The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [107]
Even many of the nonprofits and advocacy groups that work on issues related to consumption don’t question it on a fundamental level. There are many excellent groups that focus on the quality of the goods we consume—fighting for fair trade chocolate over slavery chocolate, for example, or organic cotton clothing over conventional toxic cotton or PVC-free kids toys. But few look at the issue of quantity and ask that tough question: aren’t we consuming too much? That’s the question that gets to the heart of the system. I am learning it is not a popular question.
Once upon a time the factors that contributed to our national economic growth included a broader set of activities, especially in extraction of natural resources and production of goods. After World War II, however, the focus shifted to consumption. In the 1950s, the chairman of President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors stated, “The American economy’s ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods.”20 Really? Rather than to provide health care, safe communities, solid education for our youngsters, or a good quality of life, the main purpose of our economy is to produce Stuff? By the 1970s, consumption had taken a lead role both culturally and economically. Most of us alive today have been raised on the assumption that a consumption-driven economy is inevitable, sensible, and good. We are supposed to participate in this economic model without question. Nevertheless, it’s been questioned and continues to be, by a growing number of people. Myself definitely included.
In the same holiday season as Damour’s tragic death, the credit card Discover launched a new ad campaign. On top of the serene soundtrack of a simple tune being plucked out on a guitar, the voiceover says: “We are a nation of consumers. And there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, there’s a lot of cool stuff out there. The trouble is, there’s so much cool stuff, it’s easy to get a little carried away. If that happens, this material world of ours can stop being wonderful and start getting stressful. But what if a credit card company recognized that? What if they admitted there was a time to spend and a time to save?... We could have less debt and more fun. And this material world could get a whole lot brighter.21
A credit card company challenging consumerism—I’d be thrilled if it weren’t so obvious a ploy to win more customers during a time when people were anxious about spending and debt. But what really intrigues me about this commercial is the image sequence at the end: a father and son in the middle of a vast green field, then a couple with a dog on a wide-open beach, then a couple flirting on a park bench, and finally, a gaggle of giggling girlfriends pressing into the back of a cab together. What this tells me is that Discover Card, on some level, is perfectly aware of the actual truth: that it’s not Stuff (even “cool Stuff”) that makes us happy. It’s time with our families, partners, and friends and the experience of the beautiful natural world that makes us happy.
Unhappy People
Consider that Americans reported the highest levels of contentment and happiness in 1957—that is, it was in that year that the highest number of us (about 35 percent) described ourselves as “very happy,” a level we’ve never reached since.22 Even though we’re making more money and buying more Stuff today than we did fifty years ago, we’re no happier. To be clear: it’s not that none of this new money and Stuff has made us happier—some has—but the extra happiness has been canceled out by greater misery on other fronts. When a person is hungry, cold, in need of shelter or some other basic material necessity, then of course more Stuff will make him or her happier. But once people’s basic needs are met (which happens, according to Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2004 report, when people earn and consume about thirteen thousand dollars per year, as a global average),23 the marginal increase in happiness we get from further Stuff actually