We do this because we have grown so accustomed to thinking that our possessions are somehow deficient that we eventually convince ourselves that we are discontentment. But we didn't arrive here suddenly or all alone. We had help. Marketing firms have become such experts in convincing us of our lack that, in time, we took over from them, sang their jingles, and almost ran them out of business. The only reason they stayed in business at all is because they were playing both ends of the market. They were selling consumers to the producers while selling products to the consumers.

 

When consumer interest eventually flagged, marketers convinced producers of their need for newer better products to garner a larger share of the available market. The only way for them to stay in business (and presumably to keep the advertising firms in business) was to create new products that nobody had yet. And why did nobody have them yet? Nobody had them because nobody really needed them! Yet, because they were new and because we tend to have more faith in innovation than in effort or craftsmanship, they were marketable. In other words, they were marketable because they were fashionable. They were fashionable because they were new. They were new because we'd figured out a way to make our old products either become or seem obsolete. Essentially, we've fallen into a trap of perpetually marketing change and then wondering why we're always so dissatisfied.

 

Inevitably, this lifestyle results in debt displacement, whereby we displace our debt (for what we desire but cannot afford) to the debt load of future generations. We do this assuming that debt eventually cures itself and that our children will somehow certainly be able to afford in their generation the waste we could not afford in ours. The only apparent good from such consumptive economies is that they will presumably, one day, consume themselves. What devastation they'll leave behind is unclear but at least we may then have the opportunity to break the cycle and start over again with a little more foresight.

 

The problem began when we decided that displacing debt was a fair price to pay for marketing change. But it won't end until we realize that we are responsible to leave our children with a debt-free heritage. But why is there a market for change at all?

 

The media has become expert at publicizing flaws, failure, trouble, and lack. When so consistently threatened with such adverse news, it is only human nature to want to hedge your bets. You want a better product, or more of a good product, as any responsible consumer would. But responsible consumption is measured more by use than by product research -- by how you use what you've bought as well as by what you've decided to buy. Yes, make a good choice in the beginning, but don't waste what you've already paid good money for. Use it up or wear it out!

 

In the old days, before multimedia and industrial saturation, news about products was spread by word of mouth. A product was good if it had been tested and proven by use. One satisfied customer would tell their neighbor and, before long, a business would gain a reputation for providing quality products. If ever the quality of that product began to slip, because neighbors talked to one another, that news would also get around. Product information was limited, but it was spread by those who had tested the products with their lives hanging in the balance.

 

 

Producers pay advertisers to train us to buy their products. If we buy these inferior products, the price of advertising is added to the price we pay. Indirectly, we are paying advertisers to deceive us. If we listen to the advertisers, the consumer will tolerate replacing, after only a few years, products that should have lasted decades. And if that weren't bad enough, isolated from direct contact with one another by our cars, headphones, mobile phones, and in our homes (where we mostly sit glued to our TV or computer), we've largely lost the ability to exchange valuable information about tested products with our neighbors.

 

Thus, we've fallen prey to the prevailing wind of doctrine that says 'what we need most in life is change.' We hear it and see it everywhere. But the truth is that the only people who can really afford the change that is being marketed are the ones doing the marketing. The rest, both producers and consumers are going into debt.

 

The consumers are in debt because the producers have to hire cheap labor, pay for inferior materials at the lowest possible prices, and sell volume versus quality in order to fuel the growing profit margins that satisfy their investors. The producers are in debt because low paid consumers have tight budgets and can only tolerate a limited amount of debt load for faulty products before the financial bottom falls out. In addition, the push for volume sales has resulted in overproduction. This overproduction pushes prices below the redline beyond which producers can recoup their costs. To cut their losses, they sell cheap and layoff workers or risk bankruptcy.

 

Inevitably, underpaid and unemployed consumers default on bad loans from their financial institutions. Whether by the fault of the consumer, the financial institutions, or both, this is the situation we presently find ourselves in. Lacking the cash flow from solvent clients to generate industrial growth, industry is inevitably forced to downsize and diversify. It is likely that this economic decentralization will eventually change the way the world does business. Mega market-driven and consumer-driven economies will falter while smaller, localized micro-enterprises will multiply and stabilize their local host economies. At least, this is what I hope will happen.

 

All of this may be necessary to correct the 'we-can-never-have-enough-change' illusion that has birthed our papier-mâché economy -- having form but no substance. The only alternative to this correction is to displace debt to the next generation. But such debt displacement requires the marketing of change and the cycle repeats itself. The markets produce unrealistic desires and expectations. Unrealistic desires and expectations produce debt. Debt produces the need for market expansion. The need for market expansion drives the promotion of unrealistic desires and expectations.

 

The problem is that while change is a marketable commodity, it doesn't have a handle. It has no intrinsic value. You can't physically grasp it and you can't actually use it in the field to produce anything vital. Change for the sake of change is a snake-oil cure for a depressed economy. It is an industrial ideal in which, in the words of Wendell Berry, "Their success depends upon persuading people, first, that whatever they have now is no good, and, second, that the promised good is certain to be achieved in the future."

 

Thus, in order to market change we must also market debt-displacement and to market debt-displacement, we must also market change. And what is the market slogan used to inspire this cycle? "Unprecedented growth." We are taught to expect unprecedented growth as a normal, reliable measure of our success. The flaw in this reasoning is that unprecedented growth cannot remain unprecedented forever. Such growth curves are inherently unsustainable.

 

At some point, when resources are consumed and currencies are devalued, the market will eventually fail. When it does, the most pressing ethical question we'll face is this, "Will we force our children to pay for the dreams that we could not afford or will we retool to engage in local economies that leave our children with a sustainable heritage?"

 

Michael Hennen