On Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 4:39 AM Alice Walker <[email protected]> wrote:

The treadmill of consumption, Globalization, and Global Warming

To give you background on this chapter, here is a brief synopsis of Bell’s ideas:

Bell uses a metaphor of treadmills to explain why we in the modern world produce so much and consume so much, and yet end up less happy and more polluted than people who lived before industrialization. The Treadmill of Production is caused by the nature of capitalism. A firm must produce something to sell in order to make profit. That firm competes against other firms who are also trying to make profit. The easiest way to make profit is to cut costs, so both firms begin to pay workers less money, and at the same time produce more goods to sell, in order to compete successfully to make profit. Thus workers are losing out on pay, while at the same time the firms are making more and more stuff, which causes pollution (factories emit carbon into the air, chemicals into the land and water, etc) and uses massive amounts of energy in the form of fossil fuels to make the stuff. But neither firm can jump off the treadmill, because capitalism is based on profit – if you don’t make profit you fail. So both firms run faster and faster on the treadmill, producing more and more to make profit, and polluting more and more in the process.

But those firms cant keep running on their treadmills unless people buy their products. And that is where the treadmill of consumption comes in. The chapter that is available is all about that. So read the whole chapter first, then come back and think about these questions.

What does Bell mean when he talks about the treadmill consumption? How do the social desires for goods translate into consumption? Think about the ways social status influences this treadmill, and use Veblen’s insights to illustrate.

How do these two treadmills (which operate together to keep each other going) create environmental problems?

Now put it all together in terms of a global economic system. Think about the interconnection of our global economy, and discuss how these treadmills are running at the global level. How is global warming an outcome of this system (or, another way to ask it is, how does this system cause global warming?)

Application/Research: given the way these treadmills operate, how do we change this? How do we jump off them, or get on new ones? Think of two possible ways we could change the way we live that would give us more happiness while at the same time reducing the social and environmental damage caused by global capitalism. Make sure you explain how your suggestions meet the problems you detailed in your answers above.  This could be specific to the country you are researching, or more general ideas for everyone.