro at

which the majority of the world’s nations agreed to the urgency of reaching sustainability.

Thus, awareness of environmental problems and the problem of the unsustainability of

overconsumptive lifestyles is not just known to academics but most certainly to the political 36 leaders of the 178 nations that are signatories to Agenda 21 at the Rio Earth Summit. For everyday people, attaining accurate information without actively searching for it is more problematic. Although there is enough information for the government both to understand environmental problems and the connection with consumption, policies aimed to create concrete behavioural change do not make this connection, neither do they target overconsumption; instead, behavioural change is diverted into harmless, unobtrusive small steps such as recycling or turning down thermostats—items that do not call attention to one’s concerns or fears about environmental damage and allow the treadmill of production/consumption to continue unabated.

Chatterjee and Finger (1994) discuss the mechanics of this diversion of environmental message into rhetoric that suited treadmill concerns at the 1992 Earth Summit. Their observations underline the primary concern of business to control the sustainability discourse so that their interests are not constrained by environmental concerns. Worldwatch Institute’s

2004 publication, State of the World 2004: Special Focus: The Consumer Society reported that despite calls for sustainable practices as agreed at the 1992 summit in Rio, by 2004, it also had seen “little in the way of concrete action” (p. 151) from the organization that is in charge of overseeing the international agreements intended to limit the consumption in richer nations, the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). The United Nations website, for instance, displays a video promoting the policies of the Marrakech Process (the mission statement of which reads: “Towards a global framework for action on sustainable consumption and production”). The video urges the public to reduce energy consumption by turning off home appliances when not in use. Its recommendations do not include, however, the alternatives to the purchase of any items shown such as video games, cell phones, or 37

clothes driers, the production, use, and disposal of which cause huge environmental stress.10

Maniates (2002a) notes the same avoidance of reductions to overconsumption in another UN

(1998) publication: “Remarkable after promising to help forge ‘consumption patterns that are more environmentally friendly’ it takes the Human Development Report just five paragraphs to steer clear of any discussion of overall limits to consumption” (p. 62). The point here is that there are alternatives to the lifestyles depicted as commonly practised. If these alternatives were promoted and shown as accepted and valued by society, the change in levels of overconsumption required for sustainable living might occur; for example, if the alternative to electric dryers, that of hanging laundry, was shown as socially acceptable more individuals might be able to overcome the social mores that discourage this behaviour in many communities. Schnaiberg et al. (2002) explain that “neither the Rio UNCED (“Earth

Summit”) nor the Kyoto (“Climate Change”) conferences have actually undermined the expansionism of the treadmill” (p. 23) even though “states appear” (p. 23) to be constraining overconsumption, they are not in any substantial or effective way. This lack of attention to the problem of overconsumption by powerful international governmental organizations and their public awareness campaigns does not bode well for our environmental future.

The acute environmental awareness generated by Rachel Carson’s book had

dissipated by the late 1970s. Daly (1996) notes “the limits-to-growth debate that started in

the late sixties . . . disappeared with the election of Ronald Reagan” (p. 215). As senior

economist in the World Bank’s environmental department from 1988 to 1994, Daly

witnessed the focus on economic growth or treadmill expansion dampen concern for

ecological limits. This observation of change in the environmental discourse around the

beginning of Reagan’s administration thus parallels Harvey’s (2007) arguments that a radical

10 Alternatives could include non-electronic games for instance but none are displayed. Alternatives could also include the non-purchase of these consumer goods—a room with comfortable, durable furniture made by local artisans and the owners sitting face to face actually conversing with one another rather than interacting with an electronic game or staring passively at the television. 38

change in policy, the ‘neoliberal turn’, occurred with the Reagan and Thatcher

administrations. Records of these leaders show that both had support and influence from

people, Keith Joseph for Thatcher and Milton Friedman for Reagan, and organizations, such

as the Institute of Economic Affairs in London and the Heritage Foundation in Washington,

with strong neoliberal philosophies. Harvey (2007) explains the dominance of neoliberal

ideas from the mid 1970s and onward saw a rising concern with profits for large corporations.

The neoliberal turn led to economic and governing practices that encouraged high levels of consumption to match the growing levels of mass production that funneled large profits into the coffers of the elite who own and control production facilities. These profits allowed more

technological improvements that led to more output at lowered costs again requiring more

consumption.

Individuals have internalized the idea that, in Thatcher’s words: there is “no such

thing as society, only individual men and women . . . and their families” (Harvey, 2007, p.

23), in this world we all had to only look to ourselves and our own efforts to create a good

life. If one worked hard, one could buy all that one required for this good life: not just

material comforts, but health care, pensions and such could be better managed by the

individual. Increased consumption of television sets, video games, SUVs, exotic trips and

fashionable clothes was given as evidence of this improved standard of living—the trickle down effects of deregulation of corporations and less government promoted by the ‘market fundamentalism’ of Reagan and Thatcher—and if one did not acquire such outward manifestations of well-being, then one was just lazy. What the public was not told, however, was that the environmental and social costs were not accurately represented in the prices consumers paid for these items. The costs were externalized to the environment or groups that had become more marginalized with cuts to social programs and organizations. Because the environmental and social costs of strip mines and the clear-cutting of forests are located 39 far from affluent urban and suburban areas, these externalities are not part of everyday awareness. The continuation of overconsumption allows monopoly capital to maintain its profits from overproduction and externalized costs. Messages from both state and capital convince the public that major behavioural change is not required.

Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) also help us understand why awareness has not translated into an effective program of behavioural change for sustainability. They first explain that the measures of public awareness provided by public surveys and other tools of social scientists are: “an accurate description of a grossly inaccurate analysis” (p. 94). They argue that the evidence used to support the idea that the public has become more knowledgeable about and sympathetic to environmental concerns usually comprises two elements: that people “espouse environmental values” (p. 94) and that people “have engaged in additional environmental behaviours” (p. 94). Schnaiberg and Gould’s perspective is that people’s environmental values are only congruent with specific activities that do not have any extreme measures of behavioural change, such as recycling, or not congruent at all since they do not result in substantive environmental improvement. If the required behaviour demanded more effort or sacrifice, as in reality reduced overconsumption does, and if people adhered to these more stringent requirements in behavioural change, these espoused environmental values could be categorized as less superficial.

Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) concluded that people are only aware to a certain extent: the public understands the problem but not how it was caused, nor how serious it is, and especially not to what extent consumption is part of the problem. If people were to understand that their overconsumption was supporting overproduction and if this awareness led to people cutting back on their overconsumption, their actions may then align with their professed values of attaining sustainability. Berger (1997) concurs with Schnaiberg and

Gould, reporting that despite the claim by many of those she surveyed that they espoused 40

“environmental protection as a persistent matter of personal interest . . . behavioral indicators point to limited progress in the translation of these concerns into personal behavior” (p. 51).

I am reminded here of a conversation with a friend who reported that her nieces were recently touting their school’s environmentally friendly new rule of ‘no garbage’ (all students must now bring their lunches in reusable containers). My friend’s communication of this new school regulation led to our questioning of whether or not these same youngsters would be so happily professing their concern for the environment if their sacrifices made inroads into their extensive wardrobe, toy collections, and frequent transportation in the family’s

SUV to school and various extracurricular activities. We surmised that these unsacrificed items might impact the environment more than the small bits of plastic that might come wrapped around the lunch food of her nieces, yet these larger sacrifices were unlikely to be made.

Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) would likely explain my friend’s nieces’ misguided awareness and stunted behavioural change, as due to the deficit of investment in ecological education and research compared with that geared toward treadmill education and research that is dedicated to “production-oriented” science and technology (p. 95). As a society, this is what we teach our children to value as we socialize them at school and at home. For many children the socialization that instills treadmill values involves hours of television viewing.

Schnaiberg and Gould cite the major influence of media in “highlight[ing] the benefits of the treadmill rather than its ecological and social costs” (p. 95). The messages these young girls have received to consume far outweigh the insubstantial message of banning disposable packaging at lunchtime, thus this small show of environmental concern is unlikely to become anything more than a superficial token of environmentally friendly behaviour. I believe that this early socialization to overconsume will remain with these young people for their lifetime, yet it could have been different: if all parents had a more accurate understanding of what 41 must be done to avoid the environmental risks that threaten their children’s future, it is conceivable that many of these parents would take a stronger stand against anyone teaching their children to have highly consumptive habits.

The problem, thus, seems to be that in the West, where consumerism and mass overconsumption originated (Taylor, 1999), the public is acutely aware of the environmental situation; however, this awareness is constrained by the framing of the issues and solutions as perceived by those treadmill interests which benefit most from overconsumption. It is therefore difficult for the public to conceptualize the problem and its solution in ways other than those that do not threaten treadmill structures; that is, in ways that does not threaten or even acknowledge habits of overconsumption.

Environmental Organizations

Comprehensive public awareness of problems is further compromised by the collusion of the Big 10 environmental organizations with that of capital and state elites

(Chatterjee and Finger, 1994). Environmental organizations have played an important part in normalizing environmental destruction and are also complicit in the maintenance of the overconsumption that causes so much of this destruction. One only needs to consider the copious amounts of educational material distributed by environmental organizations that does not confront directly the problem of overconsumption to realize this connection with big business and the conflict of interest suggested by Chatterjee and Finger. The authors note that the organizations known as the ‘Big 10’ are:

among the wealthiest environmental organizations in the United States and probably

in the world. The problem is that they are basically mainstream and effectively

monopolize public support for environmental issues in the United States. Though

they have added some elements of pollution control to their conservationist agenda, 42

they limit themselves to lobbying the political system by calling for more efficient

environmental management. (p. 68)

None of these popular organizations advises their readers to limit their consumption to the basic necessities of life, a reduction that would actually make a difference in environmental impacts.11 The avoidance of targeting overconsumption is especially evident

with Friends of the Earth (FOE). In 2004, this organization published an online report

entitled “Over consumption wrecking the Planet,” yet its primary campaigns do not approach

the issue in any substantive way. There is no specific campaign on the FOE website that

targets unnecessary consumption such as that which Lasn (2000) has with his Adbusters

magazines and its major “culture-jamming” campaigns that ridicule overconsumption and the

advertising that promotes it. Although there is an effort on the FOE website to have

consumers cut down in some areas of consumption, such as their advice to restore or repair

wood products instead of buying new items under the issue of “Saving Forests,” there is no

specific campaign targeting overconsumption at the levels at which it needs to be reduced nor

is there an overarching message that overconsumption is the key target for reducing

environmental impacts. At no place on the FOE website is there mention of the really big

changes that are necessary. Messages such as: foregoing second homes, or the latest home

and wardrobe fashions, cars, diamonds, precious metals, computers, or cell phones are not

evident. Reorganizing our societies in ways that our lifestyles could become truly sustainable

such as those explored by Barton (2000) in his Sustainable Communities: The Potential for

Eco-Neighbourhoods are also not mentioned. Barton’s work addresses the immense change

for which citizens need to campaign; for instance, communities that foster limited resource

use (water, fuel, etc.), local provisioning of necessities such as food provisioning, or local

employment so that non-motorized transport can be used.

11 The 4Rs of waste management, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Recover” (Manno, 2002, p. 94), are listed in order of priority for sustainability, yet in the sustainability promotional literature and campaigns, the third R, ‘recycle,’ is the one given priority. This strategy conveniently avoids any decrease in consumption levels. 43

Organizations within the green movement that align with the idea of fundamental

societal changes are often only those associated with the social ecology or deep ecology

belief systems; for example, The Foundation for Deep Ecology or the Institute of Social

Ecology. Both of these organizations regard industrialization and capitalism as systems

failing to provide true sustainability; however, both are seen as touting extreme, even

dangerous, philosophies. Chatterjee and Finger (1994) explain that the Big 10

environmental organizations are constrained to avoid disrupting the status quo of mass overproduction and overconsumption because to do so would threaten the mainstream support and connections to state and other elites they require to remain influential to environmental policy.

Misinformation and Casting Doubt

Another constraint to a more comprehensive awareness of our environmental plight is

the casting of doubt on environmental science warnings. Although the awareness of

environmental problems is increasing and the public will to ameliorate ecological damage

seems somewhat evident, there is evidence that the connection between consumption and

ecological damage is not widely or accurately made because the media, owned by and in the

service of the treadmill elite, has diverted attention from this connection; and has often gone

on the offensive to maintain and increase overconsumption by using spurious studies to

contradict those from well-respected sources.

Livesey (2002) illustrates an example of the power capital has to frame environmental

awareness in her exploration of ExxonMobil’s structuring of the climate change debate with

their publication of four weekly advertorials in The New York between March and April

2000. Livesey describes these advertorials as effective in convincing the public that

environmentalists and climatologists were extremists who did not have the public’s best

interest at heart: 44

Although pitched to policy makers, the ads address the complex issue in a colloquial

style, with a view to offsetting, in terms familiar in public discourse, the increasingly

dire warnings of climate scientists urged at international climate negotiations and

appearing in the popular press. (p. 127)

In another instance, more recently, private computers were hacked and emails from these computers publicized showing that scientists were ‘tricking’ the public with false data, or so the headlines proclaimed, yet that there were only a few scientists involved and, of these few, only a few emails were selected and then only parts of these emails were taken out of context, misleading the public to believe a “Climategate” had been uncovered (Fogarty, 2010). The public could be forgiven for weighing this evidence of deception more heavily against the many climate scientists who agree that climate change is caused by humans and is dangerous; after all, who really wants to believe that our comfortable lifestyles are destroying the ecosystems that sustain our lives? It is much better and easier to believe that the scientists who make such claims are dishonest and are only trying to gain control of the world through their madcap allegations of human-caused climate change.

Another viewpoint that is widely disseminated to challenge the need for ecological caution is the cornucopian belief that there is plenty in the world for everyone—‘new age’ phrases such as ‘the universe is abundance’ or it’s all good’ come to mind here—a perspective often based upon the mistaken and dangerous idea that natural capital can be replaced by manufactured capital or arguments such as those from Julian Simon (1995) that with technological advances, life will continually improve. These cornucopian ideas are refuted by economists like Daly (1996) who accept the constraints of the thermodynamic law of entropy on economic growth as put forth by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. Hawken,

Lovins, and Lovins (1999) provide a simple metaphor of survival in a mountain snowstorm to illustrate that substitutions cannot be made for the basic requirements of life: 45

You need water, food, and warmth to survive; the resource in shortest supply limits

your ability to survive. One factor does not compensate for the lack of another.

Drinking more water will not make up for lack of clothing if you are freezing, just as

having more clothing will not satisfy hunger. (p. 157)

The message from Hawken et al. is that the benefits those of the cornucopian view argue will be passed on to future generations, such as the machines or technologies that provide more comfortable or convenient living conditions, will not eliminate the basic requirements of life and that these fundamental substances necessary to life are further endangered with the additional ecological stresses that production of these goods and services cause. Even if by some currently nonexistent technology we are able to compensate for the loss of services from our planet’s ecosystems in the future, one has to consider the costs. Hawken et al. quote economist Robert Costanza’s valuing of these services annually at between $36-58 trillion.

For those who think we can afford to substitute human-made capital for natural capital, consideration of the cost of reproducing our ecosystems might prove dissuasive: “it took a

$200 million investment to minimally keep eight people alive for two years in Biosphere 2”

(Hawken et al., p. 153).

Technology may save us from our environmental mess or it may not. Many are hoping that it will, including the elite who research and own such technologies. Ideas such as

“shooting sulphate aerosols into the atmosphere” and other extreme measures that fall under the category of “geo-engineering” are being discussed according to “Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK [because] . . . governments seem incapable of standing up to the vested interests of the fossil fuel lobby, who will use the idea [of geoengineering] to undermine the emissions reductions we can do safely” (Jha, 2009, para. 13). It does seem absurd that humans would try to fix a problem of too much technology and too much consumption with more technology and more consumption in ways that potentially involve 46 more risks when a far easier solution is to reduce consumption levels so that they fall within ecological limits. It is more curious that farfetched and risky technologies are proposed when there already exist alternatives that have stood the test of time, alternatives which more directly address the underlying problems; for instance, ‘autonomous houses’ such as the house designed and built in 1993 by a couple in England that is completely off the grid requiring no outside sources of energy (Vale and Vale, 2002). Alternatives such as autonomous home design are indicative of how effective it is to make changes that do not require risky technology, yet these alternatives are not included in the mainstream repertoire of policy correctives to environmental degradation.

Obfuscation of Green Consumerism and Cause-Related Marketing

Information required for decision making as regards consumer activities is compromised by two obfuscations by capital. These two items of disinformation, green washing and cause related marketing, mislead consumers to think that their purchases are helping decrease environmental damage or social injustices when in many cases they help perpetuate both by avoiding equitable distribution of wealth and encouraging more unnecessary consumption. Products that are labelled ‘green’ use select credentials to promote aspects that do not cause harm, or cause less harm than comparable products, to the environment. However, these credentials can be often fallacious or exaggerated; for example, claiming an improvement where none exits—a deception called ‘green-washing’ by many. Manufacturers, for example, that use wood often claim their products contain recycled content with the implication that this is a new improvement over older methods. Many consumers assume this recycled content refers to post-consumer material when often it is from waste the manufacturer has generated (recycling of post-manufacturer waste). The latter is a method used since the beginning of manufacturing to reduce manufacturing costs 47 providing no new benefits to the environment and thus no improvement to our current ecological crisis.

Cause related marketing (CRM) is “a strategy in which corporate identities and products are connected to charity or non-profit organizations, primarily through the sale of commercial products with a percentage of the profits being channeled to the ‘good cause’ in question” (Littler, 2009, 0. 42). The business that uses cause-related marketing creates a buzz and benign image with well-publicized attention and donations to worthy social causes—such as breast cancer charities—whilst behind the scenes the most damaging practices often continue, more damage than could ever possibly be compensated by the small changes businesses make to display their good will. Starbucks received much good press, for example, when it expressed its concern for the coffee growers by purchasing fair- trade coffee and building schools in the coffee growers’ communities. Meanwhile, because

Starbucks bought so much of the world’s coffee, it dictated the growers’ sale price. These prices, decided by Starbucks, were so unfair that growers’ children starved (Milmo, 2001;

Homes and Smith, 2002). Starbucks made billions of dollars of profit by disregarding growers, a disdain illustrated by the following two photos (Figures 1 and 2) taken at a 48

Starbucks in Osaka, Japan on June 13, 2009:

Figure 1 49

Figure 2

50

What Starbucks is signifying to its customers in the two phrases depicted here on the same tabletop (“I grow the beans” and “So what! I roast them”) is the value of its brand and further commoditization of the coffee experience: Starbucks as the responsible and ethically concerned corporate interest that looks after the uneducated and unskilled growers by taking the inconsumable raw product of coffee bean and morphing it into an edible, richly satisfying experience with its technological know how. The grower is unimportant and interchangeable—a reality confirmed by the price Starbucks pays for the grower’s raw product—on the other hand, Starbucks offers a unique and important service by roasting the beans and brewing the coffee or, showcasing the advanced skills of a talented barista. The overt message for public consumption is one of a corporation that cares and encourages others to care for uneducated workers that have nothing to offer but a raw product. Charity is extended in the form of buying fair trade when cheaper, more exploitative trade is available

(never mind that Starbucks does avail itself of this exploitation for the bulk of its coffee trade) and presenting communities with gifts from the developed world, such as schools. The public image of Starbucks is one of socially responsible corporate entity operating under the free enterprise concept of adding value with advanced technology, showing initiative, and developing the undeveloped. Its customers can feel the same righteousness when they sit in upholstered comfort sipping overpriced beverages at any of the Starbucks stores relieving themselves of any concern regarding those who toil to provide the raw products the west desires.

Both green-washing and CRM are part of what Littler (2009) calls the cosmopolitan caring that eases the concerns of consumers and lines the pockets of producers. All this

‘caring’ being channeled into consumer activity may have been unnecessary if trade laws were more equitable and the residual problems of colonialism had been addressed in the first place. These solutions however, would not benefit corporations; in fact, they may do the 51 opposite, especially if sweatshops needed to close down and foreign environmental laws were enforced. By diverting awareness from global trade inequalities or environmental destruction toward the relatively small amounts of money given to these causes, producers lead consumers to think that their personal indulgences are helping the environment rather than damaging it. Businesses profit from the rising environmental awareness amongst those who can afford the premium-priced goods and services that are advertised as providing ethically and ecologically sound ways of consuming and consumption levels keep rising. By shopping to save our planet we are actually doing the opposite: consuming more and further organizing our lives so that we are dependent on more goods or more services that, in turn, create more environmental damage. Littler (2009), for example, cites a magazine dedicated to ‘living more simply’; that suggests more purchases, such as a “new fridge, noticeboard or walk-in-wardrobe,” are necessary in order to simplify (p. 108). Maniates (2002b) lists even more items that can be consumed for what some call “faux simplicity” (p. 230): “Hondas . . . leather-bound day planners, elaborate time-scheduling computer software, self-contained

Internet-ready personal computers, expensive but easy-to-coordinate business attire, and one- button cell phones” (p. 229).

Illicit Strategies

Some tactics of obfuscation of information used by capital that constrains rational choice can cross the lines of misinformation and enter into the realms of fraud. Broder and

Mouawad (2009) describe one such instance in their look at the recent use of the media by the energy sector that involved forgery:

Energy lobbies are using every tactic in the book to protect their industries, producing

alarming studies about $5 gasoline and other steep cost increases that might result

from a cap-and-trade system. They are also financing protest groups and advertising 52

campaigns. In one case, a public relations firm working for the coal industry even

sent opposition letters to Congress under forged names (para. 8).

The recent hacking of the computers of climate scientists is another example of these desperate illegal measures (Fogarty, 2010). One would surmise that with capital’s privileged levels of influence with both media and government, these illicit strategies would be unnecessary. Fogarty suggests that decision-makers in industries threatened by mounting environmental concern and regulation are beginning to feel that no other options are available, or, perhaps it is a type of arrogance that once one is at this level of wealth and power the chances of being held legally accountable are few.

Players positioned within the top layers of societal stratification, such as the stakeholders in oil conglomerates, accurately see environmental issues such as the climate change debate as threatening their position and power. Livesey (2002) observes: “the issue of climate change, [is] an issue greater in magnitude and potentially more threatening to oil companies than anything that ha[s] gone before” (p. 124). It is understandable that the dominant class will battle against any threats to their livelihood and positions in society. This battle includes using the power they have to frame the issues in ways that are beneficial to their argument and they do so very effectively. Treadmill interests and values are presented as the generally accepted first priority for all—a priority understood by anyone with common sense—in mainstream media. Capital has far more resources to promote this framing than individuals have—even more than environmental organizations, and science organizations and governments combined.

The Myth of Runaway Technology

Another impediment to a more comprehensive understanding of our environmental reality is the commonly disseminated idea that technology is independent of human planning—that it spontaneously occurs—or that it is the creation of insatiable consumer 53 demand. Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) in their discussion of “runaway technology” (p. 86) assert that the term is an obfuscation of the power of certain elite economic actors to choose the direction of technology, allowing the more commonly held view that technology is spawned by aggregate consumer choices or collective consumer demands for technological advances. In their argument they dispel these dominant views and isolate the steps that lead to the new technology before it is presented to consumers or used to increase profits:

first, to design any technological change requires a substantial amount of

money/capital for research and development. . . . Second, to implement a new

technology also requires considerable capital and expertise . . . third, to sustain a new

technology, the application must . . . work. (p. 86)

Their argument also suggests that the paths of dependency that have evolved and continue to evolve are not the aggregate result of the equal participation of all individuals making equal choices based on rationality and equal self-interest.

Although Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) acknowledge the influence of factors other than capital, they argue that decisions to create technological changes “rest most heavily on capital owners and their allocation of funds” (p. 87). They concede that other powerful social forces such as governments and organized labour do influence the course of technological development; but, that these forces are usually also constrained:

Governments can induce or prohibit certain technological changes . . . but these

political controls over economic markets are limited and crude policy tools. More

reasonably, governments in the industrial nations can accelerate or decelerate the rates

of technological change, but they don’t control many of the directions of change . . . a

significant exception to this is the arena of the military. (p. 88)

Consideration of these findings calls into question the perspective of the small-steps approach. If individuals, and even governments and organizations formed in the interest of 54 the public, such as unions, have very little control over the production of technology and the subsequent paths of dependency created by the adoption of these technologies contrary to the dominant narrative that manufacturers are only meeting consumer demand, one must conclude that these paths of dependencies do not occur spontaneously and that the responsibility for these paths of dependencies do not lie with the average individual but instead with those who do the choosing, namely the elite economic actors who benefit from the paths created by the technology.

An illustration of the direction treadmill elites create by their choices in the production of technology is the creation of a built environment conducive to automobiles once these automobiles were mass-produced: the dismantling of the public transportation system of trolley cars by those who supplied the cars as well as those corporate interests that produced the tires and oil these cars required (Schlosser, 2005); the networks of roads built with taxpayers’ dollars (McNeill, 2000; Schlosser, 2005); and, tracts of suburban homes with their attendant shopping malls, motels, and drive-in services, such as restaurants and banks, all connected by highways that are unsafe for walking or cycling thereby necessitating motorized personal transportation. Today, in many North American cities people cannot live without their private cars because of the path dependencies created by myriad decisions made by corporate and government leaders when cheap oil extraction and the mass production of automobiles were established less than a century ago. Obscuring the intentionality of paths decided by an elite who profit tremendously by such decisions is to severely limit factors that help the public understand a big part of how our environmental problems arose. The public needs this information to understand that the path of overconsumption is arbitrarily created and not a predetermined unchangeable aspect of human nature or chance occurrence.

Distancing 55

Public awareness has also been stunted by the separation our modern lives have from the physical foundations of our lifeworld. Inherent to our modern way of life is the distance between the environmental impacts of our consumption choices and us. This distance affects the information we can draw from outward signs of environmental decay. Although all species have a tendency to overrun their environments if not held in check by some form of population control, such as predators and disease, human consumption easily becomes overconsumption when our advanced technology, not only eliminates many constraints on our population growth, but allows for more effects on the environment at more extensive levels at greater and greater distances than any other species.

Our technologies and our attendant explosion of population have increased overconsumption far more than ever experienced in human history (Durning, 1992), causing our collective impact on our environment to reach dangerous intensities; for example, industrialization and the attendant switch from biomass (wood, etc.) to fossil fuels (coal, etc.) for energy was accompanied by the development of petroleum-based fertilizers which then increased agricultural output and consequently resulted in an increased population (Dearing et al, 2007). The result has been a tremendous increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere over the past two centuries leading to changes to our global climate.

This problem of intensified resource use is compounded by distancing which results in a lack of knowledge about what environmental impacts our actions have (Princen, 2002b).

The distancing is relevant for both producer and consumer. Decision-makers at large corporations, much like the absentee landlords Marx blamed for causing the bulk of ecological damage (Foster, 2005), are not generally involved in the direct operations of their concerns and do not experience the damage first hand, nor do they usually need to suffer the effects given that elites can afford luxury residences located far away. It is unlikely that Bill 56

Gates, for instance, lives in close proximity to the landfills that excrete toxic heavy metals

from discarded electronic products.12

This lack of information caused by distancing has several dimensions. Firstly, it is caused by our separation from nature with our modern lifestyles; most of us no longer grow our own food, for example, and most of us are oblivious to the difficulties in doing so.

Secondly, the lack of connection between the urban centres, where we live, and the manufacturing or agricultural areas where our products originate produces an ignorance of the amount of withdrawals from and additions to ecosystems caused by production. If we could not transport our waste to landfills in the less populated areas of our countries (or even, in some cases, abroad), we would soon be forced to deal with the impacts of our overconsumption. Thirdly, with the effects of consumerism, our focus is on the final product—packaged in clean, antiseptic wrapping—we are ignorant of all the materials including the sacrifice of labour, and sometimes life that comprise our purchase. Fourthly, the slow pace of much of environmental destruction belies the intensity and scope of our impacts; for example, it has taken centuries for the effects of climate change to become so apparent that humans can now recognize the changes within their life spans, yet it is only when the effects become readily noticeable that the damage may be too great to undo.

For many scientists these effects of distancing are especially worrisome. Their knowledge and research enables them to comprehend the changes we are causing on a level different from the awareness most of us have. Many of these scientists believe these slow changes will reach a tipping point that will cause ecological collapse to happen very rapidly.

Concerned scientists have been trying to overcome these barriers to awareness of our environmental impacts by conceptualizing the effects in ways that make the changes easier to

12 In China, millions of tons of E-waste from the developed world have led to the heavy metal contamination of the soil, water, and air especially in the town of Guiyu in province of Guangdong see Puckett et al (2002) at www.ban.org.

57 relate to our everyday lives. Deforestation, for example, is sometimes measured in football fields destroyed per minute. These descriptions, while easy to understand, have to compete with the dominant treadmill messages. Industry has far more power with its extensive dissemination of treadmill-orientated messages that are able to easily, effectively, and most times, seamlessly, enter ‘public’ information spheres to counter any scientific evidence that supports more consumptive restraint.

These efforts to counter scientific knowledge have spread throughout the globe to grow and magnify human separation from the ecosystems and life systems upon which we depend to maintain our own life systems, what Cronon (1992) calls ‘first nature’. This separation is a process particularly evident in the loss of the traditions of reverence for resources and avoidance of waste—a process that accelerated with the advent of consumerism. Taylor and Tilford (2000) do not see this lack of connection to first nature as accidental:

Consumer goods come to us via a convoluted global resource network. Each day—

each minute, practically—the life of the modern consumer is filled with hidden

interactions with portions of the planet beyond the horizon, hundreds and often

thousands of miles away. . . . A primary purpose [italics added] of the network is to

make us less beholden to our immediate surroundings. . . . Though the benefits of this

network have been enormous, the tragic aspect is that it has allowed us to participate

in environmental degradations of monumental proportions in a completely

anonymous and unconscious fashion. (p. 482)

Although on the one hand this is a normalized process of what Costanza, Graumlich and

Steffen (2007) interpret as “the current highly technological, globalizing society” (p. 12), where production is located further and further from points of consumption, on the other hand 58 it is also an intentional effect of commoditization, a point Cronon illustrates when he details the processes in the slaughterhouses of Chicago:

The more people became accustomed to the attractively cut, carefully wrapped,

cunningly displayed packages [italics added] that Swift had introduced to the trade,

the more easily they could fail to remember that their purchase had once pulsed and

breathed with life much like their own. . . . Such was the second nature that a

corporate order had imposed [italics added] on the American landscape. (p. 256)

This lack of association by consumers between the products they purchase and the products’ origins, therefore, is not accidental; it appears that this disassociation’s ‘primary purpose’ is to obscure the nature and origins of much of our consumption, an obfuscation that allows

‘business as usual’ to continue. This separation of humans from direct involvement with the origins of the products they consume and the resultant path of further disconnect from the effects of their consumption was magnified with the advent of consumerism after World War

II and also with growing urbanization:

Markets allowed people to look farther and farther afield for the goods they

consumed, vastly extending the distance between points of ecological production and

points of economic consumption. . . . In an urban market, one could buy goods from

hinterlands halfway round the world without understanding much if anything about

how the goods had come to be there. (Taylor and Tilford, 2000, pp. 266-267)

While the natural world is slow in showing extensive damage, with commoditization we are even more removed from the natural world and signals that indicate something is amiss are less likely to be noticed until it is too late. With this second nature our impaired awareness of environmental conditions prevents a full recognition of the precarious situation overconsumption is creating.

Education and Religion 59

Information provided during our formative years and beyond sets the stage for much of our consumption. What is considered natural or the norm creates social expectations and undergirds many of our consumptive choices. As well as the socialization that occurs with one’s early caregivers, the messages encouraging overconsumption occurs in formal educational institutions such as public schools and informal educational places such as workplace training, and religious organizations. Messages might be implicit or explicit; for example, textbooks might include images of people with highly consumptive lifestyles implicitly promoting this as the norm, or workplaces might denigrate messages that challenge the orthodoxy of overconsumption with reminders that employment depends on consumption.

Although individuals are not held at gunpoint and forced to overconsume, the message is clear: ‘jobs depend on people consuming, so get shopping’ or ‘this is the western way of life, so get shopping’. Implicit messages that one needs to consume at a certain level are also inherent to one’s socioeconomic class: middle-class families are often defined as those that can afford home-ownership, for example, and as such, are expected to own a certain type of home in a certain quality of neighbourhood. Not adhering to these implicit ‘rules’ can negatively impact one’s social life and opportunities.

Life training at centres of religion and education has suited the needs of capitalism since early industrial times according to Harvey (1989):

The socialization of the worker to conditions of capitalist production entails the social

control of physical and mental powers on a very broad basis. Education, training,

persuasion, the mobilization of certain social sentiments (the work ethic, company

loyalty, national or local pride) and psychological propensities (the search for identity

through work, individual initiative, or social solidarity) all play a role and are plainly

mixed in with the formation of dominant ideologies cultivated by the mass media, 60

religious and education institutions, [and] the various arms of the state apparatus. (pp.

123-124)

The role played by religion in promulgating messages has recently become more central in condoning highly consumptive lifestyles. Hendricks (2005), in her investigation into the Wise Use movement found that those religions that teach physical life on Earth is a temporary (and often unpleasant) experience compared with an eternity in heaven are encouraging environmentally destructive behaviour so that Armageddon and the Second

Coming of Christ may be hastened. Hendricks claims that some of these religious groups had powerful influence over American environmental policy during the administrations of Ronald

Reagan and George W. Bush. In addition to the influence of these beliefs on the administration of the world’s most powerful nation, this belief system of a temporal and corrupt physical existence unfavourably juxtaposed with an everlasting idyllic afterlife is evident worldwide in places of worship that have more fundamentalist religious orientations.

Political administrations and their policies come and go, however, religious beliefs are integral aspects of identity that are not easily changed and involve intergenerational reproduction in family homes. Dissemination of this information poses a serious challenge to global efforts to rectify human environmental behaviour that is destructive.

Formal education has become particularly adept at creating a population that overconsumes uncritically according to Klein (1999), who describes the corporate infiltration of schools in No Logo. She includes items found in primary and secondary schools:

‘educational’ television programs that cannot be volume adjusted (particularly the enforced two minutes of advertising), book covers with corporate logos, an Internet browser that not only displays ads but tracks the net surfing of students to provide this valuable information to its corporate clients so they may hone their marketing techniques for this cohort, cafeteria menu food items named to promote popular movie or television characters from major 61 corporate studios, and of course, fast-food counters selling food from multinational corporations such as Taco Bell and McDonalds, or soft drinks, such as Coca-Cola. More troubling for the survival of education that is free from corporate interference and advertising is the pressure for schools to allow corporate influence on curricula development. This has also become a problem at the post-secondary level of education. Klein reports on several examples of blatant corporate interference in studies that were prevented publication due to the studies’ conclusions being counterproductive to the aims of the corporation that was sponsoring university activities.

Informal education also provides socialization that conforms to treadmill interests.

Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) maintain that within the education which takes place in the family home and at the workplace with employers, labour unions, and professional associations that are concerned with maintaining business profits: “strong institutionalized forces are at work inducing workers to consume more” (p. 104). Duffy (2007) asserts that interest groups advocating for business concerns often hide their main contributors and true ideological bent. These groups enjoy greater financial resources,13have strength in numbers and they also have power over their employees’ time and attention. In this sense power is often used to broadcast support in the workplace for political candidates that support business concerns. According to Duffy information that creates workers that support treadmill dynamics increases the pressure on politicians to act in favour of treadmill expansion: businesses often “educate and mobilize their employees and the general public in a seamless effort to influence policymakers” (p. 63). Between time spent at home, at school, at work, and with advertising (whether overt or covert), the individual has very little escape from the

13 Duffy (2007) lists the financial contributions to American electoral processes of different industries; for example: oil and gas, mining, forestry, agribusiness, and chemicals, compared with those from environmental groups. The differentials are staggering: $198,345,635 vs. $462, 232 to party committees (unregulated soft- donations) and $34,864,558 vs. $861,898 to environmental committees. 62 information that is geared toward supporting the treadmill orientation of overproduction and overconsumption.

Framing the Issues

Information regarding environmental damage is consistently framed by economic parameters. When the public was mostly unaware of the effects of overconsumption on the environment, treadmill concerns were not under much pressure from the few who were aware, yet as problems with overproduction and overconsumption became more evident, framing the issues became more of an imperative. In order to maintain the path of overproduction and overconsumption, policymakers and other treadmill elites have attempted to minimize the public perception of the seriousness of environmental problems by recommending a small-steps approach that places the responsibility for environmental destruction and any remedies firmly upon the shoulders of individuals. Given the logic that producers are only trying to meet consumers demand, and that consumers are therefore ultimately responsible for the damage caused by production, it is only rational to assume that by changing individual behaviour our planet will be saved. Rather than instituting structural changes that limit capital, curtail wasteful production practices, enhance environmental legislation, address infrastructural issues of transportation or residential developments, and so forth, many governments and environmental organizations issue directives or create programs for the public to adjust their thermostats, turn off lights when they leave the room, and buy green products such as compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Psychology has been influential in shaping this framing of the environmental problematic that individual change is required if we desire environmental change.

Researchers in this area have many theories14 to explain why individuals are loath to display

14 Theories that hold individuals responsible for our ecological dilemmas and support campaigns that target individuals for behavioural change include the human disconnect from nature (Schmuck and Vlek, 2003; Winter, 2003); the influence of worldviews (King, 2005; Koltko-Rivera, 2004); psychic numbing or learned helplessness (Baum, Revenson, and Singer, 2001; Gregory, 2003); maladaptive behaviour as diversions 63 environmentally responsible behaviours. From this perspective, research is focused on the dysfunctional behaviour of individuals and how to change individual behaviour that will in turn aggregate to produce the result of fewer environmental impacts. More recently, a growing awareness of the misplacement of these solutions seems to be occurring within the discipline. In Howard (2000), Oskamp (2000), and Stern (1999), we find more support for the idea that structural constraints—social, as well as physical, and primarily imposed by the needs of production—are impeding remedial environmental behavioural change at the individual level rather than the more conventional idea that environmental damage is a result of individual values or hard-wired and innate human desires.

Another aspect of framing the environmental problematic to preserve the treadmill of overproduction and overconsumption amidst mounting environmental concern is to create doubt in the research findings that indicate environmental damage is occurring or to create an emotional response or political battle over issues inherent to the behaviour involved. Onion

(2005) provides an example of both techniques in her report of how Proctor and Gamble

(P&G) won the debate over using disposable rather than cloth diapers. Onion shows how this powerful corporation used their resources to commission studies and, after, publicize the results from these studies in the media (media to which they had more access than those who criticized P&G’s studies on the basis that they were biased and flawed). Proctor and Gamble and their public relations team exhibited refined strategic skills, similar to Bernays’ tactics discussed on the following page, when they tapped into the social issue of gender discrimination to rally the call of women who felt they were being oppressed by the cloth diaper proponents (Ungar, 1998). The skills and resources of P&G resulted in the continuation of the 18 billion diaper annual contribution to our landfills (Onion, 2005).

(Gregory 2003); rational individual choice theory (Hardin, 1968); evolutionary psychology (Miller, 2001; Scitovsky in Booth, 2004; Veblen 1994 [1899]); learned values, attitudes and behaviours that predisposed individuals to acting destructively towards the environment (Winter and Koger, 2003); and, of course, levels of awareness of our environmental situation (Kaiser et al, 1999). 64

Here we see the ability to frame an issue with the power of extensive financial

resources and access to media. By skewing the data and presenting the issue in terms of

consumer freedoms, especially to those consumers who feel oppressed or marginalized,

Proctor and Gamble were able to emotionalize the issue so that consumers thought more of

potential personal injustices or exploitations rather than calmly assessing whether or not the

more environmentally benign choice of reusing cloth diapers would entail more work.

Diaper services, for example, are comparable in ease to disposable diapers and avoid much

environmental damage including that caused by forest consumption, bleaching and dioxins, packaging and the polluting of landfills with plastic and human waste which contains viruses that may be transmitted to sanitation workers or even end up in the water table.

Unfortunately, after the 1990 study commissioned and publicized by Proctor and Gamble, many parents made the decision to use disposable leading to a decline in the availability of diaper services (Onion, 2005).

Curtis (2000a) notes the same technique of emotionalizing an issue in his description

of Edward Bernays campaign to get women to smoke tobacco in the early 1900s. The

tobacco industry was concerned at this time that it was losing half its market due to the social

convention that women should not or did not smoke. Bernays consulted a Freudian

psychologist who explained that women wanted the power, which could be symbolized by

the penis, that men held in society; therefore, if women were told that smoking was a

demonstration of independence and individual power, cigarettes would serve as a symbol of

the penis, or the power, that men had. Whether this is what helped Bernays convince a large

group of young women to light up en masse during an Easter Day parade we may never

know, but Bernays’ campaigns for the tobacco industry saw a major turn of events for this

social behaviour and Big Tobacco never looked back. 65

Harvey (2007) explains this ‘emotionalizing technique’ of influencing the public with key words and ‘common sense’ logic that target emotional issues:

Cultural and traditional values (such as belief in God and country or views on the

position of women in society) and fears (of communists, immigrants, strangers, or

‘others’) can be mobilized to mask other realities. Political slogans can be invoked

that mask specific strategies beneath vague rhetorical devices. The word ‘freedom’

resonates so widely within the common-sense understanding of Americans that it

becomes ‘a button that elites can press to open the door to the masses’ to justify

almost anything. (p. 39)

In this way, powerful corporations have manipulated the emotions of countless individuals who, unaware of the use of these rhetorical strategies, react strongly with indignation or anger in ways that favour treadmill concerns. Even with awareness or cynicism of the techniques of manipulation in advertising, the words used are so evocative they can catch even the most sophisticated person unprepared for the emotional reaction that ensues. Harvey’s example of the word ‘freedom’ is especially pertinent in America as Kraft and Kamieniecki (2007) point out: “Positive value frames like ‘choice’ and ‘freedom’ lie at the core of any discursive argument made by business, forcing opponents to devise frames that speak to similarly potent values of ‘equity’ or . . . an iconic image of undisturbed ‘beauty’” (p. 49).

Kraft and Kamieniecki (2007) also describe the power capital has in creating these public understandings, how it helps build these cultural values, and how invested it is in these strategies:

Business works hard to shore up its preferred discursive frames, directly through

public relations and advertising campaigns, indirectly through financial support for

libertarian conservative think tanks . . . . Such strategic, long-term support for the

generation and dissemination of libertarian ideas has paid off with the clear 66

dominance of the market frame in virtually every area of the environmental and

energy policy debate, to the point that environmentalist invariably are forced to start

out by defending any government ‘intrusion’ into the market . . . . Even if different

elements of the business community and their respective peak associations disagree

occasionally on specific policy proposals, . . . they typically align on core values and

agendas. More important, those values are promoted as naturally ‘American’. (p. 49)

Accusations of being un-American quickly and concisely paint any alternatives that challenge the treadmill in unflattering shades. The pioneering spirit and independence that are often cited as the founding principles of America, for example, are traits that are admired and fiercely defended. Capital and state elites are adept at trotting out these traits out to display their own compatibility and oneness with the public mind—a technique of persuasion

Livesey finds in the theories of Kenneth Burke: “identification between rhetor and audience becomes the pre-condition and primary means of persuasion; effective persuasion is speech

‘in the language of a voice within’” (Livesey, 2002, p. 120). Persuasion through identification based on false pretenses is manipulation; unfortunately, few of those convinced by these emotional measures ever stop to ponder how little their political leaders or the owners of corporations have in common with the majority of voters.

The Freedom to Buy: Consumer Sovereignty

In order to maintain the treadmill overproduction and overconsumption from which it benefits, capital often makes the argument that overconsumption cannot be adjusted without unfairly constraining the power of consumer sovereignty. It is questionable whether unfairness toward consumers is really the issue when consumers are regularly deceived about the effects of their purchases on the environment. The power of consumer sovereignty, or consumer authority, is also questionable when juxtaposed with the power of monopoly capital. 67

Consumers have little control over the production levels of monopoly capital, because the organization of these powerful economic actors allows their control over almost all aspects of production and consumption. Starting from the extraction of raw materials, which in many cases monopoly capital has “joint ownership in such primary or secondary industries,” (Schnaiberg, 1980, p. 224) and following along to the manufacturing or production of the goods which is made highly efficient (read: less skilled, expensive human labour required) with the latest mechanical and chemical technologies—control over expenses is high. The vast networks that maintain the sales and distribution of the products of these entities allow high visibility in the marketplace, low price points, and the ability to take over quickly any competition that dares threaten their market share. The global coffee store Starbucks is a good example of a corporation that has acquired control over its raw materials supply, extensive sales and distribution and a low-paid workforce, though well trained and efficient. Starbucks routinely purchases any coffee shops that are popular, sometimes reforming them under the Starbucks logo and sometimes keeping the original store name with the aim to create the appearance of competition to their brand. With this type of control over the coffee beverage market and accurate information pertaining to this industry, how informed are consumers’ choices?

Another aspect of the paucity of informed choice amongst consumers is the extensive use of advertising to influence consumers. Monopoly capital has the financial resources to infiltrate the media with advertising whether overt or covert, such as product placement in movies or television shows, so that their products gain the most exposure to the public whereas smaller businesses do not have these advantages. Princen et al. (2002b) cite advertising as one of the “contextual social forces” (p. 15) that downgrades consumer authority to somewhat of an illusion. Princen et al. (2002c) claim that the idea of freedom of consumer choice might be accurate if “industr[ies] did indeed merely ‘respond’ to consumer 68

demand. A $170 billion annual bill for advertising in the United States . . . not to mention

massive lobbying of governments . . . suggest otherwise” (p. 322).

Another freedom that is given much social currency is the right of consumers to their

highly consumptive lifestyles: they work hard for their money so they deserve to buy

whatever they like with their hard-earned dollars. Is it, however, consumer choice to have

these lifestyles? This type of consumer authority is called into question by the mainstream

media networks’, networks such as CBC television network in Canada or the American

television networks NBC, CBS and ABC, restrictions of alternative messages; for example,

the Adbusters’ ads that contradicted the ethic of mass overconsumption, such as

“Autosaurus” and “Buy Nothing Day,” were refused air time by all these major networks

with the exception of CBS, which only relented to air the “Buy Nothing Day” ad after the

attention of Wall Street Journal reporter was stirred to inquire as to why CBS was refusing to carry the ad (Lasn, 2000). As one of the founders of Adbusters, Kalle Lasn is in no way confused about the reasons mainstream networks do not carry messages questioning overconsumption in the West; the networks themselves provided the reasons with some of them blatantly siding with business interests:

‘We don’t want to take any advertising that’s inimical to our legitimate business

interests.’—NBC network commercial clearance manager Richard Gitter

‘This commercial [‘Buy Nothing Day’] . . . is in opposition to the current economic

policy in the United States.’—CBS network’s Robert L. Lowary. (pp. 32-33)

Despite this evidence of media bias in airing messages that only conform to the ethic of

overconsumption for economic growth reasons, the orthodox narrative is that consumers have

autonomy and because they are autonomous entities, they are responsible as individuals for

current environmental problems as well as their solutions. 69

Consumer sovereignty is a poor substitute for the more organic type of individual sovereignty described by Lodziak (2002). Lodziak compares consumer autonomy with the more conventional concept of individual and collective autonomy derived from fair work conditions and social benefits and finds the former lacking. Consumers have been sold the idea by capital and state elites that this is the only type of independence and control they require: if one can choose to buy anything and everything on every market it stands to reason that one is free. One must ask, however, is it freedom of choice when consumers are prevented access to all options whether actual products or alternatives to consumption in the first place? There are many alternatives to our overconsumptive lifestyles and even alternatives to the products we consume with these lifestyles if we choose to continue to use them, yet few of us will consider these alternatives due to lack of exposure or because the idea, if it occurs to an individual spontaneously, seems too far removed from the norm of overconsumption to be socially acceptable. The label ‘eco-freak’ has not yet become a desirable form of identification.

Individualization of Responsibility

Pushing the responsibility on to individuals has created a club of millions in the West who are left bemused, confused, disillusioned, or worse, immobilized with feelings of guilt, fear, or powerlessness by the inability to do any more than the smallest of the small steps governments and environmental organizations assure us will halt our descent into ecological hell. They wonder as they rinse and de-label their tin cans, perhaps even driving them to the recycling depot, if the energy and resources they use is more than what is used in manufacturing more cans. As cyclists, they find themselves wishing for safe bicycle lanes as they negotiate rush hour traffic with hundreds of impatient drivers of vehicles many times their mass on highways subsidized by their tax dollars. They lament the cost of installing solar panels and other forms of alternative energy that have been developed but not mass- 70

produced or sometimes not even made available even though the present energy production

systems worsen global warming. And they struggle against the effects of constant advertising

to eliminate purchases of unnecessary items that their ‘environmentally aware’ children insist

they must have or that their own peers insist they themselves need, all the while trying to

deny the reality of how the production and disposal of unnecessary items threatens their

children’s future.

Treadmill elites have been able to avoid the expense of the big structural changes

necessary by teaching that environmental damage is the responsibility of individuals and

insisting that the focus of necessary changes be directed to small steps that individuals can

take, a process Maniates (2002a) labels the “individualization of responsibility” (p. 45).

Maniates describes this process as:

[the] increasingly dominant, largely American response to the contemporary

environmental crisis . . . [which] understands environmental degradation as the

product of individual shortcomings . . . best countered by action that is staunchly

individual and typically consumer based . . . . It embraces the notion that knotty

issues of consumption, consumerism, power, and responsibility can be resolved neatly

and cleanly through enlightened, uncoordinated consumer choice. (p. 45)

Although Maniates sees this individualization of responsibility as partially growing out of

long-standing American values such as belief in the autonomous individual, Harvey (2007) understands its recent application to environmental problems as an aspect of the neoliberal turn. The general public has been further indoctrinated by mainstream media to extend the value of autonomy to social problems. Court (2003) asserts that research funded by capital, whether at think tanks or universities, books, articles, and television shows such as “a TV version of Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose” promoted the values of individualism and less 71 state control, unless it was in the service of business at which point it should be used

“aggressively and with determination” (cited in Harvey, 2007, p. 44).

From the neoliberal perspective, individuals are personally responsible for their own successes or failures: the market, with its internal logic of accrued individual decisions, can provide all solutions to social problems including environmental degradation. In this way, individuals are responsible for environmental problems and the solution lies with their purchases in the market place. The commonly accepted argument is: if the majority of people care about the environment, they will buy the products to preserve it; if the majority does not care about the environment, then that reality will be expressed in the market. This is our democracy: freedom of choice in the marketplace. If we democratically choose to overconsume we can only blame ourselves for the result. This consumer authority, however, is not as commanding as the public is led to believe, as argued in the previous section.

According to Maniates (2002a), those holding this perspective of consumer authority teach that for individuals to change the world all they need to do is “speak politely, and individually, [italics added] armed only with the facts” (p. 45). Harvey (2007) makes similar observations when he notes the neoliberal aversion to social solidarity and theorizes that it is in actuality fear of mob rule since this is indeed powerful. The upshot as understood by both authors is that government and collective organizing should be left to the experts— individuals can vote with their pocketbooks. If the only choice for individuals is that of choosing between products decided by capital and choosing between individuals who are likely linked to capital at election time, how much responsibility does the average individual have? How much power when allowed only to speak as individuals and politely at that?

Individuals, of course, have far less power to act against powerful economic actors

such as corporations, and the facts, often difficult to access, are always open to

interpretation or framing. The ability to dominate the framing of issues is a privilege 72

of power and money possessed by the elite in their wide access to the mainstream

media which they own15—a reality made apparent in the struggle between the

provincial government of Alberta and the environmentally concerned citizens in

Winning Back the Words (Richardson, Sherman and Gismondi, 1993).16 Facts are

given far more credence when relayed by powerful entities such as the state and

corporations and the experts paid by corporations. When Livesey (2002) analyzed the

ExxonMobil advertorials in The New York Times in March and April 2000, she found

the oil giant’s framing of the issue from an economic perspective dependent upon

their claim to technological know how; that is, that Exxon presented itself as having

the knowledge to guide Americans away from the precipice of the climate change

crisis. This framing of the environmental problematic in newspapers and other media

has made it difficult for individuals to see the problem in any other light than one that

can be solved by experts who should be left alone to do this difficult work of

managing problems caused by individual behaviour while individuals contribute in

the only way they can: small-steps that are usually based in consumer activities.

These small steps, however, are ultimately ineffectual in making any noticeable

change to the environmental problems caused by overconsumption and dissuade us

from taking the big steps that are necessary such as completely reorganizing our lives

so that overconsumption is minimized.

This framing of our environmental problems maintains overconsumption because solutions never attend to the overriding constraints that prevent substantial behavioural change.

15 “2 per cent of the publishers control 75 per cent of the books published in the USA” (Harvey, 1989, p. 160). “There is overwhelming evidence for massive interventions on the part of business elites and financial interests in the production of ideas and ideologies: through investment in think-tanks, in the training of technocrats, and in the command of the media” (Harvey, 2007, p. 115). 16 Not only did these politically active citizens have a difficult time presenting their facts against the government and industry hired experts, once their argument was heard and accepted by environmental impact assessment board, the provincial government proceeded with the contested construction of the paper mill despite the national government’s outlawing of further development in this environmentally sensitive area. This presents disturbing evidence of the power corporations and state officials have to run roughshod over democratic processes. 73

In addition to causing more consumption, sometimes the small-steps are not as helpful as they appear. Recycling, for instance, often requires remanufacturing involving more withdrawals from and additions to ecosystems further pollution or resource extraction as

Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) explain:

Recycling is only slightly more ecologically efficient than the simple discarding of

wastes. This is because modern industrial societies have chosen to recycle not by

reusing consumer and producer wastes, but by remanufacturing them. (p. 94).

Schnaiberg and Gould further conclude that waste management solutions that involve reducing consumption or reusing items already produced would result in lowered profits for economic elites who are tied to treadmill overproduction and overconsumption, so in the past that option has not been supported: “Ecologically, it would be best to limit production and use of these recyclable products; second best would be to reuse materials . . . . Thus, the dominant version of recycling is hardly compatible with sustainable development” (p. 95).

Items that are less detrimental to the environment and in some cases better for human health, such as the glass bottles that were available for dairy products before producers decided to use cardboard cartons. These cartons leak dioxin into the products contained within presenting risk to the humans that consume the contents, yet bottles are not used because these alternatives are less convenient and more costly for producers. Inconveniences in recycling these containers and costs, such as environmental or health, are instead passed on to the consumer.

The focus on the responsibility of consumers rather than the responsibility of producers also avoids the environmental damage caused in the production of consumer items and by organizations, such as corporations or government. Powerful organizations such as governments and business cause more environmental destruction either directly in their operations or indirectly (by controlling the behaviour of those who do) than individuals or 74 households. This destruction has been occurring for centuries for the benefit of a small class of elite who own or control production as argued by Marx in his critique of Malthusian explanation of soil depletion that put the blame on poor tenant farmers (Foster, 2000), yet researchers often seek solutions for our environmental plight by examining the behaviour of individuals. As an example, in their exploration of anthropogenic climate change (or global warming), Parker, Rowlands, and Scott (2003) acknowledge that residential energy use is only “22 percent of global energy use” (p. 171), yet, their research focuses on how to change household energy. Oskamp (2000) maintains similar estimates when he states that one-third of greenhouse gases emissions come from households; however, he takes the bold step of asserting that the remaining two-thirds of emission cuts must come from corporations and government rather than looking for ways to convince individuals to change. Stern (2000) also proves insightful when he makes the connection and holds organizations more accountable than individuals and their households:

organizations usually do more to degrade the environment than individuals and

households—sometimes far more [:] . . . in the early 1980s . . . households

accounted for about one third of U. S. energy use [and] data on carbon dioxide . . .

show that households are directly responsible for slightly less than half of its

emissions and have been since the 1970s . . . . (p. 523)

With these statistics one must wonder why the responsibility for environmental care is down to the individual practising small steps, such as turning off lights when he or she leaves the room. This solution presents the problem as though the initial consumption of materials and energy in production does not count—the entire problem is at the consumer end—and that the problem at the consumption end requires only minute adjustments in consumption levels.

This understanding of the problem creates an ineffectual awareness that benefits treadmill elites, but does nothing to rectify the increasing destruction of our earth’s ecosystems. It also 75 presents the problem without acknowledging the decisions that have forced this responsibility onto individuals; for this, we need to look at the externalizing of costs that lead to the relocation of responsibility onto individuals.

Externalization of environmental and social costs. There are many ways that monopoly capital is able to externalize costs and deny responsibility; for example, unnecessary withdrawals from and additions to ecosystems occur when packaging or other containers are used to make commodification easier and more profitable for producers. The cost of packaging and responsibility for dealing with its disposal is displaced onto the consumer. If corporations were responsible for recycling bottles and cans, their expenses for transportation, collection, and cleaning would rise. It is much easier and cheaper to transfer this responsibility to individuals (who lack the political clout to resist). Maniates (2002a) explains how producers managed to evade this extra cost and responsibility in the 1970s when corporations spent millions of dollars to defeat the bottle bill. This bill, as Schnaiberg et al (2002) explain, would have cost business millions if not billions had it passed. Instead,

“recycling, by stressing the individual’s act of disposal not the producer’s acts of packaging, processing, and distribution, fixes primary responsibility on individuals and local governments” (Maniates, 2002a, p. 58). This reduction in corporate expense also eliminates any incentives to reduce the environmental impact of packaging. Had the public organized and confronted this obfuscation of environmental policy, individuals would have been saved the time and expense of recycling materials. This lack of political will and public participation has resulted in untold costs of time and energy for individuals as they waste time and energy washing cans for businesses to ‘recycle17’ and considerable savings and benefits for producers. Despite this environmental destruction caused by producers’ evasion of responsibility and huge profits gained in the process by the elite, the public has been taught

17 Maniates (2002) explains that much of the material sits awaiting recycling because corporations do not want to pay for the materials. Additionally, by creating this backlog of recycling and eyesore at storage facilities, it discourages further public pressure for more recycling. 76 that the damage is slight, that jobs depend upon it, and that it is only right that individuals clean up the mess ‘caused’ by their consumption.

Externalizing the costs to consumers, to ecosystems, or to workers in developing nations reduces the costs of producing and reduces prices consumers ostensibly pay for the products initially. Yet further on, in time or space, more costs are incurred. By legislating producers to internalize these costs by paying for the clean up of pollution in production, paying a fair wage, and paying for the cost to have the product dismantled at the end of its life would have all costs reflected in the price of the products. If the true costs of the product from cradle to grave are passed on to the consumer, he or she can then make a better decision about the true costs of consuming that product as Hibbard et al. (2007) assert:

In terms of the environment, the market sends out the wrong signals, and producers

and consumers engage in ‘over-consuming’ environmental resources. One way to

correct this problem and create the appropriate deceleration of environmental

degradation is to ‘internalize’ these external costs. (p. 358).

Higher prices that internalize environmental and social costs could encourage conservation or at least remove the illusion for consumers that these goods and services do not entail environmental (and social) injustices. Internalizing these costs would create more accurate information in financial accounting according to the former senior economist for the World

Bank’s environmental department, Herman Daly (1996). If somehow the loss of future access to resources could also be imposed on manufacturers, this would make the cost to these producers again higher and increase the price of goods again allowing consumers more accurate information upon which to make rational choice. Accurate pricing and accounting of the environmental and social costs of production would allow consumers a more informed decision-making process of choosing which products and lifestyles they want, if they are choosing to satisfy a basic need; however, the paucity of accurate information is not the only 77 constraint to rational choice. Rational choice is often constrained by the manipulation of deep psychological needs of which most consumers are only dimly aware.

Rational Choice’s Hierarchy of Preferences and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In Rational Choice Theory, external influences on behaviour include information, institutional constraints and opportunity and costs. Friedman and Hechter (1988) indicate these external constraints play a more important part than the influence of the hierarchy of preferences which has to do with personal values and is, therefore, difficult to account for owing to variability amongst individuals.

Maslow’s (1943) theory of human motivation based on the hierarchy of needs offers an elaboration of the hierarchy of preferences in Rational Choice Theory. According to

Maslow, human beings must satisfy their physiological needs first; for instance, thirst, hunger, or fatigue, before moving on to the next concern of security, safety, and stability.

After these basic needs have been met, Maslow expected the requirements of love and community to be sought. Finally, after assured love and community an individual could look for self-esteem, respect from others and self-actualization (or the fulfillment of one’s potential).

If the two theories, Rational Choice and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are combined, one might suppose that after the external constraints have narrowed an individual’s choices, preferences for the remaining choices could, very well rely on what needs were left wanting; for example, if one lives in middle-class America where the physiological needs of food, clean water, and a relatively clean environment are met, the next step on the list of preference for satisfaction would be needs for security, love and belonging. If these are satiated, the individual might look for self-respect, personal achievement, and the respect of others. What is interesting is that in middle-class America, where material wealth has sufficiently covered 78 the basic needs, advertisers consistently target the higher needs of love, belonging, self- respect and respect from others, and sometimes even self-actualization.

A good example of this is the orientation of Starbucks’ public promotion as described by Scott Bedbury’s narrative. Bedbury (2005) recounts how he, and others involved in developing the ‘brand’ of Starbucks, used Maslow’s theory:

Starbucks was less about engineering a great cup of coffee than it was about providing

a great coffee experience. We went a little further up Maslow’s pyramid and found

ourselves thinking well outside the cup[;] . . . [about] Maslow’s idea of human

motivation . . . which places complex needs at the top, above the basics of survival . .

., feelings such as the yearning to belong, the need to feel connected, the hope to

transcend, and the desire to experience joy and fulfillment. (p. 2)

Stanley Plog (2005) describes how Maslow’s theory is translated into the Starbucks brand experience:

an environment where people can create their own personal psychological space. The

Starbucks atmosphere invites guests to slow down and relax, converse with friends, or

read a paper. Since each cup of coffee is brewed separately and patrons make their

own choices of combinations of flavors and enhancements, it conveys a message of

personality and individuality to each customer. (p. 286)

Essentially, then, what drives the success of Starbucks stores is the exploitation of consumers’ more complex emotional needs based on humanistic psychological theory derived from Maslow’s theory to create a brand experience—a process described previously in the history of consumerism.

It seems if brands can attend to or help foster satisfaction of these needs, customers are likely to be attracted to them. The creation of the brand also entails emotional work by the store’s staff. Employees are encouraged to tap into the physical reality to explore the 79

hidden psychological needs of the consumer. Jesse Hempel describes a board game

Starbucks sent out to managers in October 2005 to train counter staff before the Christmas

rush:

You’re a Starbucks barista facing a line of 10 customers. One orders an eggnog latte

and sighs in exhaustion. It’s up to you to guess why. These are the rules of Inside

Out, . . . . The goal, to be hammered home during training sessions, is to challenge

baristas to connect with customers . . . figure out how to cheer up the customer (you

might ask about the bags of presents—gift cards make nice stocking stuffers!), and

everyone’s a winner. (Hempel, 2005)

The Starbuck’s example illustrates the pervasive marketing that allows capital powerful

influences over the psychological and social aspects of consumption, thereby contributing to the increase in environmental impacts driven by consumption as people are driven to overconsumption by inner forces they do not understand or are not aware of having.

In critical theory, there is a long tradition of citing the media, owned by the elite and

in the service of promoting this group’s interests, for construction of our collective

expectations and desires in order to maintain contemporary forms of this treadmill of

production (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944; Chomsky, 2002; Curtis, 2002; Marcuse, 1991

[1964]). Advertising has engendered what Marcuse (1991) [1964] labelled “false needs”

which have been added to our “true needs” (pp. 4-5), another term for what Maslow labelled

‘basic needs’. It seems also that as capital increases its creation of needs—and thus, one

might suspect, a very needy type of consumer—workers are increasingly called upon to

satisfy these needs amounting to what Hempel referred in her article’s title as ‘therapy with

your latte’. Hempel provides an excellent example of how advertising, has evolved to exploit

fundamental human tendencies for social display oriented toward the basic needs of 80 reproductive success (Dawson, 2003; Schaefer, 2005), as well as belonging, identity, and meaning construction.

The post-1945 public has been increasingly subjected to manipulations of their emotional, social, and physical worlds to accommodate the ever-increasing demand for profit by those who own production or the shareholders who directly benefit from it (Curtis, 2002).

In “No Logo,” Naomi Klein (1999) describes the relatively recent rise of ‘the brand’ which has infused western populations with the belief only a recognized logo can validate one’s individuality:

The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multinational

corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single,

seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980s: that

successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products. (Klein

p.3)

For many the ‘brand’ has become the instant mark of identity, a mark necessary in our fast- moving, anonymous lives in cities. Cushman (1990) explains this process of easy social identification originated from the beginning of the industrial era: as people migrated to the cities for work, they lost their sense of “community, tradition, and shared meaning” (p. 600).

Leahey (1992) maintains that without this community and shared meaning, “new ways of life had to be learned” (p. 312). Cushman tells us that these new ways of life included using material possessions to fill up an emptiness caused by lack of belonging and meaning. He argues that this empty self:

is a self that seeks the experience of being continually filled up by consuming goods,

calories, experiences, politicians, romantic partners, and empathic therapists in an

attempt to combat the growing alienation and fragmentation of its era. (p. 600)

Branding is cited as Klein as the most successful evolution in advertising. 81

Further progress in tapping consumers’ emotions has also created an era of elevated consumerism in the last two decades; for instance, brands and their shticks can serve to enhance our emotions: we feel important and individualistic when we order our specific combo at Starbucks. We feel validated and understood when a sales clerk sympathizes with our stressed out appearance. We transport to a different time and place away from the daily grind of reality when we attend movies, visit amusement parks, or relax at exotic spas, what

Raz (1997) criticized as the colonization of our minds “through indulgence” (p. 214).

This colonization creates a type of dependence or addiction on easy solutions to stresses caused by our busy lives; for instance, buying a pair of sports shoes to fit in rather than learning interpersonal skills that nurture authentic relationships with others, taking a trip to an exotic location to relax rather than investing time in physical activity or learning daily relaxation techniques. Perhaps it is easier to spend one’s free time watching television seven hours everyday; but what new skills or talents are being developed that would help us create an authentic identity not to mention build a community of friends and associates with similar skills and interests? When we depend on the quick fix of commoditized emotional work and the products associated with it to assuage our worries, boredom, and dissatisfactions we have lost an opportunity to have a richer life which can only lead to more dependency on external props to give us what we need.

Daniel Miller (2001) argues, this communication with brands to which Cushman refers can be “extraordinarily eloquent” (p. 225). As we pass each other hurriedly on the crowded streets of cities, we sense those who are like us and those who are not, a process that enables us to live in such crowded, unnatural environments. One might argue, wherein lies the problem? Post-modernists like Daniel Miller argue that there is no problem; however, when one extrapolates to the natural environment and what we are doing to it with this type of instant communication, community formation based on individual identification, and 82

communities built on brand recognition rather than authentic relationships with others, the

problem becomes clearer. These communities and the consumer practices that drive them

obfuscate the heavy environmental and human costs that make these communities of brand

identification possible. It is also more condemning that this raised consumption was

developed, not for the betterment of society as publicly portrayed, but in the interests of

treadmill elites as in evident in the history of consumerism.

Representing years of psychological research, using primarily Maslow’s hierarchy of

needs, corporate interests have been able to influence the deepest urges of consumers without

their awareness of how deeply our emotions are effected (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Curtis,

2002; Lasn, 2000; O’Shaughnessy and O’Shaughnessy, 2003). Academic journals such as

the Journal of Consumer Psychology and the Journal of Consumer Research attest to the

amount of information at corporate disposal. As a result, overconsumption, mostly

stimulated by advertising in the service of capital (Durning, 1992; Schor, 1998; Taylor and

Tilford, 2000), has steadily increased in its intensity and reach since the beginning of the 20th century but ever more so since the end of World War II. This powerful advertising influence must be considered when assertions of consumer authority and free will place the responsibility for our environmental disorganization on the shoulders of consumers. When psychological manipulation and the framing of environmental information to avoid connections with overconsumption, as well as how the molding of young minds toward consumption in our education system serves treadmill interests and the last refuge of individual choice becomes co-opted to treadmill interests (Klein, 1999; Schnaiberg and

Gould, 1994), the idea of a consumers’ sovereignty then is questionable at best.

Expanding Production Requires Expanding Consumption

In order to understand the connection between our consumption and our worsening

environmental predicament, it is important that consumers understand the history of 83 consumerism and how this culture was created by owners of production in their interests

(Bocock, 1993). Such an understanding is necessary to have a more critical view of consumerism and its central premise of overconsumption. It might be useful here to again contemplate what is overconsumption. As Princen et al. (2002b) discern it is firstly consumption over which we have a choice: if we choose to not consume an item, our physical survival and health is not endangered and the systems upon which survival depends are not threatened. Although some items could be considered to fall under the heading of overconsumption because consuming these items is unnecessary, not all overconsumption is unsustainable making this last distinction integral to the definition. This definition excludes the amount and variety of food to sustain a healthy body: it does, however, include the mountains of food we consume that cause obesity or luxury foods transported over far distances to be consumed out of season. It does not include the consumption of materials for shelter and clothing, but it does encompass the multiple renovations dictated by home fashions or large collections of shoes and other clothing items so that we may dress to reflect the latest in style. Remembering that the distinction is unnecessary consumption, we must also keep in mind that overconsumption is defined by the ultimate result of undermining our survival.

The history of consumption as outlined by Bocock (1993) reveals that owners of production encouraged overconsumption in order to relieve themselves of their stockpiles of goods derived from the new technologies which enabled mass production. Bocock’s research aligns with Schnaiberg’s (1980) social structure of competition for markets amongst businesses—the third element in Foster’s (2005) explanation of these embedded structures: competition between businesses necessitated expanded production with new technologies.

Producers used advertisements and other media to change the ‘needs’ of the public so that they met the newly increased levels of mass production. Curtis (2002) provides vivid 84 examples of these inducements in his documentary series; for example, film footage of a well-known socialite who implored her listeners to not be so boring but to express themselves better through their material possessions, such as clothing, is presented to illustrate the cajoling of the public that was necessary in order that they began to consume more.

An important aspect of increasing the needs of the masses was commoditizing more and more goods and services so that the public was dependent on the producers for goods rather than relying on traditions of home production or small cottage production (Bocock,

1993; Curtis, 2002; Manno, 2002). Unlike the usual understanding that production levels are what they are due to consumer demand, we see that it was consumption levels that were raised in order to accommodate production, for early mass production was only profitable if large numbers of products were sold. The public was convinced to consume more by created needs and also with more overt messages of economic benefits that would accrue to the nation. Durning (1992) calls this arrangement the “‘democratization of consumption’” asserting that it “became the unspoken goal of American economic policy” (pp. 29-30). By

‘democratization of consumption,’ Durning means that the treadmill was allowed to provide everyone the same level of material comfort if the public would do its part by providing the labour and the market. If people worked hard and consumed so as to contribute to economic growth, the producers would be happy, the government would be happy, and the public would be happy. The definition of happiness became material wealth or material acquisition:

industrialized societies spread the wealth sufficiently to keep the machines humming,

the workers working—and usually buying. In short, outside the Soviet sphere, the

enormous revolutions in production permitted—and required—enormous revolutions

in consumption. (McNeill, 2000, p. 318)

Consumers were satisfied to purchase uniform, mass-produced products until the 1920s. Up until that point, people were not so much ‘consumers’ as they were ‘needers’—they bought 85 products that were required and used them until they wore out. Advertisements reflected this orientation—products were sold on the basis of need. Around this time, owners of production were becoming concerned with unsold stocks of products:

What the corporations realized they had to do was transform the way the majority of

Americans thought about products. One leading Wall Street banker, Paul Mazer of

Lehman Brothers, was clear about what was necessary: ‘We must shift America from

a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire to want new things

even before the old had been entirely consumed. (Curtis, 2002a)

Since his success with convincing women to smoke (and increasing the tobacco producers’ profits), Freud’s nephew Bernays had been helping other corporations, such as clothing and banking interests, increase their sales with the use of celebrity touts. Bernays was called upon once again to help corporations sell their products by creating “Happiness

Machines,” a joint creation of the minds such as Mazer, Walter Lippman, and Bernays for whom President Hoover oozed a congratulatory speech: “You have taken over the job of creating desire and have transformed people into constantly moving happiness machines, machines which have become the key to economic progress” (Curtis, 2002a). Another aspect of this needs or desires creation was that the darker side of human emotions, with which

Lippman and others had become increasingly concerned since the publication of Freud’s theories and the revolution in Russia, could be controlled: if the unconscious primitive emotions could be repressed and distracted by more mundane behaviour, such as shopping for the newest ‘necessary’ product, humans would be too busy to be politically disruptive.

Curtis (2002b) records that the channeling of emotions worked to control the masses and increase consumer spending for a few decades, up until new theories of psychology from psychologists such as Alexander Lowen and Wilhem Reich. These theorists taught that humans did not need to be repressed, that repression was what caused problems for both 86

society and individuals. Also, around the same time, youth were becoming aware of the

psychological manipulation used to encourage consumption and repress them (Curtis, 2002c).

When the student revolts of the 1960s were violently suppressed by the state military

apparatus, the rebellion turned inward, by making a new ‘you,’ the logic went, you could

change society. Wilhem Reich’s psychological theories were thought to be important to

release this self from societal controls. Fritz Perls, as Reich’s disciple, became an important

leader of this project.

In Curtis’ (2002c) documentary, Daniel Yankelovich, a market researcher, tells of the

fear corporations had at this new generation that resisted the previous arrangement of

consumption as dictated by advertisers. Yankelovich’s research discovered the corporate fear

unfounded; however, the youth of this time, he reassured the corporations, were consumers—

they just wanted their consumption choices to be expressions of their unique individuality, a

self that they were convinced could be created once freed from societal repressions.

This individuality, corporations discovered from Yankelovich, could be created by the

use of products that corporations would manufacture and advertise as helpful for these ends

(Curtis, 2002c). Corporations were able to step in and ‘help’ people with this project of self-

creation with advances in computer technology that allowed short runs of unique products

geared toward niche markets—or lifestyle groupings—that market researchers had delineated

from psychological research. As the new consumers were entering into the new adventurers

of adulthood, obtaining independency, marrying, building families, new products were

designed to reflect their ideals of individuality. Ideas of changing society were diverted, as

Jesse Kornbluth, a journalist for The New York Times, observed in the 1970s: “only the individual matters . . . there is no societal concern” (cited in Curtis, 2002c). These ideas were made popular with the mass ‘production’ of individuals who refocused their energy for societal betterment into self-betterment as promoted by self-help programs such as est. This 87 focus on self-development rather than on societal change was good news for both state and capital: the treadmill of production and consumption could remain intact and capitalism was made stronger after meeting the challenge from its young detractors. Unwittingly, the young supporters of the 1960s social rebellion had played into another type of repression, the project of self, sustained by consumerism—the never-ending search for one’s inner truth and value through material acquisition.

This is the definition of democracy for many: the freedom—envied by many, defended by the mighty—to buy whatever one wants, whenever one wants, at a price most can afford to express our unique selves. It is also the freedom to which our governments often refer when military might needs to be shown to those who would threaten our ‘way of life’. The democratization of consumption and the project of the self have kept their promises: consumers, at least in the developed nations, have continued to have access to material wealth at levels never seen previously in human history. To create true sustainability, however, people in the developed nations will need to find ways other than overconsumption to express their freedom and individuality. Reducing consumption levels will be difficult when treadmill producers keep churning out messages to increasingly consume.

Creating an Insatiable Hunger: Needs and Desires

In North America, the ability to create desires based on the manipulation of primitive emotions seemed infinite up until the recent economic downtown that began in late 2008.

Before this last economic crisis, levels of overconsumption had been steadily rising since

World War II.

Creating needs and desires for this mass overconsumption to match mass production facilities of the elite is the fourth treadmill element described by Foster (2005) as embedded in our social structures. Predominantly television and movies, are used to stoke desires in 88

America and sell them around the world. With the acceleration of consumerism, advertising was increased to whet the (mostly American) appetites for more material possessions

(Bernays, 2008 [1928]; Curtis, 2002; O’Shaughnessy and O’Shaughnessy, 2003), yet

America was only the beginning. American media has spread these cultural expectations throughout the globe. Taylor (1999) explains that the consumer ethic was spread outwards to the rest of the world from Los Angeles, where the suburban lifestyle epitomized success, via

“cinema and subsequently on TV to stimulate Americanization and create [the] consumer modernity” (p. 40) that, consequently, “overwhelmed Western Europe and Japan . . . [with] little or no coercion” (p. 41). He asserts this is merely the most recent development in the evolution of modernity and an example of how hegemons are able to capture the entire globe with their brand of modernity. It is this idea of modernity we see displayed throughout the public sphere that infiltrates our private lives.

Daily, in the media, we see depictions of what life is according to the treadmill interpretation and we come to see these images as the norm, the way life should be: big homes, all manner and number of the latest appliances and gadgets that are thrown away as the next generation of products makes the previous generation obsolete, two, three, even four- car families, closets bursting with clothing and accessories, the conveniences of dry-cleaning, fast food, instant food, and take-way food, not to mention the large overflowing stores of food—even out of season—and annual trips to far-away locales where we can, ironically, re- connect with nature or experience more of our overconsumptive lifestyles with different surroundings. These expectations are formed as we relax within the privacy of our own homes often, as Lodziak (2002) argues, in the evening when most of us are mentally and physically tired, and therefore possibly less critical of advertisers’ suggestions:

Major American television series are viewed as being about life-styles, at least in the

eyes of many viewers, for consumer goods surround the characters who are portrayed 89

in them, for example. The furniture, house decoration, cars, clothing, eating and

drinking habits, the ‘look’ of the characters achieved through a mix of hairstyling,

clothing and cosmetics, create images of life-styles which are perceived as being

desirable in the eyes of the viewers. Some people wanted to buy copies of consumer

goods which they had seen in television series; others were influenced more indirectly

by TV soaps and series, such as Dallas and Dynasty. (Bocock, 2002, p. 93)

The material and economic reality of the social obligations of work, foods provisioning, and childcare are built and organized around these social expectations. The organization of daily life has become dependent upon transportation and appliances that free our time to work more to earn the money enabling us to live the lives we see depicted in the media—lives we now consider normal, although five decades ago they would have been considered luxurious.

Although I was brought up for much of my life without an electric dishwasher and

still do dishes by hand, most of my friends who are a few years younger consider this

appliance a necessity. To have one break down, as a recent friend experienced, becomes a

momentous occasion: “I had to do dishes in a dishpan” she exclaimed much to my

bemusement. On reflection, I had to think what I would do without all my electric

appliances: clothes washer, vacuum cleaner, computer, or espresso machine. How much time

would I have to generate income outside my home without these and other appliances? How

deprived would I feel if I did not own them? With reduced income, my life would be very

different. To attain the same level of life enjoyment, major adjustments would need to be

implemented and although I think I could manage the changes, my new lifestyle would most

certainly impact my relationships with others.

Many believe that curtailing environmentally destructive behaviour must begin in

childhood by instilling youngsters with a value system that respects the environment because

these adjustments to expectations cannot be made later in life, yet my formative years were in 90 the 1970s when Earth Day first began and I have not evolved into much less of a consumer than those whose early education did not focus heavily on environmental issues. Since the

1990s there has been a push to educate children—much as I was in the 1970s—to respect the environment and work to preserve ecosystems (Maniates, 2002a), yet this respect for the environment now exists conjointly with children’s desire to have every toy advertised.

Maniates relays his experience with the university students he teaches who lamented that it was too late for them to change their environmentally dysfunctional behaviour. If adults cannot make the connection between their overconsumption and ecological destruction, how can we expect children to do this? Young adults who have better reasoning and planning abilities admit that they are not much better than children at controlling their consumptive urges. The problem of overconsumption will not find a solution until we address the fundamental cause of desire and created needs: the messages we receive daily in the media and via our social institutions to overconsume.

Durning’s (1992) account of the increasing consumption he saw around the globe reveals the effects of these messages:

Worldwide, since mid-century [twentieth century] the per capita consumption of

copper, energy, meat, steel, and timber has approximately doubled; per capita car

ownership and cement consumption have quadrupled; plastic use per person has

quintupled; per capita aluminum consumption has grown sevenfold; and air travel per

person has multiplied 33 times. (p. 29)

Tellingly, warnings from scientists regarding our precarious environmental situation quicken at the same pace that economists boast extraordinary growth rates, yet the connection between consumption and ecological damage is not made clearly and scientific reports have been diluted in their power to do so.

The Commoditization Trap 91

There was a time when individuals, families, or small communities made their own

clothing, cooked all their meals, and even grew their own food; however, Manno (2002)

argues that as goods became increasingly mass produced and cheaper to purchase, people

relied on these manufactured solutions to their daily needs rather than the older, less

‘efficient’ ways of doing things. Langdon Winner explains that it is also habit, unconscious

choices he labelled “technological somnambulism” (cited in Bell, 2008, p. 80) that continues

to induce us to create the path dependencies that get us in such deep ecological trouble. Bell

further comments that these “recipes of understanding that we call upon without having to

think . . . tend to lock us into continuing these routines and into only trying new routines that

mesh well” (p. 81). We do not think about alternatives when we purchase technology: ‘can

we do without this gadget?’ or ‘what other gadgets are there that do the same thing or more

that might be less damaging to the environment?’; instead, we follow the crowd, or more

accurately perhaps, the advertisers.

The reliance on these commoditized goods and services requires more exploitation of

not only the earth’s ecosystems but also people who are less powerful. This exploitation

externalizes costs to entities, whether ecosystems or oppressed humans, that cannot protest,

thereby creating low prices that encourage purchase of ready-made goods and services that replace one’s own labour. For instance, in the West most of the food in our supermarkets is grown on industrial farms in mono-crops which deplete the soil faster and are more susceptible to disease, pests, and adverse weather conditions. In order to grow these crops, the producers use petro-chemical fertilizers and pesticides that contribute to anthropogenic climate change and pollute our water systems. In addition to the damage from fossil fuels and chemicals, the vast irrigation systems required for extensive fields of crops waste water and cause soil salinization (Manno, 2002; Worster, 1985). The environmental damage is not 92

limited to growing the crops: the crops are then harvested with machinery run on fossil fuels

and transported great distances using more fossil fuel (Manno, 2002).

The social costs of the agribusinesses that have commoditized our food supplies are

high too. Producers in developed countries often employ illegal immigrants to do the

dangerous and difficult work on these farms, work that is underpaid and without benefits due

to the vulnerable position of persons unauthorized to be in the countries (Schlosser, 2005).

Environmental and social costs are amplified even more when corporations relocate their

agri-businesses off-shore where environmental and labour laws are generally non-existent or

not enforced (Klein, 1999). Ironically this “high-input agriculture requires about 3 kcal of

energy derived from fossil fuels for every 1 kcal of human food produced” (Manno, 2002, p.

88). Manno argues that smaller farms that use human labour and organic growing methods

are far more efficient than the larger, mono-crop farms, yet they cannot compete with the

profits allowed by the economies of scale and the externalization of environmental costs

enjoyed in industrial agriculture (Hibbard et al., 2007).

Consumers often do not realize the environmental and social damage they help

support by purchasing goods made more cheaply with chemicals and automated technology.

In many areas, these goods are more attractive; for example, organically grown produce is

often misshapen or pockmarked by insects even though it is healthier and more nutritious if

not transported over great distances. Higher prices for items that are usually priced lower are

unattractive also when individuals and their families are socialized to expect the same level of material possessions as other individuals and their families. For instance, the organic, fair- trade coffee I purchase is 840 yen for 200 grams, whereas a similar medium roast non-fair trade coffee is 735 yen. If two adults use 200 grams of coffee a week, this price differential of 105 yen, or about one dollar, would mean a savings of over $50 a year for non-organic, non fair-trade coffee use and this is only for coffee. Extrapolated to the remaining food bill, 93 one might expect to see a savings of 13 per cent if a household bought food products from agribusiness producers. This price differential for organic, fair-trade food versus mass- produced food is often too much for a family to absorb, especially when there are other high- priced items they have been convinced by advertising and the modelling of others in their social groups that they need to acquire. Another wasteful practice that is encouraged by commoditization and externalized costs is the reduction in repaired goods. When new goods can be purchased more cheaply than what it costs to repair old goods, consumers rationally choose the former option, eliminating yet another job category and causing more damage to the environment with this ‘throw-away’ mentality. Manno (2002) explains that

commoditization policies . . . lower prices for energy and raw materials while

raising the cost of labor by taxing wages and not energy. As commoditization drives

innovation, goods that were once repairable no longer are. . . . [In the] U. S.

environmental gains have been purchased by exporting industrial production and

associated pollution elsewhere. (pp. 95-96)

However, the true cost of the newly produced item is not accurate: if the externalized social costs of both job creation and environmental repair were represented in the price, paying for repairs would be a rational choice.

Alternatives are available: buying fair-trade or locally grown, eating less, going without the latest in home renovations, furniture, vehicles, clothing; however, very few people attempt these alternatives because the price point of mass-produced items is lower, or alternatives are not usually displayed in the media, and, if they are, negative connotations are attached. One would no doubt need to have exposure to, and perhaps the cooperation of friends and family, or barring that, even acceptance in new social groups if one were to feel comfortable making these lifestyle changes. 94

Because corporations can externalize costs, very few consumers know the true environmental and social costs of their daily food and clothing choices—the basic necessities of life—yet without the externalized costs and mass availability, their choices could very likely be different. Locally grown food and locally produced clothing might be able to compete if the expenses of environmental damage were not externalized and if these goods were allowed the same distribution; however, treadmill historic processes have ensured that the smaller, independent producers have been pushed aside as commoditization spreads.

Schlosser’s (2005) account of the changes in the American mid-west with the subsidization by taxpayers’ dollars of the construction of highways in the 1950s and the subsequent development of fast food restaurants is illustrative. Large multinational corporations were able to overcome the traditions of family farms and highly-skilled occupations such as meat butchering to further commoditize food production and distribution:

multinationals—such as Cargill, ConAgra, and IBP—were allowed to dominate one

commodity market after another. . . . Family farms are now being replaced by gigantic

corporate farms with absentee owners. Rural communities are losing their middle

class and becoming socially stratified, divided between a small, wealthy elite and

large numbers of the working poor. . . . The fast food chains’ vast purchasing power

and their demand for a uniform product have encouraged fundamental changes in how

cattle are raised, slaughtered, and processed into ground beef. These changes have

made meatpacking—once a highly skilled, highly paid occupation—into the most

dangerous job in the United States, performed by armies of poor, transient immigrants

whose injuries often go unrecorded and uncompensated. (pp. 8-9)

The billions of dollars these powerful corporations save by having cattle raised and processed with mass production techniques by disenfranchised migrant workers are costs that are 95 externalized to the local environments and individuals. Externalized costs, in this example, include the costs of the highways externalized to taxpayers, the externalized losses of well- paid, skilled jobs to poorly-paid, low-skilled repetitive work, the loss of family farms to agribusiness corporations, and the externalized costs of healthcare incurred by the public for diseases spread by “deadly pathogens such as E. coli” (Schlosser, 2005, p. 9). The profits, on the other hand, devolve to a very few, often elite, group of people. This trend of capturing the resources upon which people depend for survival and accruing great wealth in the process is what I will discuss next to expose the treadmill constraints that resist individual efforts to change environmental behaviour.

Primitive Accumulation: Capturing the Commons and Expanding Wealth

Treadmill elites often claim that unemployment will result if consumers do not spend or if manufacturing costs rise due to environmental laws. This tactic strikes fear in the majority of people who depend on their employment within the treadmill to meet their basic needs and very few of us are not in some way tied to this system. It was not always the case that so many depended upon larger organizations for employment. The evolution of employment from self-employment to that of work in factories and other organizations owned by the elite so that the working class may “obtain jobs at livable wages” (Foster, 2005 p. 8) is the second structural force within the treadmill described by Foster. This evolution of production was described by Marx in Capital as having occurred over seven centuries as explains Foster:

Marx devoted Part 8 of his book . . . to the description of ‘So-Called Primitive

Accumulation,’ in which he described the lengthy historical process, beginning as

early as the fourteenth century, whereby the great mass of the population was

removed, often by force, from the soil and ‘hurled onto the labour-market as free,

unprotected and rightless proletarians.’ . . . This historical process of ‘the 96

expropriation of the agricultural producer, the peasant,’ went hand in hand with the

genesis of the capitalist farmer and the industrial capitalist. (Foster, 2000, pp. 170-

171)

Harvey (2007) discusses these developments in terms of ‘capital accumulation’; that

is, the dispossession of the powerless by the powerful as they capture all access to resources.

This process can be exemplified by the history of the mechanization of logging. The first

step toward reduction of labour in the forestry industry occurred with improvements in

chainsaw technology after World War II that by 1958 completely replaced broadaxes and

crosscut saws. This technological improvement allowed “men to cut trees 100 or 1,000 times

faster” (McNeill, 2000, p. 307). Bogue (2000) observes that even with the earlier, more

labour-intensive methods of logging environmental degradation occurred. With the advent of

chainsaws this damage increased but neither of these methods compare with the mechanized

clear cutting done by fellerbunchers. These machines require only one to three workers to do

the work of the chainsaw/skidder crew of thirteen or so lumberjacks, a development in lumbering that “amounts to an assembly line in the woods operating twenty-four hours per day, as required by the large amount of capital investment” (Richardson et al, 1993, p. 142).

This one example of mechanization shows how machines and chemical processes

were gradually developed to replace human labour and how, as this process evolved, greater

withdrawals from and additions to our ecosystems were required. The production and

operation of the machines or chemical processes causes more environmental damage than

human did even at their most wasteful. The commoditization of lumber products and the

mechanization of its production have cut many skilled jobs from the labour force and have

enabled a near complete capture and control of this part of the commons through monopoly

capital. This is just one example of an area of the commons and access to these resources for

livelihoods were appropriated by capital. Laws that allowed the free movement of capital 97

internationally enhanced this process of the private accumulation of wealth allowing further

capture of the earth’s resources, both non-human and human. Ellwood (2003) asserts that

this global accumulation by multinational corporations beats even the early European

imperial conquests: “today 50 of the largest 100 economies in the world are run by

multinationals, not by countries” (p. 55). This accumulation provides multinational

corporations the power to control wide swaths of the globe’s economy as well as the power to

override national environmental laws which relocates much of the polluting aspects of

industrialization to the poorer, less dominate regions of the world (Klein, 1999). This near

absolute control over the work available to individuals as well as the distribution of resources

allows very little input from individuals. The damage caused by control by large centralized

bureaucracies that operate from a distance requires more additions and withdrawals from

ecosystems than systems that are more localized and closely connected to the operations of

production.

Capitalism is often conceptualized as a free-market system, but Collins (1990) reports

that network theory shows it to be “an organizational politics of networks, rather than an open competitive market” (p. 81). This points to the fallacy of the neoliberal assertion that there is no society, only individuals (and their families); in fact, there was a society and this has been all but destroyed as the neoliberal turn has convinced individuals that their success in life is down to them, that solidarity with other members of society is unnecessary and against the pioneering spirit of individualism. Where there is still now organization amongst individuals, otherwise known as a society, is the society of the elite, the owners of capital, who are very cohesive as a group. Harvey (2007) explains that this collectivity became better organized in the mid 1970s after the student rebellions in the late 1960s that saw anti-corporation sentiment rise. Businesses banded together in well-funded organizations such as The

Chamber of Commerce and The National Association of Manufacturers. Pro-business think- 98

tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, as well as

foundations such as Olin and Pew Charitable Trust, were established by the elite to protect

their interests. For instance, the Business Roundtable, “an organization of CEOs ‘committed

to the aggressive pursuit of political power for the corporation’, was founded in 1972 and . . .

during the 1970s . . . spent close to $900 million annually . . . on political matters” (Harvey,

pp. 43- 44). This political influence included the “defeat of bills such as consumer protection

and labour law reform, and in the enactment of favourable tax, regulatory and antitrust

legislation” (Edsall, 1985 cited in Harvey, 2007, p. 48).

With the neoliberal turn, the combined efforts of capital, acting cooperatively rather

than competitively (the latter being the common-sense understanding of capitalism and

business, sought to undermine any attempt by the masses to organize and express their

interests. Unions were disbanded, social services cut, and public goods—built up over

decades of contributions from ordinary individuals such as healthcare, education, and public transportation—were either appropriated by capital or neglected so that they deteriorated over time. This appropriation of the commons, society, and power by capital occurred at all levels of social organization: municipal, national, and international.

Foster (2005) describes the elite’s accumulation of wealth as the first element of the

treadmill structurally embedded into our societal organization. He explains this process, first

delineated by Marx, as “the tendency of capitalist class society, built on the exploitation of

the proletariat, to polarize so that more and more wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer

hands” (Foster, 2000, p. 173). This accumulation by capital has been quickened since.

Harvey (2007) brings us up to date with the increasing wealth accumulation, a reaction to the

threats imposed to elite wealth after World War II, since the neoliberal turn in the 1970s:

the top one percent of income earners . . . ‘received about 16 percent of total income

[before the war]. This percentage fell rapidly during the war . . . [and] a plateau was 99

maintained during three decades. In the mid 1980s, it soared suddenly and by the end

of the century it reached 15 percent’. (p. 13)

We can see examples of wealth accumulation, since the neoliberal turn, all around us, but this process began much earlier than the period influenced by neoliberal ideas. In his look at the early colonial times in America, Alan Taylor (1996) describes how this wealth accumulation was a result of the primitive accumulation of the early European settlers:

Indian, settler, farmer . . . eventually succumbed as land speculators and the wealthiest

local farmers bought up and enclosed the prairie. . . . By the 1850s the local elite was

committed to ‘the intensification of production, the wringing of ever more products

from a steady supply of land and labor’. (pp. 9-10)

Schlosser (2005) follows this trajectory up to the present with the example of elite farmers who still manage to ‘wring’ the most of the land and those that they hire to work it. Those farmers who try to stay independent cannot compete with those who through their finances and power enjoy the advantages of economies of scale or the power of influence their elite status affords them. The reality described here by Schlosser is echoed by Foster’s (1999) description of agribusiness: “a small number of large corporations . . . control the conditions of production in farming and reap the bulk of agricultural profits, even though farming itself is ‘spread over a large number of petty producers’”

The tendency for the treadmill to seek reductions in labour costs results in reduced numbers of jobs and reduced wages. Harvey (2006b) outlines the impacts these changes in work conditions have had since the neoliberal turn has accelerated the quest for higher returns on capital investments:

the Federal minimum wage that stood on a par with the poverty level in 1980 had

fallen to 30 percent below that level by 1990. . . . Tax cuts for the rich simultaneously 100

began the momentous shift towards greater social inequality and the restoration of

upper class power. (p. 18)

The accumulation of wealth by the elite means less wealth for those left behind. As capital appropriates more jobs by way of the technology it owns, little means of making a living a left. Jobs that remain often involve mindless, repetitive actions because machinery and more advanced technology replace much of what depended on skilled human labour. This process alienates the worker from his or her product. Capital imposed these changes to maintain profits, but also, as Foster (1999) explains, to decrease workers’ power: “the laborer was systematically reduced to the status of an instrument of production” (p. 111). According to

Foster, the principles of scientific management as devised by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the early 1900s, focused on three items:

(1) the ‘dissociation of the labor process from the skills of the workers’,

(2) the ‘separation of conception from execution’, and

(3) the ‘use of this monopoly of knowledge to control each step of the labor process

and its mode of execution.’ (cited in Foster, 1999, p. 111)

As workers create added value for production owners, profits are invested into more mechanization so that more profits can be derived with less labour—a basic principle of capital gain and expansion that flourishes while more environmental and social injustice is created (Schnaiberg and Gould, 1994). As workers’ pay and power18 were diminished, capital gained profits and the options to employment under the treadmill decreased. Without these options, the average individual is constrained to contribute to a system that ultimately enslaves the individual and ruins the planet. These degenerative effects on employment are compounded by raised expectations in living standards that are nurtured by manufacturers’ advertisements—advertisements to consume more, which leads again, to increased profits for

18 Harvey (1989) indicates that there was a “10 per cent decline in the real wage from 1972 to 1986” (p. 331). 101 capital. In sum, individuals are left very few opportunities to create a livelihood outside the central organization of the treadmill. Capital has appropriated not only the commons from which materials for life provisioning are derived, but also control over how individuals can access these materials; that is, primarily by participation in the overproduction of the treadmill. Capital also increasingly makes it difficult for individuals to access higher priced alternatives such as organic food or energy from alternative sources by reducing labour requirements with technology and chemicals that cause more additions to and withdrawals from the commons. With this near absolute control by capital of the social and physical world, relying on the small-steps practised by individuals to make a difference in our environmental future is an unrealistic expectation.

Possible Alternatives

Every material item and most services consumed in the modern, industrial societies requires energy and/or resources from the earth, a reality illustrated by statistics of daily consumption for the average American who consumes, “either directly or indirectly, 52 kilograms of basic materials a day—18 kilograms of petroleum and coal, 13 of other minerals, 12 of agricultural products, and 9 of forest products” (Durning, 1992, p. 92). With these figures, it is easy to conceptualize the tremendous amount of withdrawals from and additions to our ecosystems that the western lifestyle demands. Durning’s figures were from the early 1990s; unfortunately, global consumption has not decreased since this time (Vlek and Steg, 2007); in fact, consumption is rising, as developing nations try, understandably, to attain the same standard of living that westerners have been enjoying for decades (Durning,

1992; McNeill, 2000).

Many thinkers in the area of environmental concern have proposed alternatives to this overconsumption—an overconsumption argued here to be the result of a treadmill of overproduction and overconsumption. These suggested alternatives can be categorized in 102 ways that address the six dynamics of the treadmill that Foster (2005) delineated from

Schnaiberg’s treadmill framework as described in Schnaiberg and Gould (1994):

1. Increasing accumulation of wealth by a small elite

2. Movement of workers to wage jobs

3. Expansion of production to compete for profits

4. Manufacturing of insatiable desires

5. Governments concern for economic development

6. The reproduction of treadmill values in mainstream communication and education

The objective in the following discussion is to look at these proposed alternatives and how they might either replace the treadmill as the central economic organization or adjust it so that it conforms to the ecological limits of our finite planet. The purpose of the discussion is to underscore the structural components to overconsumption and show the lack of power individuals have and the futility of the small steps approach.

Alternatives to the Increasing Accumulation of Wealth by a Small Elite

As a small minority of privileged individuals accumulates great wealth, it creates several challenges for sustainability. One aspect of this accumulation, monopolization of the commons, is discussed in the next section dealing with wage labour. This section deals with the effects of conspicuous overconsumption by rich elites. The overconsumption that occurs at the upper levels of social hierarchy as individuals try to distinguish themselves from the

‘lower’ echelons is particularly damaging to the earth as this consumption often involves items that are difficult to obtain, rare, or endangered. Durning’s (1992) accounting of the destruction in mining precious gems and metals gives some idea of how extreme wealth accumulation can present such a challenge to sustainability:

nearly 1,000 tons of mercury have infiltrated the Amazon food chain since the early

eighties as Brazilian miners have used the deadly metal to separate gold from 103

sediment. . . . South African gold mines seep radioactive radon gas into black

townships, and diamond mines in Botswana are draining the Okavango Delta. (p. 97)

Another problem with wealth accumulation, described by Thorstein Veblen (1994 [1899]) is the trajectory of infinite competition for the top positions in society and emulation of those in the top positions by individuals at lower levels. Many social and material goods come to those at the top of the social hierarchy so it is only natural that individuals wish to attain this position or give the impression that they have. The gap between rich and poor has increased tremendously since the neoliberal turn (Harvey, 2007) enhancing the rewards at the upper reaches of socioeconomic strata and making conspicuous consumption even more of an imperative. Less government, less regulation, and less enforcement, allowed the elite to regain their losses in capital accumulation—losses that Harvey (2007) explains began after the Second World War and were magnified in the economically troubled 1970s. With fewer taxes required for enforcement of environmental laws and other programs that benefited society, the message was that all would benefit, yet it is the elite who have primarily benefited and whose conspicuous consumption generates impossible standards of living for everyone to achieve.

The pressure to consume and display material possessions is so extreme that to cut back on one’s consumption presents its own social challenges. Durning argues that conspicuous leisure without the conspicuous consumption could be one alternative to this overconsumption. Having the riches, or pretending to have the riches, that enables one not to work and enjoy leisure activities of low consumption would indeed help the environment; however, Daly (1996) suggests another alternative that drives more directly to the root of the problem of wealth accumulation. In his look at the necessary adjustments to our economic organization he prescribes “a factor-of-ten range between maximum and minimum income”

(p. 202); that is, positions at the top of the social hierarchy would only provide ten times the 104

amount of income than that of the lowest levels. In this way, feelings of deprivation are limited and the steep increases of material acquisition felt necessary to equalize disparities are alleviated. Additionally, fewer people feel oppressed, or excluded from belonging

because they cannot obtain the same level of material wealth as others. Veblen (1994 [1899])

explains that it is often one’s relative position in society that causes dissatisfaction rather than

one’s absolute position. The corollary would be, therefore, when others do not have or,

perhaps more importantly, do not display material or wealth, expectations are reduced for all.

This would appear to have face validity from my experience of growing up in the Maritimes

where very few people were considered wealthy and those who were did not often make

ostentatious show of their possessions avoiding social discord by generating feelings of

deprivation and animosity in others.

The social benefits of this more equitable distribution of wealth are exemplified in the

depiction of life during World War II in Britain as portrayed in the British television series

World at War19 where many of the interviewees talk about the camaraderie amongst British

citizens during the period of rations (Thames Television and Isaacs, 1973). The high

participation level of the British in the war effort of World War II created a lowered

consumption level for virtually everyone. Propaganda to encourage rationing of food and

frugality in other areas of life used derogatory depictions of those who did not share in the

sacrifice—increasing the social pressure and expectations to consume less. Although this

was a time of hardship and sorrow for many, those interviewed for the television series spoke

of it as being the best period of life that they knew because of the social solidarity they

experienced. Some of Daly’s (1996) recommendations to switch to ‘qualitative’ development

rather than ‘quantitative’ growth might be helpful in obtaining this social solidarity once

more. It seems fair to suggest then that if we are to reduce our overconsumption to

19 Episode 15 “Home Fires: Britain (1940-1944)” 105

ecologically manageable levels it must be a uniform reduction across all levels of society.

Although there may always be inequities, they do not have to be so large or so extreme.

The difficulties in making changes that benefit the environment when one has a lower

level of socioeconomic status are revealed in the comparison of middle-class professionals to

the workers who have fewer skills. The majority of those in the voluntary simplifying

movement (VSMs) described by Maniates (2000b); for example, are middle-class

professionals, whose switch to simplified lifestyles in many cases was more easily

accomplished by their being able to arrange their lives in a fashion that is more or less

independent of treadmill structures by way of self-employment or employment from home-

based offices via Internet connections—a big advantage that many unskilled workers do not

have. Home ownership is also a big plus in ecological concerns because any investment in

home structures or home systems benefits the owner—such as energy efficient renovations

like insulation or independent food provisioning like gardens—an investment renters may risk losing if they do not remain at the same residence. Unskilled workers are also in a difficult position when it comes to energy or time for lifestyle changes since possessing few marketable workplace skills results in fewer employment opportunities as well as low wages.

To make up for the low salaries in a society that reveres high consumption, many workers hold two or more jobs or work long hours, in many cases commuting long distances to do so.

Spending long hours working and commuting leaves little energy and time to replace purchased mass-produced items with items grown or made at home. The unequal distribution of wealth ultimately creates environmental damage that harms us all eventually. Laws that create a more equitable distribution of resources could generate positive changes in areas of both social and environmental justice.

Daly’s suggestions for a leveling of personal income might also have implications for

the rate of participation in sacrifices for the environment. If individuals and groups who are 106 better off were able to publicly demonstrate their participation in simplifying and sacrificing, those who were further down the socioeconomic scale might be more inclined to pitch in.

Individuals stated in interviews that they were especially not motivated to sacrifice when the leaders (and role models) of society were not sacrificing any of their conveniences or luxuries even though they are in a position to do so much more easily than those with fewer options

(Hobson, 2001). Hobson’s findings also suggest the importance of role models amongst the elite to show that they are changing, whether this is at the local level of individuals or international level of the richer nations making the first move to sacrifice their conveniences and luxuries that lead to overconsumption. In much the same way that the developing nations are pointing to the rich, developed nations to be the first to cut GHG emissions (McCarthy,

2009); individuals may willingly make sacrifices once richer nations have proved that they will sacrifice their overconsumption. Once a critical point has been reached and changes become visible to the majority, especially those individuals who were unwilling to make changes because of the perceived injustice of their being held responsible for the problems of the producers or the rich, more people may decide that it is their turn to step up to bat.

Alternatives to the Movement of Workers to Wage Labour

Employment is one of prime areas of concern for those who adhere to treadmill values and even for those who do not. The treadmill elite often exploit this concern whenever pressured to make adjustments to ecologically harmful production methods or when overconsumption is threatened by environmental concerns. By asserting that regulating methods of industrial production or reducing consumption will threaten employment rates the state and public often retract any modifications to overproduction or overconsumption. It would appear, however, that unemployment has more causes than lowered consumption and/or the higher expenses associated with adherence to environmental regulations. The treadmill dynamic of replacing jobs with advanced technology is an important cause of 107

unemployment, as is the process of enclosures in which the public’s access to the commons is

restricted and thus gainful self-employment or the ability to procure the basic requirements of

life is restricted to a dependency on the ability of capital or government to create jobs. Since

many workers are trapped in wage labour because capital has monopolized resources and

there are no other options for purchasing provisions, an obvious solution would be to more

equally distribute access to the commons. Instead of allotting vast tracts of land to

agribusiness or pulp mills and their damaging technologies, small family farms could be

encouraged or access to forests carefully managed by governments could be distributed

amongst those who want to create small-scale logging production. This alternative is

suggested by Gould et al. (2004) who argue that one way beyond the treadmill processes

without endangering levels of employment is to return to “small-scale entrepreneurialism in

lieu of large corporate employment” (p. 304)—an economic transition that would allow more

local employment and locally made products, thus avoiding many of the environmentally

damaging aspects of centralized and highly bureaucratic large production facilities. One

example of this might be a return to tailors or shoemakers rather than having clothing needs

mass met by mass production. These professions could provide long-lasting, quality, custom- made clothing and accessories and their mending or alterations of these quality items could extend the longevity of these items.

A common way of framing of unemployment concerns is illustrated by Booth’s

(2004) assertion that it is important that economic growth matches population growth so that

employment levels are maintained. However, Daly (1996) argues that in order for wages to

be kept low, population growth has been encouraged so that capital has a steady supply of

labour. If this is the case, by eliminating policies that encourage population growth such as

tax laws that benefit large families, or immigration, population growth might be slowed and

job numbers might be maintained. With fewer workers to fill jobs, production owners would 108 have to offer higher wages and more benefits to keep their workers thus cutting into profits perhaps discouraging the monopolization of production and reliance on wage labour all together.

Another consideration regarding the threat of unemployment from reduced consumption or increased production costs is that there are forms of consumption that create employment in the public sector that do not cause, or cause far less environmental destruction, than the types promoted by private industry. The funding of libraries or public transportation, for instance, would provide jobs and access to publicly owned goods that reduce the need for more production of books or cars and the attendant withdrawals from or additions to ecosystems caused by private ownership of reading material or transportation. In the private sector, using more human labour rather than technologies or chemicals that require more energy and materials would reduce environmental stress and create jobs; for example reusing glass bottles rather than the manufacturing of plastic bottles or having workers fill glasses with filtered water rather than using plastic bottles in meetings as was done at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in Austin, Texas, USA .20

If it is not, therefore, really employment levels that is the issue, it would appear that the avoidance of changes to levels of overproduction and overconsumption is more about the vested interests that accumulate great stores of wealth from these processes that depend on elite monopolization of the commons and wage labour. If the public understood the mechanisms of treadmill expansion: reasons for overpopulation and underemployment, how humans have come to require wage labour rather than independently producing for their basic needs, and the great profits made by an elite who have had the power to create the components of the present organization of modern, industrial societies, there may be more

20 see www.meetattexas.com/green-features.html 109 resistance to these mechanisms. To begin to build alternatives to wage labour therefore awareness of its historical development must be raised.

Alternatives to the Expansion of Production to Compete for Profit

The treadmill, which is embedded in our modern industrial societal systems, is designed by and for the utility of the dominant class in order that their power and profits be, at the very least, maintained, and, more the case recently, expanded. As Harvey (2007) explains, however, the neoliberal turn has quickened this expansion of power and profits for the dominant elite establishing their control over vast tracks of the earth’s resources.

Processes of globalization, such as new technologies in communication via the Internet, deregulation of financing, shipping, and so forth, have also extended this control (Ellwood,

2003). As capital expands beyond its home borders and gains control of labour markets and resources in other countries, its costs are reduced by favourable currency exchange and economies of scale. As personal production activities such as cooking, sewing, and repair are replaced by commoditized products made cheaply overseas it is difficult for consumers to justify the time or expense to make the food or repair the clothes, and appliances they need to live successfully in modern industrialized societies. Small businesses that provide self- employment to independent owner/operator concerns cannot compete with the low prices big chains can offer with the advantages provided by economies of scale in production or bulk purchases and thus the elite benefit from the structures offered by these treadmill advantages.

Manno (2002) explains that producers try to maximize their investments by developing products or services that have ‘low consumption efficiency’ creating “ever-increasing consumption and ever-increasing dependency on the producer” (p. 68). Another way the owners of production profit from encouraging and increasing consumption is with the strategy known as ‘planned obsolescence’ (Slade, 2007): “the catch-all phrase used to describe the assortment of techniques used to artificially limit the durability of a 110 manufactured good in order to stimulate repetitive consumption” (p. 5). Slade explains that there are two types of obsolescence: “technological obsolescence . . . due to technological innovation” and “psychological, progressive, or dynamic obsolescence” due to producers introducing new styles or fashions that make older styles obviously out dated. Slade describes “deliberate obsolescence” as “a uniquely American invention” (p. 3). Slade reports that the strategy of planned obsolescence began in the

early twentieth century when modern household appliances replaced older stoves and

fireplaces, and steel pots replaced iron ones. But it was the electric starter in

automobiles, introduced in 1913, that raised obsolescence to national prominence by

rendering all previous cars obsolete” (p. 4).

Slade’s (2007) collection of alarming waste statistics indicates the monumental environmental damage as a result of this obsolescence strategy. Although some consumers benefit from the convenience of new products, this never-ending creation of demand for products benefits the industrial class much more by providing a continuous cycle of tremendous profits and with these cycles and profit wealth and power. So, what we have is the never-ending search for greater profit necessitating more capture of resources, whether materials or labour, and the use of more technology both of which result in less self- employment and fewer jobs. Sunk investments in technology and infrastructure by the elite and the tremendous returns of profit which are the result make it unlikely these powerful economic actors will make the necessary decisions to change the nature of production and/or infrastructure; however, policy changes could prevent or ameliorate most of these dynamics that continually degrade ecosystems and societies. If corporations could not locate their factories off-shore, they would face stricter environmental regulations and have to account for their pollution in the United States and in Canada (Klein, 1999). Manufacturing that utilized more skilled labour and less machinery and chemical processes would provide more 111 employment and raise the price of products so that consumers would not so easily throw them away. At this higher price point, consumers would no doubt expect their purchases to last longer as well, eliminating the option of planned obsolescence (Slade, 2007). Also, by eliminating the externalization of environmental costs so that producers had to reflect the damage caused to the environment by these products in their prices, along with more explicit ratings and product descriptions so that consumers could understand both by the price and the product information to what extent their purchase choices are contributing to environmental impact consumers could understand the true costs involved in the products they purchase.

Alternatives to Manufactured Insatiable Desires

Consumerism is not about just fulfilling the needs of the public, but also the desires, desires that in many cases are unconscious and thus easily manipulated by advertisers (Curtis,

2000); for example, by substituting specialized products or services that purport to replace authentically derived communities or self-identity rather than building one’s self-identity or relationships with others in hobbies or group activities producers have been able to manufacture desires for material possessions that were once needs satisfied by social interaction. Purchases of items such as the latest sports shoe or sports apparel give the impression that one is athletic or that at least that one possesses some social capital in the form of knowledge about the latest fashions. Alternatives to these products and services might include developing one’s skill in a recreational activity; for example, learning to play basketball rather than merely wearing the sports shoes endorsed by a famous basketball player. Actually learning the skills inherent to basketball and developing the stamina needed to play it would improve one’s physical health. Playing the game with others might also develop one’s interpersonal skills and community of close associates negating the need to replace these deficits with material items. 112

Hawken et al. (1999) forward that argument that industrialization cannot meet every human need, although it tries to do so:

industrial capitalism emphasizes the creation of specialized products that fight for

market niches to fill needs that, as often as not, cannot be satisfied by material goods .

. . [:] the shopping mall is a pale substitute for the local pub, TV sitcoms for family

conviviality, security guards for safe streets, insurance for health. (p. 287)

In sum, large actors indirectly cause more environmental damage by creating public demands with advertising that manipulates emotions and innate desires that, in turn, causes more overconsumption.

Industry also aggressively prevents those seeking to make a switch from overconsumption with product design and obstructing the availability of goods and services that provide alternatives that lower environmental impact. Knowing that alternatives to the life of commoditized goods and services can be fundamentally more satisfying, unfortunately will take some time to form in the developed nations. There must be a conscious and concerted effort to disseminate these less consumptive ways of enjoying life on the part of those who are already aware. Additionally, there needs to be a push for limits to advertising.

For this to happen requires organizing to pressure government for new regulations some of which might entail: prohibiting advertisements that contribute to overconsumption in much the same way that other harmful products, like tobacco or alcohol, are not advertised in certain areas or around people below a certain age; correcting standards in advertising that allow information and advertisements that ‘greenwash’ products or services; and, allowing information considered ‘alternative’ such as Adbusters “‘Autosaurus’ TV campaign” (Lasn,

2000, p. 31) to be broadcast so that open and authentic public discourse about overconsumption can occur.

Alternatives to the Concern of Government for Economic Development 113

Sustainable development in the truest sense of the term, that is, provisioning of the world’s people in a way that future generations may have at least their basic needs met, is urgently required if we value the continuation of human civilization and the survival of many other species. Nations have agreed, in principle, to achieve sustainability or more accurately

‘sustainable development’; however, according to Schnaiberg, Pellow, and Weinberg (2002), environmental solutions are filtered through the lenses of economic concerns:

We find that economic criteria remain at the foundation of decision making about the

design, performance and evaluation of production and consumption. This primacy of

economic criteria still tends to overshadow most, if not all, ecological concerns.

Further, the state also shares this orientation, despite its own political interests, and

often cedes a great deal of power to private sector actors. We view this as highly

problematic for creating conditions for sustainability and ecological responsibility. (p.

16)

Extrapolated, these assertions translate into a situation where “governments and major corporations prefer non-structural ‘quick fixes’ and use their dominant position to foster managed solutions that are least disruptive to the treadmill” (Ungar, 1998, p. 253). These quick fixes are the ‘small-steps’ policy approach which has done very little to ameliorate our environmental problems and has the additional effect of deflecting responsibility from those who maintain these unsustainable economic practices onto ordinary individuals whose decisions are constrained by the structures erected by more powerful economic actors. As

Schnaiberg et al. (2002) conclude, the primary concern for both industry and government is profit; and, until ecological concerns take precedence, no progress will be made toward sustainability. More recently, Fournier (2008) has affirmed these assertions agreeing that regulatory organizations and regimes maintain overconsumption because “ecological sustainability remains firmly subordinated to economic growth” (p. 530). Boyd (2003) 114 illustrates the inability of economic criteria to produce effective environmental policies in his report on the weaknesses in Canadian environmental law:

for twenty-five years, reports and recommendations by Canadian academics, lawyers,

and economists have extolled the potential virtues of economic instruments. Yet as

one academic observes, ‘For all practical purposes, nothing has been done. How

many more reports will be commissioned, laboured over, submitted, and praised, only

to be shelved by policy makers?’ (p. 249)

One problem with using economic instruments to decide environmental policy is that this approach relies on rational actor models or a perspective of “methodological individualism”

(Jackson, 2006, p. 377) that subsequently directs sustainability efforts towards changing the behaviour of individuals or households; even though industry creates far more environmental damage than do households.

Another problem with the term and focus of ‘sustainable development’ according to

Daly (1996) is that the term ‘development’ has been used in place of ‘growth’. Daly makes a point of separating the two concepts of ‘growth’ and ‘development’ defining development as qualitative improvements and growth as quantitative improvements: “Respect for the dictionary would lead us to reserve the word ‘growth’ for quantitative increase in physical size . . . [and] ‘development’ . . . [for] qualitative change” (p. 167). Daly (1996), recognizing the roots of our economic organization, as well as its futility, believes that the only alternative is a steady-state economy (SSE) where the focus is on qualitative improvements to people’s lives not the quantitative additions to their material possessions or life experiences.

A good example of this ‘qualitative development’ is found in certain aspects of

Japanese culture—traditions that I have experienced during my thirteen-year tenure here— that I believe suggest alternatives to highly consumptive lifestyles. Here, the traditional ways of consumption, which are still evident amongst those over a certain age, focus on the use of 115 locally harvested food that is in season or manufactured goods that draw from local materials and skilled workers in a way that heightens the experience for the consumer without requiring more consumption. Because the traditions of production skills have been handed down for centuries, there is a deep sense of history and culture embedded in these types of goods or services as well as a high level of workmanship and conservation in both. Whether it is the use of the complete globefish in the meal known as tecchiri, the reuse of bath water in public baths or the family bath, artifacts that last for generations, or the enactment of the Japanese tea ceremony where great attention is given to the tea and the roughly-hewn, simple utensils in a room of sparse design (an aspect of the wabi sabi aesthetic) in a meditative focus of attention, these traditions in the area of private and public life have become part of Japan’s extensive and refined culture. These traditions conserve materials as well as provide employment and social cohesiveness or identity.

This qualitative development relies on the enhancement of human life in terms of more thought, knowledge or attention rather than quantitative development which relies on ever more material wealth and conveniences. My experience of this approach to development in everyday life parallels Schumacher (1973) explanation of “Buddhist economics which minimizes consumption . . . . [He argues that] we could organize our lives around our basic material needs and derive pleasure from the non-material investment of our minds and bodies (cited in Schnaiberg and Gould, 1994, p. 49). It is in the act of reverence for the materials and history of the ritual that allows a heightened experience for the consumer who has taken the qualitative path of development.

The example of Japan provided above is not to raise Japanese culture over that of others with the argument that Japanese culture has followed solely a qualitative development path. There are cultural practices in Japan that are overconsumptive and are harmful to myriad ecosystems. The example is provided to illustrate one instance of qualitative 116 development that has produced life experiences that are enjoyable and satisfying without entailing overconsumption. There are customs in every culture that transcend the latest trends toward overconsumption that could be revived or celebrated for their frugality and for showing a path that is the ecologically-minded alternative to the unsustainable path of overproduction and overconsumption. If these aspects of qualitative development could be broadcast in the media at the same frequency that those messages that promote the quantitative path have been, others may choose to emulate the former rather than the latter and consumption levels might then stand a chance of falling to ecologically sustainable levels.

Sustainability policy has been centered on small adjustments or tweaks to consumption and primarily to consumption choices by individuals, not organizations such as large-scale production facilities. Sustainability that is based on aggregate individual choice in the marketplace is doomed for two reasons, however. Firstly, because the bulk of the damage to our environment comes from treadmill production facilities over which individuals have no decision-making power, so the necessary solution of cutting back the overconsumption inherent in the production process is not an option at the individual level.

Even if, for example, people turn off unnecessary lights in their homes, home energy consumption only comprises one third of energy used and the bulk of the problem of overconsumption of energy is not addressed. Secondly, because treadmill structures have helped build, if not create, most social expectations and social norms of modern, industrial societies in a way that any choices that are disruptive to the treadmill are discouraged or impossible—for example, deriving energy from less polluting sources—changes cannot be effected consistently and uniformly at the individual level.21

21 While acknowledging that consumers can, in some instances, choose some home energy sources and give preference to that derived from less polluting sources in some areas, these options are not universally available and furthermore the burden of extra expense of renewable alternative energy sources is one that many families cannot shoulder. 117

Another challenge to sustainability internal to economic perspectives is the way costs

and benefits are determined. Benefits, as in value derived from or added to the earth’s

resources are not offset by environmental costs, yet Daly (1996) insists that accounting of

costs and benefits must reflect the monetary value of ecosystems damaged in treadmill

processes. He outlines the reasoning behind this ecological accounting of costs and benefits

that forms one of the foundational concepts in ecological economics. Daly teaches,

“economics requires the comparison of costs and benefits, not their addition” (p. 112);

however, the present orthodox economics does exactly that by conflating withdrawals from

and destructive additions to our ecosystems as income rather than costs. This orthodoxy has

created widespread ecological and social destruction as this inaccurate accounting gives

‘scientific’ or ‘mathematical’ support to the claim that unlimited growth is possible.

Daly also argues that we cannot continue to drawdown the natural capital of future

generations:

we should always count only service as income, and that which renders service as

capital. In so doing we recognize that physical capital always depreciates (due to

entropy) and that its continual maintenance and replacement is a cost. (p. 109)

In this view, first calculated by Irving Fisher, much of the increases indicated by the Gross

National Product actually represents a decrease to natural capital and instead of being shown

as a gain, needs to be shown as a loss.

Action and behaviours that create a tremendous drop in the levels of overconsumption

are what is needed rather than solutions that ultimately increase consumption. Dramatic

reductions in consumption levels cannot occur, however, when decision-makers are operating

within paradigms that accept the goal of unlimited growth. Once leaders accept that growth must adhere to ecological limits, and that individual/social well-being cannot usually be measured in dollars, public policies and legislation might be implemented that will release 118 consumers from the urge to overconsume. These policies might include: a broad public awareness campaign that connects overconsumption to our dwindling resources and deteriorating ecological situation, separating science from politics so that science can communicate with the public on matters of great concern, such as global warming, without the interference of big business or partisan political groups; changes to infrastructure such as food provisioning, isolated suburban communities, highways, and public transportation so that low consumptive alternatives are easy for individuals to choose; and, the subsidization of public goods and services such as education, public transportation, and libraries to improve the quality of life for all and cut down on personal ownership where public ownership will suffice. Other avenues to restructure society in order to promote true sustainability could include land trusts, cooperatives, and green taxes. The important point to consider here is the necessity of governments to recognize the current paradigm of economic development as untenable.

Alternatives to the Communications and Education of Treadmill Values

Rational Choice theory helps us understand that information is integral to social outcome. This explains why treadmill interests invest so heavily in methods to control the information and awareness of our environmental crisis. The information upon which individuals base their day-to-day decisions is highly conceptualized within growth and economic paradigms. This information is also presented in ways that are highly emotional; for instance, by presenting consumption as “a patriotic duty,” business groups have manipulated consumption to suit their interests. Schor (1998) confirms this trend in public education in her own historical research:

by the early 20th century . . . the notion of sufficiency, which long had regulated

consumption, was discarded in the face of the promise of mass prosperity. Spending,

even spending to excess, was extolled as good for the ego, if not for the soul. 119

Consumerism became the new, therapeutic belief system. Religious, folk and legal

impediments to consumption declined markedly. Most insidious of all, aggressive

spending was made patriotic. (p. 183)

The inculcation of overconsumption as patriotic was lost on very few after the September 11th

terror attacks in 2001 when Jean Chretien, George Bush, and Tony Blair, in the service of

treadmill elites, urged the citizens of their countries to fight terrorism by continuing to live

their highly consumptive lifestyles (Vardy and Wattie, 2001). In addition to this influence

over government, the elite must seek the public’s acquiescence for the status quo to remain.

Influence over the media and education, in addition to the government seals the corral of

control for the treadmill structures so that mass overconsumption is not seen as part of the

environmental problematic; instead, it is seen as freedom. To disturb the freedom of

consumers in their overconsumption becomes a restriction of personal freedom; however,

lifestyles do not need to be dictated in order to reduce the amount of overconsumption in

richer nations and consumers would have more freedom to choose if given more information.

Schor’s (1998) descriptions show a change in perceptions regarding consumption in the early 1900s from one of frugality as a virtue to frugality as a symptom of a “pinched personality” (p. 183). Interestingly, there were some who managed to evade this mentality:

Bocock (1999) reports that in the 1950s,

The older age group, that is those over retirement age, may have remained immune to

the new forms of consumption either because they were poor, or because they had not

been socialised in such a way that they responded to advertisements and the new

social pressures to become conspicuous consumers or for a mixture of such reasons.

(p. 22)

Taylor (1999) explains that this “crucial ‘silent’ shift in the logic of everyday life occurred after 1880 in American cities with the rise of a consumption ethic for urban professional 120 indexed by the establishment of a national advertising industry” (p. 37). Slade’s (2007) tracking of the growth of the throw-away mentality in America leads to retailers and industrialists who won the battle against the message of thrift and frugality promulgated by certain government officials and academics in the 1920s. Slade’s understanding fits with

Bocock (1993), Durning (1992) and Schor’s (1998) assessments that it was the first the producers who needed mass overconsumption and not the demand from consumers which required mass production.

These authors show that the shift to consumerism and the exaltation of overconsumption has occurred very recently in human history. It is not, therefore, a foregone conclusion that humans must behave in this manner. We can challenge the socialization and the vested interests that brought us to this point. We can become aware of the manipulation and change our collective behaviour that has put us on this environmentally destructive path; however, hoping this change will come about by the non-confrontational strategies based on individual efforts and choices, such as recycling, green consumerism, or consumerism encouraged by cause-related marketing, is naive at best and irresponsible at worst (Princen et al, 2002).

Controlling information is so critical to influencing public awareness that Weinberg

(1997) in his look at the effectiveness of grassroots environmental groups determined that one of the most important skills for the survivability of the group was the ability to control the framing of the issue. Weinberg concludes that the inability to control information was often the result of treadmill structures being more skilled in this area with the result that this rhetorical power of the treadmill elites was often able to force environmental groups to adopt the framing perspective of the treadmill—that is unlimited economic growth—in order to enter the discussion in any meaningful way. This framing permeates our education and communication institutions of our society and needs to be challenged in order that individuals 121 are equipped with the knowledge and awareness to take the big steps that are necessary for true sustainability to occur.

In order to create the dramatic changes required for true sustainability, individuals need to have access to more accurate information about the connection between overconsumption and ecological damage, as well as more access to scientifically-sound evidence of the present state of our ecosystems. Having opportunities to read and discuss scientific journals rather than relying on mainstream media to filter this information via treadmill lenses or instead disproportionately give attention to corporate-funded research might help individuals challenge information that casts doubt over scientific findings.

Individuals will also need to have chances to interact with others to expand this awareness and to create their own ideas and opportunities for alternatives. Organizations and individuals that are already aware need to present the alternatives that they have found helpful in countering the mainstream communications and education of treadmill values that form tradition and convention. Once individuals realize the environmental crisis requires immediate action, their response will hopefully be to organize and pressure decision-makers to make the necessary changes to social structures and physical infrastructure.

Organizing Hassan (2007) calls on individuals living in the liberal democracies of the world to “mobilize collective responses to ruinous individual, social, national, multinational, and international actions” because they are able to; and, as such, have a greater responsibility than those who live in “authoritarian regimes” (p. 192). We who live in the rich, industrialized nations must use our democratic freedoms (and fulfill our obligations as citizens in these democracies) by expanding our civic engagement beyond that allowed by consumer activities. These changes at governmental levels cannot occur without substantial democratic participation and mass organization according to Collins’ (1990) and Crenshaw and Jenkins’ (1996) explications of conflict theory. These social theorists explain that 122 conflict is inherent to stratified societies as class structures prevent equal access to limited resources and that change will not occur without challenging the dominant social actors and structures they maintain for their benefit.

At the global level of dialogue, nongovernmental and non-profit organizations have very little influence despite their membership numbers (Chatterjee and Finger, 1994). Many decisions at this global level are made at an institutional level that is not democratic or transparent because they do not allow substantive public participation or public viewing. To suppose that individuals can make a difference at this level has no basis in reality. True change can only be attained by creating enough public momentum collectively that it influences decision-makers who can then make the necessary changes from the top down. If, for example, the public were to boycott all products of mass production, treadmill interests may then be forced to acknowledge that the public is aware of the extent of the environmental crisis and is united in its concern and determination to effect change. This type of united front from consumers is hard for many businesses to ignore, even if, as Schnaiberg (1980) explains, there are some production facilities owned by monopoly capital that are immune to this type of pressure for their products, for instance, weapons manufacturers that do not sell to the public. Massive public pressure would also be very difficult for state decision-makers to ignore. Knowing that the majority supports change toward less production and less consumption might give those decision-makers with similar goals for sustainability the strength and determination to adopt paradigms outside the treadmill goal of unlimited growth.

Although, generally, one individual cannot effect much change, organized individuals can be very persuasive as the 2010 Red-Shirt protests in Thailand and the East European

Colour Revolutions earlier in the decade have illustrated. Where democratic processes still exist, milder forms of protest such as contacting political representatives, staging rallies, or attending public forums to voice objections can work toward the bigger structural and social 123 changes necessary for sustainability. The public must not only create this pressure but the pressure must be maintained at a high level across broad sectors of the population, otherwise, as Richardson, et al. (1993) show in their depiction of how the Alberta government overrode the government of Canada’s recommendations, the monopoly capital and affiliated political officials who profit from this connection will not change. By refusing to let up their pressure, citizens have been able to raise awareness and, in some cases, effect change as illustrated by the passing of the Canada Water Act in 197022 or the thousands of unemployed people who protested day after day for the creation of a park23 in downtown New York in 1857.

Concerned individuals should also not become complacent because research suggests that it is the public saliency of the issue that often wins the day: “the issue-attention cycle proves the point that public dialogue matters” (Booth, 2004, p. 227). Kraft and Kamieniecki

(2007) find that politicians are reluctant to make decisions that go against the majority of their constituents, especially when the public saliency is high; therefore, just as business spares no expense to influence the public, activists need to spend the equivalent in time and whatever other resources they have to balance the information reaching the public so more will become aware and apply pressure for change. Without this strong presence of public pressure and saliency, governments will bow to the pressure from more powerful entities like multinational corporations as shown in the relationship between Exxon and the Bush administration (Livesey, 2002) or more recently in the public funding given to Shell by the

Harper government for carbon capture and storage—a technology Bell and Weis (2009) state is unproven—in the province of Alberta (Cooper and Schmidt, 2009).

Knowing how to take advantage of the issue-attention cycle is important for any organization that seeks to challenge the treadmill paradigm. Knowing how to frame the

22 This regulatory instrument, as well as others that controlled levels of phosphates in detergents was a direct result of public pressure that was maintained over time despite a concerted effort by the industries affected to have the issues side-lined (Read, 1996). 23 Foster (1999), pp. 81-82 124 issues to enhance this saliency is also important. Organizations should be aware of the common-sense use of highly emotive phrases and concepts, such as freedom of speech, in order to either counter treadmill defenses or use the same tactics. Knowing how to talk with and challenge leaders of industry and governments tied to them is also an important skill.

The experience of Richardson, et al (1993) is an instructive manual for teaching that individuals who are carefully attuned to rhetoric and how state elites and corporations use it to swing public opinion to their side can disrupt the hold these powerful actors’ public have on public awareness and help form a more balanced public perception. The Big 10 environmental organizations have effectively positioned themselves as allies of business and state. As such, they have access to these elite groups and know effective means of communication and negotiation. Sharing this knowledge with groups that organize individual citizens might better enable these citizen groups to confront treadmill power.

For environmental organizations, these alternatives to the treadmill of production organization have important implications. Instead of adhering to the small steps promoted by big business and those decision-makers connected to it, which maintain the overconsumptive lifestyle of developed nations, a more effective approach would be to educate individuals regarding the constraints that prevent reductions in consumption and how overproduction requires overconsumption. If these environmental organizations were able to convince their membership that real sustainability required the big steps of individuals to organize and apply political pressure to those who make decisions rather than abide with the treadmill small- steps approach, the survival of our ecosystems would seem less uncertain. Efforts to challenge the social norms and expectations that encourage overconsumption as those displayed by organizations such as Adbusters must also continue if not be stepped up. It would be most effective if environmental organizations could join forces with organizations 125

such as Adbusters to challenge the messages that are constantly reinforced by media that also

have ties to big business.

Although there are challenges to dialogue at a global level, the pressure well-

organized and vocal citizen groups can put on their local and national leaders and would-be

leaders could have a ‘trickle-up’ effect if these groups were to network and keep the efforts

sustained as recommended in the study by Gould, Weinberg, and Schnaiberg (1993). In their

study, these authors also found that environmental organizations could have had more success if they had formed coalitions with labour and other groups working for more equitable distribution of resources. Sustaining movements and efforts seems possible if

groups reach out to others and concede nothing to treadmill interests. There are many

factions that ultimately have the same goals of sustainability and restructuring the treadmill

so it adheres to ecological limits. It is most imperative that these forces are conjoined if

efforts are to reach the global level. Additionally, the public must be cautious in their

agreements with the state. Gould, et al. (1993) explain that the forums organized by

governments to air public environmental concern served more to “control the ‘sociological

problem’ of public opinion by restricting the working-class and the poor to voicing their

concerns and promoting their interests within a tightly controlled forum” (p. 216). Allowing

treadmill interests to contain public opinion in this way is a real impediment to public

awareness of the issues.

Another group that might be marshalled for joining forces for environmental

behavioural change is the youth. Although steeped in overconsumption from the time of

birth, those born after the neoliberal turn in the 1970s and heightened overconsumption have

the most to lose as the environmental bill for our overconsumptive lifestyles comes due 126

during their or their children’s lifetime24. With the major ecological problems of climate

change, ozone depletion, and soil depletion threatening most of the global population’s basic

life necessities, this cohort will face changes that human civilization has not before

experienced on such an extensive scale. If the culture jamming and role modelling provided

by groups such as Adbusters or cultural heroes such as Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, or

Brad Pitt25are effective, we may yet see another youth revolution to equal that of the 1960s—

one that may unite with the older generations rather than alienate them. Rather than creating

schisms that became known as the ‘generation gap,’ perhaps the cooperation and common

goal of sustainability would heal divisions between age groups—such a united populace

would be a difficult nut for corporate rhetoric and advertising to crack.

In terms of currently practised alternatives to treadmill overproduction and

overconsumption, the voluntary simplicity movement (VSM) has gained momentum and

shows signs of promise. Maniates (2002b) praises the movement for the significant levels of

democratic participation of its adherents. Maniates stresses, however, that this does not

address the larger institutional and political forces (p. 211) that contribute to treadmill

expansion and constrain choices for change for many. Maniates sees this movement, one he

describes as “one of the most tightly networked and actively conversational groups in the

United States and their agenda as [ . . . ] really quite subversive” (p. 227); that is, it is

comprised of people who do not comply to the dictates of the treadmill to overproduce and

overconsume. People who subscribe to this social movement feel that the ability to

24 Most climate scientists see the end of the 21st century as the point when drastic ecological changes due to climate changes caused by human activity will occur (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). Although many of these anthropogenic climate changes have already impacted the people in poorer regions of the world, people in regions with more resources and more resilient land structures have been less affected. This state of affairs may change abruptly if certain tipping points are breached; for instance, if present warming thaws the tundra releasing more of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, global temperatures could accelerate bringing more environmental risks to areas thought presently immune. 25 www.thedailygreen.com has asked viewers to vote for the greenest celebrity from a list of 15—these celebrities were chosen as examples because they were the youngest from the list and have appeared most recently and often in the public eye. Their global recognition rivals that of the brands multinationals produce— in a way, they are brands themselves—thus, their global influence is immense. 127

overconsume does not compensate for the long hours at unrewarding work and the sacrifices

of quality time with family and friends. Maniates explains that they have not bought into the

treadmill belief system that more money and material possessions make for qualitative

improvements or they have discarded this value system. Although the VSM participants

(VSMers) are not, technically, environmentalists—often ‘dropping out’ due to levels of stress

or dissatisfaction with workplace dynamics—their example is important for modelling

behaviour contrary to the dominant message of the treadmill and does have environmental

implications. Maniates believes there is a potential for the VSMers to become more

environmentally minded. VSMers are a good example of successful organizing as well as a

thriving instructive for those who wish to get off the treadmill as are ‘Freegans’—a

community gaining prominence in their anti-treadmill activities of squatting in abandoned

buildings and obtaining provisions from what their overconsumptive societies discard.

Active groups that adopt such lifestyles may chip away at the support for mass production,

and hopefully, eventually eliminate the futile, destructive, and unachievable goal of unlimited

growth along with its attendant social injustices.

Participatory democracy is more than just buying the green products or those products

that have superficially adopted a cause to appear socially-responsible in order to sell more. It

means more than congregating in privately-owned malls or coffee shops and having pseudo

conversations inspired by sanctioned t-shirts or coffee mugs hoping that our “cosmopolitan

caring” (Littler, 2009) and consumer authority will save the planet. It means, as Schnaiberg

(1980) asserted, “consciousness, coordination, and conflict” (p. 247): organizing groups, researching and sharing findings of corporate smokescreens so that others become aware and boycott these corporations and their products. It also means writing letters and organizing protests to let political leaders know that the public is aware and concerned about the destruction caused by the elite and that the responsibility for environmental damage caused 128

by this privileged class will no longer be shouldered by the general public just as citizens in

Ontario did with the phosphate issue discussed previously. Although reducing our individual

consumption so that it falls closer to the actual requirements of life is part of the solution

nearly two thirds of most additions to and withdrawals from our ecosystems are from industry and this is where citizens need to demand the bulk of the change occur.

Conclusion

Overcoming the environmentally dysfunctional systems which have evolved in

interconnected ways to provide us the basic necessities of life—such as shelter or food—will

be difficult because they involve societal structures that are maintained by powerful elites,

but that are also deeply entrenched physically, socially, and now, within the last century,

profoundly psychologically. These difficult changes are necessary, however, if we want to

maintain societies that function to sustain humans and their civilizations. Without these

changes the socially and environmentally destructive tendencies of overproduction and

overconsumption in the richer nations will prevent our ecosystems from performing the

valuable services they provide us. These changes cannot be effected by the small-steps

approach. These changes require substantial adjustments to the fundamental organization of

our modern, industrial societies, changes that are beyond those that can be made by an

individual or even aggregate individual effort. Individual effort will be required in several

important ways, however: firstly accepting the environmental reality as precarious; secondly,

pressuring leaders to enact the necessary structural changes; and thirdly, finding ways to

personally enhance their basic life provisioning without resorting to overconsumption, what

Daly referred to as “qualitative development’.

What is important for all individuals to accomplish, rather than small-steps, is the

transition to from consumer activism to civic activism. This mass movement would have to

be initiated by a public grown aware enough to resist the defensive responses from business 129 and government; responses such as campaigns based on libertarian calls for consumer freedom or those campaigns instilling the fear that less consumption would result in more unemployment. Perhaps once the public becomes aware of the manipulations engineered by these powerful economic actors, public outrage will create the motivation for individuals to become active citizens rather than relying on the passive roles of green consumerism or other small-steps approaches, such as turning lights off which do not interfere with treadmill profits. If people better understood the unfairness of huge corporate profits made at the expense of our planet and human rights, it might become an issue on which people would be willing to sacrifice time and energy.

Revisiting Individualization of Responsibility

Change as regards environmental behaviour has been occurring. Some estimates are that about a quarter of a million people in America produce their own electricity to run their homes (Tatum, 2002, p. 301). Maniates (2002b) estimates that there are almost 50 million people who are voluntarily living more simply by consuming less and working less. Many of these simplifiers and home-power individuals intend their lifestyles to serve as role models for change within the greater population, yet Maniates argues that they have not succeeded because they are still “locked into a rhetoric of the individualization of responsibility” (p.

233) which does not address the larger treadmill structures. Voluntary simplicity and other small-step approaches work up to a certain point but what is needed is substantial changes in urban planning, energy production, goods and services provisioning, laws, such as tax, trade, and labour laws, resource extraction, education, infrastructure, such as transportation systems and community locations (Booth, 2004).

The decisions required to create an economy that works within ecological limits are not those decisions that most individuals can make. These changes can only be made by state and elite decision-makers—the very groups that have the most to lose if the changes are put 130 into effect. Elites who, for example, plan the location of residential areas in broad swaths of homes that are poorly serviced by public transportation and necessitate one-rider cars on commutes to work (Barton, 2000) or individuals who have bought up family farms creating industrial-agricultural conglomerates that require far more chemicals and fossil fuels to grow and distribute food that could have been grown locally and organically if on a smaller scale.

It is therefore up to the public to prove to the dominant class that remaining with the status quo will be unprofitable or politically unfeasible. This will not be easy. Since the neoliberal turn (Harvey, 2007), the dominant class has strengthened its control over these treadmill structures and dynamics making individual participation unlikely, ineffective, or nearly impossible. The present economic organization took centuries to develop. Institutions such as education, media, and financial organizations have congealed into systems that would be impossible for individuals to challenge on their own. Not only has this complex and intertwined system taken centuries to develop, individuals have accepted and, often, adopted the rhetoric imposed by the dominant elite that it is the responsibility of individuals to change their weaknesses rather than tackle any counterproductive elements or defects within the system.

If the public truly wants to see change on a scale that may actually result in a future of sustainability for our progeny, we must look beyond the strategies devised by treadmill institutions that appear to be solving the problem when, in fact, they avoid the fundamental issue of overconsumption. This means that citizens must develop an awareness of our environmental situation that goes further than the idea of small steps. They must refuse to accept the idea that we are all responsible equally. They must become informed and critical thinkers learning to look beyond the mainstream media’s information circulated by corporations that obfuscates our environmental reality and denies where the responsibility for the bulk of the damage really lies. Citizens need to understand that the small-steps 131

approach and consumer activity aimed at improving our environmental predicament is a poor

substitute for political action because the former further empowers the treadmill elites that

cause environmental destruction rather than alleviates our environmental situation. Citizens

should also understand that the tactics of greenwashing and cause-related marketing are

designed more for profits than environmental improvement and the never-ending

commoditization that encourages increased consumption levels should also be reconsidered.

Schnaiberg’s (1980) theory of the treadmill of production explains why the policies of

sustainable development have been formulated around the small-steps approach: these small

changes do not interfere with profits from mass-production and the overconsumption that

sustains it. Furthermore, since the neoliberal turn, policies that benefit the expansion of the

treadmill, primarily those that benefit capital, increase overproduction and overconsumption.

Individuals can effect more change by taking the bigger-steps of avoiding commoditization of

services and mass-production of goods as much as possible; for example, by growing as

much of one’s food supply as possible; buying locally; preparing food from scratch or going

to a slow-food restaurant rather than using prepared foods or going to a fast-food restaurant which support the unsustainable practices of the agri-businesses; by hand washing clothes rather than using a dry cleaner that uses toxic chemicals.

The Rational Choice theory suggests that the small-steps approach will aggregate to a

broad social outcome that is beneficial for the environment and future generations, but the

filters of treadmill structures—external elements that influence individual decisions such as

the quality of information, opportunity and costs, and institutional constraints—do more to

influence individual choice than does the preference for a somewhat hazy goal of a

sustainable world. With so much treadmill structural power working against change for a

different paradigm, individuals cannot make a difference by simple steps performed in

isolation. More effort is required. Schnaiberg predicts that true sustainability will only be 132 attained by the “structuralist or radical” approach that challenges the treadmill structures rather than “meliorist” approach of ‘small steps’ which seeks change at the individual level

(Schnaiberg and Gould, 1994, p. 158). This need for widespread and systemic change will mean sacrifice. These sacrifices will go far beyond the small-steps strategies devised by treadmill structures. It will mean a reorganization of our personal lives in order to take back the power from corporations who have commodified our social lives and inculcated ideas of what the good life is (a definition dependent upon overconsumption to provide material comforts). We will need to sacrifice many of our definitions of the good life: our modern comforts and conveniences and ideas of what progress entails. We can no longer believe that our social success and that of our children’s can be purchased with material goods and we must realize the pervasiveness of the emotional manipulations of those who would sell us these in exchange for a sustainable future.

Looking at improvements in living standards as more an aspect of qualitative development rather than quantitative development, as Daly (1996) explained, may help us accomplish this change in perspective. Knowing that there are other cultures in other places and times that have managed to create meaning and community without an accumulation of physical artifacts or activities that consume vast amounts of the earth’s resources may help us make the transition from high entropy to low entropy development. It is not that we need to be less materialistic, as Durning (1992) argues, but more appreciative of the materials we have so as not to waste them “true materialism [thus] . . . means caring for the earth [and] . . . caring for the things we take from it” (p. 101). Also, realizing that some of the happiest societies on the globe are those that have less material wealth than the rich, industrialized societies gives us reason to hope that our lives will not be the colourless, dreary, and depressing experiences captured in the photographs from the 1930s Great Depression or of the people of socialist countries in the depths of their despair: images often invoked by 133

treadmill concerns to dissuade us from this path. There is life and there is community and

meaning beyond material accumulation.

Can humans change? Although there are arguments that humans are innately selfish,

acquisitive, and short-sighted,26 I agree with McKibben (1999) who asserts that “we are

different from the rest of the natural order, for the single reason that we possess the

possibility of self-restraint, of choosing some other way” (p. xxi). This implies that we can

overcome any innate desire to overconsume for social status no matter how thoroughly this

innate desire has been stoked by the social engineering of treadmill interests.

Mahoney (1991) also reminds us that humanity has changed momentously in the past,

stating that,

Were there ever any doubt that human beings are capable of substantial psychological

change, the events of the 20th century would offer ample and diversified testimony. In

no other period of history have so many aspects of human experience been so

dramatically changed. (p. 5)

Andrew Simms also points to the 20th century as proof that humanity can change its

economic organization if governments are given the right motivation. Simms considers the

mobilization of social forces to create a wartime economy in the UK a dramatic example of

the monumental change that can happen in a short period given the right circumstances: “in

the six years between 1938 and 1944, the economy was re-engineered and there were

dramatic cuts in resource use and household consumption” (Simms 2008, para.15). Simms

qualifies this affirmation of change potential with the necessity of governments to implement

these measures further underscoring that the individualization of responsibility will not save

our planetary home or us. Individuals cannot, even if motivated and well-organized, counter

the power of industry; however, what they can do is provide the electoral motivation for

26 see Miller, G. F. (2001) and Dawkins (2001) for evolutionary explanations for our ecological crisis. 134 governments to do so or, if that fails, collude with vast other movements to boycott treadmill processes.

Schnaiberg and Gould (1994) also have much to teach us about path dependencies and spaces of negotiation:

The fact that technology is not runaway should give us political heart: what

institutional decision makers propose can [italics added] be altered by other political

and economic actors. The treadmill is not a mystical system but a construction of

human interests. . . . We point to the institutional underpinning of this system in order

to note both the treadmill’s resistance to structural changes and its limited points of

vulnerability to opposing forces. (p. 89)

Since we are not pre-ordained to accept every technological advance and that decisions must be made to accept these changes, there is an entry point of protest against new advances that cause more problematic additions to or withdrawals from our ecosystems.

The planet and all its life forms cannot wait for vested interests to give up their privileges and wealth voluntarily: conflict theorists argue that very few groups in history have given up their power willingly. All change for more equitable practices have come from people willing to organize and fight without worrying about social conventions (much to the chagrin of those who like to quote the statement attributed to Margaret Mead that concludes, the only thing that has ever changed the world is small groups of thoughtful, committed individuals!). The western public must make the connection between treadmill overconsumption/overproduction and ecological destruction before environmental awareness can attain the focus and behavioural change it needs in order to be effective. This responsibility is primarily down to environmental organizations and social justice organizations who must be willing to give up their “de facto or de jure coalition with state agencies and private sector interests” (Gould et al., 1993, p. 213) and begin the non-treadmill 135 orientation of educating the masses. These organizations must be willing to challenge the

‘commonsense’ rhetoric in mainstream media (Harvey, 2007) that equates the western lifestyle of overconsumption with freedom. Gould et al. also maintain that these organizations must band together if any chance of influencing government is to be attained.

Influence is not assured but, as Gould et al. assert, “The emergence of a broad-based socio- environmental movement will require the state to act in order to maintain its own political legitimacy” (p. 239). The more pressure citizens can publicly apply, the more the likelihood of success.

If social justice is to prevail during the difficult period of necessary change, at the same time that richer individuals are scaling back their overconsumption, the poor must be raised up to the level of basic human necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, employment, medical attention, and education so that more people can live their lives with dignity and security. This change may create a greater sense of security than that which governments try to create with economic development since it will reduce levels of “frustration, dissatisfaction, and social instability” (Maniates, 2002b, p. 206) created by great wealth disparities whether in developing nations or in the richer nations, instability that might possibly lead to crimes of violence against those who are perceived to have more.

These changes may be particularly difficult for the generations inculcated with the intensified imperatives to overconsume, especially those born after mass consumption was amplified in the 1980s by the marketing technique known as branding because much of the personal and social identity of these people in these cohorts is built around overconsumption; however, this generation also stands to suffer from many environmental ills if overconsumption in the rich, industrialized nations is not curtailed, making this group ripe for revolutionary lifestyle changes. Once made aware of the problem and the solution—an active citizenry demanding environmental and social justice immediately—humanity may stand a 136 chance of diversion from the self-destructive path of overproduction and overconsumption.

In exchange for the sacrifices of all age groups in the developed countries, we will have begun to build a new world, one that recognizes and respects ecological limits for the future of all species.

137

Works Cited

AT & T Executive Education & Conference Centre. www.meetattexas.com

Adorno, T. W. and Horkheimer, M. (1944). The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass

deception. In J. B. Schor & D. B. Holt (Eds.) (2000). The Consumer Society Reader

(pp. 3-19). New York: New Press.

Barton, H. (2000). Sustainable Communities: The Potential for Eco-Neighbourhoods.

London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.

Beck, R. & Kolankiewicz, L. (2000). The Environmental Movement’s Retreat from

Advocating U.S. Population Stabilization (1970-1988): A First Draft of

History. Journal of Policy History 12 (1), 123-156. Retrieved February 23,

2004 from Project Muse—Premium Collection database.

Bedbury, S. Nine Ways to Fix a Broken Brand. Retrieved Nov 7, 2005 from

www.allaboutbranding.com.

Bell, J. & Weis, T. (2009). Greening the grid: Powering Alberta’s future with renewable

energy. Drayton Valley, AB, Canada: Pembina Institute. Retrieved December 5,

2009 from www.pemgina.org.

Bell, M. M. (2008). An Invitation to Environmental Sociology (3rd ed). Thousand

Oaks, CA, USA: Pine Forge Press.

Berger, I. E. (1997). The demographics of recycling and the structure of environmental

behavior. Environment and Behavior 29(4), 515-533. Retrieved February 23, 2004

from Gale Group database.

Bernays, E. (2008). Propaganda. New York: Ig Publishing. (Original work published 1928).

Bocock, R. (1993). Consumption. New York: Routledge.

Bogue, M. B. (2000). Chapter 8: Agriculture, lumbering, mining and the changing fish

habitat. In Fishing the Great Lakes: An environmental history 1783-1933, (pp. 113- 138

136). Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

(Received in HIST 620 Environmental History of North America reading file)

Bok, D. (2010). The politics of happienss: What government can learn from the new

research on well-being. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.

Booth, D. E. (2004). Hooked on Growth: Economic Addictions and the

Environment. Lanham, MD, USA: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

Bower, B. (1997). Humanity’s imprecision vision. Science News 152(2), 26-27.

Retrieved June 29, 2008 from JSTOR database.

Boyd, D. R. (2003). Chapter 8: Systemic weaknesses. In Unnatural Law: Rethinking

Canadian Environmental Law and Policy, (pp. 228-250). Vancouver: UBC Press.

(Received in HIST 620 Environmental History of North America reading file)

Briton, D. (1996). The Modern Practice of Adult Education: A Post-Modern Critique.

New York: State University of New York Press.

Broder, J. M. (2009, October 1). E.P.A. moves to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com.

Broder, J. & Mouawad, J. (2009, October 19). Energy firms find no unity on climate bill.

New York Times. Retrieved October 19, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com.

Brown, L.R., Larsen, J., Dorn, J.G., & Moore, F.C. (2008). Time for plan B: Cutting

carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020. Earth Policy Institute. Retrieved

August 2, 2008 from http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/pB3/80by2020.htm.

Chatterjee, P. & Finger, M. (1994). The Earth Brokers: Power, Politics and World

Development. New York: Routledge.

Chomsky, N. (2002). Media control: The spectacular achievements of propaganda.

New York: Seven Stories Press.

Cohen, M. J. & Murphy, J. (Eds.) (2001). Exploring Sustainable Consumption: 139

Environmental Policy and the Social Sciences. Oxford: Pergamon.

Collins, R. (1990). Conflict theory and the advance of macro-historical sociology. In

G. Ritzer (Ed.), Frontiers of social theory: The new syntheses (pp. 68-87).

New York: Columbia University Press.

Cooper, D. & Schmidt, L. (2009, October 8). Shell gets $865M for carbon capture.

Edmonton Journal. Retrieved December 5, 2009 from www.canada.com.

Costanza, R., Graumlich, L. J., & Steffen, W. (2007). Sustainability or collapse: An

integrated history and future of people on earth. In R.Costanza, L. J. Graumlich, &

W. Steffen (Eds.), Sustainability or Collapse: An Integrated History and Future o

People on Earth (pp. 3-17). Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Crenshaw, E. M. & Jenkins, J. C. (1996). Social structure and global climate change:

Sociological propositions concerning the greenhouse effect. Sociological

Focus 29(4), 341-358. Retrieved May 5, 2006 from EBSCO Host Research

Databases.

Cronon, W. (1992). Nature’s Metropolis. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). The costs and benefits of consuming. In T.

Jackson (Ed.), The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Consumption (pp. 357-366).

London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.

Curtis, A. (Writer) (Director). (2002a). Happiness machines) [Television documentary

episode]. In S. Lambert (Executive producer), Century of Self. London, UK: BBC.

Retrieved October 2, 2008 from

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=78466363224520614#docid=67184209064

13643126

Curtis, A. (Writer) (Director). (2002b). The engineering of consent. [Television

documentary episode]. In S. Lambert (Executive producer), Century of Self. 140

London, UK: BBC. Retrieved October 2, 2008 from

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=-

7139259509177310748.

Curtis, A. (Writer) (Director). (2002c). There is a policeman inside all our heads: he must be

destroyed. [Television documentary episode]. In S. Lambert (Executive producer),

Century of Self. London, UK: BBC. Retrieved October 2, 2008 from

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=-

6111922724894802811.

Curtis, A. (Writer) (Director). (2002d). Eight people sipping wine in Kettering. [Television

documentary episode]. In S. Lambert (Executive producer), Century of Self.

London, UK: BBC. Retrieved October 2, 2008 from

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#

Cushman, P. (1990). Why the self is empty: Toward a historically situated psychology.

American Psychologist 45(5), 599-611. Retrieved January 2, 2007 from

EBSCO Host Research database.

The Daily Green. www.thedailygreen.com

Daly, H. (1996). Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development.

Boston, Beacon Press.

Dawkins, R. (2001). Sustainability doesn’t come naturally: a Darwinian perspective on

values, The Environment Foundation’s ‘Values Platform for Sustainability’

Inaugural Lecture, Wednesday 14th November, 2001, The Royal Institution, London,

UK. Retrieved August 23, 2008 from http://www.environmentfoundation.net/

Dearing, J. A., Graumlich, L. J., Grove, R. H. Grűbler, A., Haberl, H. Hole, F., Pfister, C. &

Van der Leeuw, S. E. (2007). Group report: Integrating socioenvironmental 141

interactions over centennial timescales. In R. Costanza, L. J. Graumlich, &

W. Steffen (Eds.), Sustainability or Collapse: An Integrated History and Future of

People on Earth (pp. 243-274). Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. London,

UK: Penguin Books.

Douglas, M. & Isherwood, B. (1996). The World of Goods: Towards an

Anthropology of Consumption (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Duffy, R. J. (2007). Business, elections, and the environment. In M. E. Kraft & S.

Kamieniecki (Eds.), Business and Environmental Policy: Corporate Interests in the

American Political System (pp. 61-90). Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.

Durning, A. T. (1992). How Much is Enough?: The Consumer Society and the Future

of the World. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Ellwood, W. (2003). The no-nonsense guide to globalization. Toronto, ON: Between

the Lines.

Flannery, T. (2005). The weather makers: How man is changing the climate and what it

means for life on earth. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.

Fogarty, D. (2010, April 26). Climate debate gets ugly as world moves to curb CO2.

Retrieved April 27, 2010 from www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63P00A20100426

Foster, J. B. (1999). The vulnerable planet: A short economic history of the environment.

New York: Monthly Review Press.

Foster, J. B. (2000). Marx’s ecology: Materialism and nature. New York: Monthly

Review Press.

Foster, J. B. (2005). The treadmill of accumulation: Schnaiberg’s Environment and Marxian

political economy. Organization & Environment 18(1), 7-18. Retrieved December

27, 2009 from ABI/INFORM Global database. 142

The Foundation of Deep Ecology. www.deepecology.org.

Friedman, D. & Hechter, M. (1988). The contribution of rational choice theory to

macrosociological research. In D. McQuarie (Ed.). Readings in Contemporary

Sociological Theory: From Modernity to Post-Modernity (pp. 294-303). Upper

Saddle River, NJ, USA: Prentice-Hall.

Friends of the Earth. www.foe.co.uk.

Friends of the Earth. (2004, January 9). Over consumption wrecking the planet. Retrieved

July 30, 2009 from www.foe.co.uk.

Fuchs, D. A. & Lorek, S. (2002). Sustainable consumption: Governance in a globalizing

world. Global Environmental Politics 2(1), 19-45. Retrieved September 4, 2009

from EBSCO Host database.

Godrej, D. (2001). The no-nonsense guide to climate change. Oxford, UK: New

Internationalist Publications Ltd.

Goodman, P. S. (2009, August 29). Reluctance to spend may be legacy of recession.

New York Times. Retrieved August 31, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com.

Gould, K. A., Pellow, D. N. & Schnaiberg, A. (2004). Interrogating the treadmill of

production: Everything you wanted to know about the treadmill but were afraid to

ask. Organization & Environment 17(3), 296-316. Retrieved July 30, 2009 from

ABI/INFORM Global database.

Gould, K. A., Weinberg, & Schnaiberg, A. (1993). Legitimating impotence: Pyrrhic victories

of the modern environmental movement. Qualitative Sociology 16(3), 207-246.

Retrieved July 30, 2009 from EBSCO Host database.

Greenpeace International. www.greenpeace.org/international.

Gregory, R. J. (2003). Venturing past psychic numbing: facing the issues. Journal for the

Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society 8(2), 232-237. Retrieved April 7, 2004 from 143

Project Muse database.

Guggenheim, D. (director). (2006). An Inconvenient Truth. [Motion picture DVD

format, 2006]. United States: A Lawrence Bender/Laurie David production.

Hardin G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Retrieved Nov 10, 2003, from

www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html

Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity: An enquiry into the Origins of

Cultural Change. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Harvey, D. (2006b). Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven

Geographical Development. New York: Verso.

Harvey, D. (2007). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Hassan, F. A. (2007). Nation-states and the contradictions of complex societies. In

R.Costanza, L. J. Graumlich, & W. Steffen (Eds.), Sustainability or Collapse: An

Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (pp. 3-17). Cambridge, MA, USA:

The MIT Press.

Hawken, P., Lovins, A., & Lovins, L. H. (1999). Natural Capitalism: Creating the

Next Industrial Revolution. New York: Back Bay Books.

Hempel, J. (2005, October 24). Therapy with your latte? It’s my job. Business Week.

Retrieved November 27, 2005 from

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_43/c3956016.htm.

Hendricks, S. (2005). Divine Destruction: Wise Use, Dominion Theology, and the Making of

American Environmental Policy. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Melville House Publishing.

Hibbard, K. A. (rapporteur), Crutzen, P. J., Lambin, E. F., Liverman, D. M., Mantua, N. J.,

McNeill, J. R., Messerli, B., and Steffen, W. (2007). Group report: Decadal-scale

interactions of humans and the environment. In R. Costanza, L. J. Graumlich, and

W. Steffen (Eds.), Sustainability or Collapse?: An Integrated History and Future of 144

People on Earth (pp. 341-375). Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.

Hobson, K. (2001). Sustainable lifestyles: Rethinking barriers and behaviour change.

In M. J. Cohen and J. Murphy (Eds.) Exploring Sustainable Consumption:

Environmental Policy and the Social Sciences (pp. 191-209). New York: Pergamon.

Homes, S. & Smith, G. (2002, September, 9). For Coffee Growers, Not even a

Whiff of Profits. Business Week, 110.

Howard, G. S. (2000). Adapting human lifestyles for the 21st century. American

Psychologist. May, 509-515. Retrieved Apr 7, 2004 from EBSCO Host

Research Databases.

The Institute of Social Ecology. www.social-ecology.org.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007). Climate change 2007:

The physical science basis [Contribution of working group 1 to the fourth

assessment report of the IPCC]. Retrieved February 21, 2007 from http://ipcc-

wg1.ucar.edu/.

Jackson, T. (Ed.). (2006). The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Consumption.

London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.

Jackson, T. (2005). Live better by consuming less? Is there a ‘Double Dividend’ in

sustainable consumption? Journal of Industrial Ecology 9(1-2), 19-36.

Retrieved July 11, 2008 from EBSCO Host Research Databases.

Jha, A. (2009, September 1). Investment in geo-engineering needed immediately, say Royal

Society. The Guardian. Retrieved September 4, 2009 from www.guardian.co.uk

Kaiser, F. G., Ranney, M., Hartig, T. & Bowler, P. A. (1999). Ecological Behavior,

environmental attitude, and feelings of responsibility for the environment.

European Psychologist 4(2), 59-74. Retrieved February 23, 2004 from EBSCO

Host database. 145

King, U. (2005). One planet, one spirit: Searching for an ecologically balanced

spirituality. Ecotheology 10(1), 66-87. Retrieved April 10, 2008 from

EBSCO Host Research Databases.

Koltko-Rivera, M. E.. (2004). The psychology of worldviews. Review of General

Psychology 8(1), 3-58. Retrieved January 1, 2007 from EBSCO Host database.

Klein, N. (1999). No logo. New York: Picador USA.

Kraft, M. E. & Kamieniecki, S. (Eds.). (2007). Business and Environmental Policy:

Corporate Interests in the American Political System. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT

Press.

Lasn, K. (2000). Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge—and

why we must. New York: Harper Collins.

Leahey, T. H. (1992). The mythical revolutions of American psychology. American

Psychologist 47(2), 308-318. Retrieved January 2, 2007 from EBSCO Host database.

Lever-Tracy, C. (2008). Global warming and sociology. Current Sociology 56(3),

445-466. Retrieved July 5, 2008 from Sage Journals Online database.

Livesey, S.M. (2002). Global warming wars: Rhetorical and discourse analytic approaches to

ExxonMobil’s corporate public discourse. The Journal of Business Communication 39

117-148. Retrieved May 20, 2006 from Wilson Web database.

Littler, J. (2009). Radical Consumption: Shopping for Change in contemporary culture.

Berkshire, England, UK: Open University Press.

Lodziak, C. (2002). The Myth of Consumerism. London: Pluto Press.

Mahoney, M. J. (1991). Human change processes: The scientific foundations of

psychotherapy (pp. 3-21). New York: Basic Books.

Maniates, M. (2002a). Individualization: Plant a tree, buy a bike, save the world? In

T. Princen, M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.), Confronting Consumption (pp. 43-66). 146

Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Maniates, M. (2002b). In search of consumptive resistance: The voluntary simplicity

movement. In T. Princen, M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.), Confronting

Consumption (pp. 199-235). Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Manno, J. (2002). Commoditization: Consumption Efficiency and an Economy of Care and

Connection. In T. Princen, M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.), Confronting

Consumption (pp. 67-99). Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Marcuse, H. (1991). One-dimensional man (2nd ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. (Original

work published 1964).

Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review 50(1), 370-396.

Retrieved October 6, 2009 from EBSCO Host database.

McCarthy, M. (2009, September 3). Prescott: cutting emissions by 80% will not be enough.

The Independent. Retrieved September 27, 2009 from http://www.independent.co.uk.

McKibben, B. (1999) [1989]. The end of nature. New York: Anchor Books.

McNeill, J. R. (2000). Ch. 10: Fuels, tools, and economics. In Something New Under the

Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World, pp. 296-324. New

York: W.W. Norton & Company. (Received in HIST 620 Environmental History of

North America reading file)

Miller, D. (2001). The poverty of morality. In T. Jackson (Ed.), The Earthscan Reader in

Sustainable Consumption (pp. 221-235). London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.

Miller, G. F. (2001). The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of

Human Nature. New York: Random Books.

Milmo, C. (2001, May 17). The coffee grower: Tatu Museyni. The Independent Online

Edition. Retrieved November 26, 2005 from http://news.independent.co.uk.

Onion, A. (2005, May 26). The diaper debate: are disposables as green as cloth? ABC News. 147

Retrieved September 7, 2009 from http://abcnews.go.com.

O’Shaughnessy, J. & O’Shaughnessy, N. J. (2003). The Marketing Power of Emotion.

New York: Oxford University Press.

Oskamp, S. (2000). A sustainable future for humanity? American Psychologist.

May, 496-508. Retrieved Apr 7, 2004 from EBSCO Host Research Databases.

Pachauri, R. K. (2008, January 29). How would climate change influence society in

the 21st century? Paper presented at the Alliance for Global Sustainability

Conference. Retrieved July 18, 2008 from http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/550/.

Parker, P., Rowlands, I. H., & Scott, D. (2003). Innovations to Reduce Residential

Energy Use and Carbon Emissions: An Integrated Approach. The Canadian

Geographer 47(2), 169-184. Retrieved February 23, 2004 from Academic OneFile

database.

Plog, S. C. (2005). Starbucks: More than a cup of coffee. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant

Administration Quarterly 46(2), 284-287. Retrieved November 7, 2005 from Sage

Publications Database.

Princen, T. (2002a). Consumption and its externalities: Where economy meets ecology. In

T. Princen, M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.), Confronting Consumption (pp. 23-42).

Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Princen, T. (2002b). Distancing: Consumption and the severing of feedback. In T. Princen,

M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.), Confronting Consumption (pp. 103-132).

Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Princen, T., Maniates, M., & Conca, K. (Eds.) (2002a). Confronting Consumption.

Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Princen, T., Maniates, M., & Conca, K. (2002b). Confronting consumption. In T. Princen,

M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.), Confronting Consumption (pp. 1-20). Cambridge, 148

MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Princen, T., Maniates, M., & Conca, K. (2002c). Conclusion: To confront consumption. In

T. Princen, M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.), Confronting Consumption (pp. 317-

328). Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Puckett, J., Byster, L., Westervelt, S., Gutierrez, R., Davis, S., Hussain, A., & Dutta, M.

(2002). Exporting harm: The high-tech trashing of Asia. Retrieved August 2, 2009

from BAN website: http://www.ban.org/E-waste/technotrashfinalcomp.pdf .

Raz, A. E. (1997). The slanted smile factory: Emotion management in Tokyo Disneyland.

Studies in Symbolic Interaction 21, 201-217. (Received with MAIS 615 Business of

Emotions reading file)

Read, J. (1996). “Let us heed the voice of youth”: Laundry detergents, phosphates and the

emergence of the environmental movement in Ontario. Journal of the Canadian

Historical Association 7(1), 227-250. Retrieved December 10, 2007 from

www.erudit.org.

Redclift, M. & Benton, T. (Eds.) (1994). Social Theory and the Global Environment.

New York: Routledge.

Redman, C. L. (1999). Human Impact on Ancient Environments. Tucson, AZ, USA:

University of Arizona Press.

Richardson, M., Sherman, J., & Gismondi, M. (1993). Winning Back the Words.

Toronto, Canada: Garamond Press.

Rifkin, J. (1989). Entropy: Into the greenhouse world (Rev. ed.). New York: Bantam

Books.

Rindfleisch, A. & Burroughs, J. E. (2004). Terrifying thoughts, terrible materialism?

Contemplations on a terror management account of materialism and consumer

behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology 14(3), 219-224. Retrieved August 2, 149

2008 from EBSCO Host database.

Schaefer, A. (2005, December 1). Some considerations regarding the ecological

sustainability of marketing systems. ejrot: Electronic Journal of Radical

Organisation Theory 9(1). Retrieved August 15, 2008 from

www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/vol9_1/schaefer.pdf.

Schlosser, E. (2005). Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal.

New York: Harper Perennial.

Schmuck, P. & Vlek, C. (2003). Psychologists can do much to support sustainable

development. European Psychologist 8(2), 66-76. Retrieved February 13,

2007 from EBSCO Host Research Databases.

Schnaiberg, A. (1980). The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity. New York: Oxford

University Press.

Schnaiberg , A. & Gould, K. A. (1994). Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict.

Caldwell, New Jersey, U.S.A.: The Blackburn Press.

Schnaiberg, A., Pellow, D., & Weinberg, A. (2002). The treadmill of production and the

environmental state. Research in Social Problems & Public Policy, 10, 15-31.

Retrieved July 30, 2009 from SocINDEX with Full Text database.

Schor, J. (1998). Learning Diderot’s lesson: Stopping the upward creep of desire. In T.

Jackson (Ed.), The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Consumption (pp. 179-193).

London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.

Schor, J. B. (2000). Towards a new politics of consumption. In J. B. Schor & D. B. Holt

(Eds.) The Consumer Society Reader (pp. 445-462). New York: New Press.

Schor, J. B. & Holt, D. B. (Eds.) (2000). The Consumer Society Reader. New York:

New Press.

Shellenberger and Nordhaus (2005). The death of environmentalism: Global warming 150

politics in a post-environmental world. Social Policy 35(3), 19-30. Retrieved

May 13, 2006 from EBSCO Host database.

Simmons, J. A. (2009). Evangelical environmentalism: Oxymoron or opportunity?

Worldviews 13(1), 40-71. Retrieved April 25, 2010 from EBSCO Host database.

Simms, A. (2008, August 1). The final countdown. The Guardian. Retrieved September 15,

2009 from www.guardian.co.uk.

Simon, J. L. (1995, September-October). The state of humanity: Steadily improving.

Cato Institute. Retrieved Feb 2, 2008 from

http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-so-js.html.

Slade, G. (2007). Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence. Cambridge, MA,

USA: Harvard University Press.

Stern, P. C. (1992). Psychological dimensions of global environmental change.

Annual Review of Psychology 43(1), 269-302. Retrieved June 1, 2008 from EBSCO

Host database.

Stern, P. C. (1999). Information, incentives and proenvironmental consumer

behavior. Journal of Consumer Policy. 22(4), 461-478. Retrieved Apr 7,

2004 from ABI/INFORM Global database.

Tatum, J. (2002). Citizens or consumers: The home power movement as a new practice of

technology. In T. Princen, M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.), Confronting

Consumption (pp. 301-316). Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.

Taylor, A. (1996). Unnatural inequalities: Social and environmental histories.

Environmental History, 1(4), 6-19. Retrieved January 26, 2008 from JSTOR

Database.

Taylor, P. J. (1999). Modernities: A Geohistorical Interpretation. Cambridge, UK: Polity

Press. 151

Taylor, B. & Tilford, D. (2000). Why consumption matters. In J. B. Schor & D. B. Holt

(Eds.), The Consumer Society Reader (pp. 463-487). New York: The New Press.

Thames Television (Producer), & Isaacs, J. (Creator). (1973). World at War. The U.K.

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2005). Report on the World

Social Situation 2005. www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/Introduction.pdf

Retrieved July 15, 2007.

United Nations Environment Programme.

http://www.unep.org/labour_environment/PDFs/Greenjobs/UNEP-Green-Jobs-E-

Book-p72-84-Part-1-section-3.pdf . Retrieved January 4, 2009.

United Nations Marrakech Process

http://esa.un.org/marrakechprocess/featuread.shtml Retrieved January 4, 2009.

Ungar, S. (1998). Recycling and the dampening of concern: Comparing the roles

of large and small actors in shaping the environmental discourse. The

Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 35(2), 253-277. Retrieved

March 1, 2004 from the Gale Group database.

Union of Concerned Scientists (1992). Warning to Humanity. Retrieved February 26, 2009

from http://www.ucsusa.org/about/1992-world-scientists.html

Vale, B. & Vale, R. (2000). The new autonomous house. New York: Thames & Hudson.

Vardy, J. & Wattie, C. (2001, September 28). Shopping is patriotic, leaders say. National

Post (Canada). Retrieved January 20, 2010 from www.commondreams.org

Veblen, T. (1994). The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Dover. (Original

work published 1899).

Venetoulis, J., Chazan, D., and Gaudet, C. (2004, March). Ecological footprint of

nations. Redefining Progress. Retrieved August 9, 2004 from

http://www.redefiningprogress.org/footprint/ 152

Vlek, C. & Steg, L. (2007). Human behavior and environmental sustainability:

Problems, driving forces, and research topics. Journal of Social Issues 63(1),

1-19. Retrieved September 8, 2008 from EBSCO Host Research Databases.

Wilson, B. (2009, October). Copenhagen conference ruse to establish global government

even to rule over American youth. Bible Prophecy Today. Retrieved April 25, 2010

from http://www.bible-prophecy-today.com/2009/10/copenhagen-climate-conference-

ruse-to.html# .

Winter, D. D. N. (2000). Some big ideas for some big problems. American

Psychologist 55 (5), 516-522. Retrieved February 7, 2007 from EBSCO Host

Research databases.

Winter, D. D. N., & Koger, S. M. (2003). The Psychology of Environmental

Problems (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

Worldwatch Institute (2004, January). State of the World 2004: Special Focus: The

Consumer Society. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Worster, D. (1985). Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American

West. New York: Oxford University Press.