Heroes Not Zombies

Thirteen years ago I noticed this big fat catalogue sticking out of a skinny letterbox in the door of this old house in a town in southern France.

I was so struck by the incongruity – an overload of “stuff” to buy which the letterbox was unable to swallow.

I’ve thought of this as a perfect image of “consumption”. That weird thing on which we seem to have chosen the entire economic system of the world. I thought of it again last weekend when the England football team played in the Euros and the news reported a sudden “growth” in the economy as millions of fans bought and drank gallons of beer, and ate pizzas and snacks.

Really? This is what defines a “healthy” economy? So it seems. How many politicians and economists have you heard complaining about the “shrinkage” of the economy due to the pandemic and how they look forward to “opening up” so that “consumers” will get out into the shops and pubs and “grow the economy” by consuming more!?

What a bizarre system. In a finite world the economic system is geared to consuming more and more of what’s left every year. Does that make sense? Is more always the same as better? Is growth of consumption the best kind of way to grow?

When I started learning Medicine I learned about tuberculosis. Back in the day that dread disease was known as “consumption”, and nobody thought that was a good thing.

Can’t we imagine a different kind of growth? One which is more like development and maturity, than about consuming? Can’t we think of healthy citizens as participants rather than as consumers? Isn’t a business which provides a good quality of living for a family a healthy one without needing to grow into a multinational concern?

There are economist now who are challenging the orthodoxy and who are searching for new solutions, new ways of living, which don’t put “consumption” and “growth” at the heart of their thinking.

At the very least, isn’t this a good time to pause and to wonder about just what we are consuming, and to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy “consumption”?