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By Root 1611 0

direction. The complaints about capitalism voiced so stridently during the past few years are at heart about the accompanying cultural and social change, not about what has in fact been stupendously impressive delivery on the economic promise. The financial crisis of 2007–8, and the recession it caused, has grabbed lots of attention. But whether it’s tulips or credit default swaps, there’s nothing new about financial crises or about their causes, greed and selfishness. The crisis doesn’t lay bare a fundamental economic problem so much as a social and political crisis. Just as at previous times when technological progress reordered the economy and society, the political and social sustainability of capitalism comes under strain. These challenges of sustainability come together in today’s widespread sense of crisis, of dissatisfaction, of being at a turning point in individual societies and humanity’s global society as a whole.

TWO Nature

Whenever the economy is in a recession, a wave of books and feature articles will discover the joys of a simpler, less acquisitive lifestyle. This recession has been no exception. Except that, compared with the downturn of the early 1990s, there is a much greater emphasis now on the green benefits of buying less and making do instead. Downshifting made its first appearance in the early 1990s, but the “Downshifting Manifesto” that appeared in the United States in 2008 had the title, “Slow Down and Green Up.” For those out of a job or short of cash, this really is making a virtue out of a necessity.

It can certainly be very helpful to people struggling financially to get advice about cheaper recipes, home-grown foods, and secondhand clothes. Nevertheless, there is an off-putting air of smugness in some of this recession-chic literature. Much of it is written by people who are themselves well off by any standard, and yet they obviously get great satisfaction from circumstances that mean many people are struggling to make ends meet. It’s as if homespun is morally superior to something bought for money. The moral fervor gets an extra edge these days from the fact that it’s helping the environment as well as saving money.

No doubt some people do enjoy making their own things, but many others prefer to buy their clothes or meals ready-made in the shops. It’s why consumer spending on items which people—mainly women—used to have to put a lot of time into doing at home grew so much in the first place. Having to do-it-yourself in feeding and clothing a household costs less money but much effort, and leaves people with less choice and lower quality. Even in situations of real poverty, people want to spend some of their money on stuff from the shops. George Orwell made this point in his powerful book about the poverty of the 1930s, The Road to Wigan Pier. He was commenting on well-meaning advice to the poor to stretch their money further by cooking wholesome, cheap foods like lentils.

When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit “tasty.” There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have three pennorth of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C. level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don’t nourish you to any extent, but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than brown bread-and-dripping and cold water.1

More money makes people happier because it means they can buy more. As the last chapter described, contrary to what many people have come to believe, a proper assessment of the evidence means there’s no sign that people have come to the end of wanting more, even in the richest countries in the world. A recession does not in fact offer an ideal opportunity to topple lots of people off the consumerist treadmill so they can get digging or knitting, and be happier with it; on the contrary, declining GDP and rising unemployment