One night I went to a pub owned by a South African.  I saw a group of guys drinking whiskey and marvelled (to the owner) at how people could afford Whisky.  "It's not only that", he said.  "It has to be an expensive brand of whisky that they have seen advertised and associated with an affluent western lifestyle.  I have cases of cheaper Bell's whisky in the storeroom I can't shift.  They want the Johnny Walker.  It's the same with motorbikes or other branded goods.  It has to be the expensive European/US brand rather than local produce. Branded Coca-Cola sells for three times the price of local fizz."

So yes, the greater the deprivation, the greater the captivation by the symbols of affluence and an affluent lifestyle.  The problem is that I see this as both unattainable and unsustainable for the planet as a whole, and the people who have the most often don't seem to become any less greedy for more as a consequence.

notes from no w here

People do change their behaviour, but not because poiticians tell them to but because the world around them change.

Recent history shows that massive, unrelenting propaganda works.

At the moment, we have an entire advertising industry whose entire raison d'etre is creating and disseminating massive, unrelenting propaganda in favour of expanding consumption. On the other side, we have a few NGOs and a couple of activists who run anti-consumption propaganda on a shoestring budget. It hardly seems improbable that a properly funded, properly engineered anti-consumption propaganda campaign could meet with success.

It has been done before: During the serious shooting wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, governments would actively encourage thrift in order to conserve productive capacity for the war effort. I will leave it to historians to judge the effectiveness of those campaigns, but the precedent for government(-sponsored) anti-consumption propaganda is there.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.