“However, the problem with collecting Stuff is that there is always more Stuff being made, so we need to buy more Stuff to keep up.”

No we don’t.

It’s easier to make a fire using matches, but you don’t need to. You can make it with a steel and flint, or a bow drill, the way people used to, before this Stuff was available. It’s harder, but that’s not the fault of the makers of matches.

“Does it really matter if your shoes cost $90 or $130?”
Yes. You’ve got to give up more matter to get the $130 ones. And for the higher price, the maker can afford to make them of a higher quality.

“Are you going to get $40-worth of extra wear out of the more expensive brand?”
You could. It’s a subjective judgment.

“And if so, how can you measure that?”
You can’t measure the benefit, because it’s subjective. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real or valuable.

“Can you judge whether they’ll be $40 more comfortable?”
Yes. You may turn out to be mistaken, but you can still judge it. How could it be otherwise?

“No matter how you look at it, it is all just Stuff.’
Well so is food, clothing, and matches.

“So there we have it - a world full of Stuff; an artificial means of keeping the economy going and food on our tables.”
You’ve got it back-the-front. You’re not buying the stuff to “keep the economy going”. The makers of it are making it in hopes of you choosing to give them something valuable in exchange for them satisfying your wants: it’s called social co-operation.

“After an hour or so walking through the mall I was well and truly stuffed and needed some fresh air…”
Good for you. You don’t need to buy stuff if you don’t want to. But you are in no way “subservient” to the makers of matches, doonas, shoes, or anything else for which payment is voluntary.

The capitalist system requires both producers and consumers to buy stuff and to keep buying stuff.

If the producers don't have enough demand, they build obsolescence into their products and/or change the design every few months by adding some new gimmick.

The producers fill the newspapers and television with imperatives to buy their stuff instead of someone else's stuff. They appeal to our more base instincts with points like 'you'll look better driving this car, more wealthy.'

Stuff doesn't make us happy but stuff does make capitalists wealthy which is all they're interested in. They don't care if you go bankrupt as long as you keep buying their stuff even if you can't afford it.

Capitalism is near the end of its road. The sooner it ends, the better it will be for the environment and for most of the world's people.

Stuff the stuff!

I wish my wife could grasp that simple concept, Peter.
The way she's going, I'll be completely stuffed by the end of the year :(

Peter's musings on why we need "stuff" are of limited interest, and very dated. Efforts to limit the production of "stuff" have been tried in command economies (mostly the old socialist regimes) and have been abandonded. In fact all large scale efforts to share the means of production and limit consumption (notably communes and kibbutzes), have all long been ditched. A few idealists keep the idea alive on a very small scale here and there, but that's about it.

Peter G - I was interested in your revival of the long dead idea that producers build in obsolesence. In fact they don't - although for cars in particular, they don't build them with a long life in mind - but obsolesence does occur through government regulation. The one place where I know it to be systematic and put in to maintain demand for cars is Japan. Cars in Japan are subjected to annual inspections so rigorous that no car car possibly last more than 10 years on the road. NSW has something similar, although no where near as bad .. so cars can last much longer..
Leave it with you..

"Capitalism is near the end of its road. The sooner it ends, the better it will be for the environment and for most of the world's people."

Well said DavidG.

The irrational, anti-social, anti-democratic and grossly wasteful mode of production, distribution and exchange currently dominating the world's social and politico-economic relations (Capitalism)is unsustainable and, like its counterpart Soviet experiment (State Capitalism), is nearing a state wherein it it will hopefully implode under the weight of the endemic contradictions belieing such a pernicious system.

A good essay which sums up the situation of the world altogether.

Peter has obviously done his home work.

When my wife started talking about new carpet for the lounge & family room, I pointed out that after we had wriggled our toes in it, & she had shown it to her mother, sister, it would no longer be the "new" carpet, just the carpet, like the old stuff was.

She saw my point. We bought an aging sailing dingy, & taught the kids to sail. After lots of fun we sold it, & bought a couple of canoes, & explored many rivers, & some of our dams for a couple of years.

If the dingy, & the canoes are examples of "stuff" I'm all for it, just not big on carpet.

My video recorder has died, after 11 years, I got it when I bought the TV. It's a pity. I can't justify replacing it, I didn't use it enough, but I will miss recording Top Gear, when I'm going to be out.

We get the rants from Sowat, & David. That they are against capitalism we know, but they left us with no idea what they would replace it with. Come on fellows, give us some wisdom, not just bitches.

I could take them out into the Pacific islands, where capitalism really doesn't exist. It would spare us their rants, but I wonder if they could handle it. The idea that you have to do something today, now in fact, if you wish to eat today, they may find a pain after a while.

On one of the atolls I was offered the hand of the number 2 princess in marriage. They wanted me to stay as I could fix the generator, the radio, & the outboards. That would have made me a prince, & even the lady did not seem to mind the idea.

Still, after thinking for a while, after all the idea of being royalty, with a beautiful princess by my side had its attractions, I declined.

The islands, I realised are a lot like Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane. Great places to visit, but you wouldn't really want to live there, would you.

Well said Peter Hume!

This kind of reactionary anti-materialism was around long before capitalism. Read Plato’s arguments against a “fevered” as opposed to “healthy” society. Plato’s ideal was peasant simplicity in which people were content without such luxuries as beds, tables, chairs, and meat. His definition of a “fevered” society was one where there were artists and poets, hairdressers and dressmakers, doctors and jewellers - the “stuff” of the 5th century BC.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=zfA3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=plato+fevered+society&source=bl&ots=HQVuS-Ja9I&sig=UjJCB9W759XUsA8zS8IANrrUl9Q&hl=en&ei=s4SZTKjjD4L8vQO57sHjDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Some "stuff" contributes greatly to our quality of life in the broadest sense, and even fairly frivolous "stuff" can be nice if we don't make it an idol. Which most people don't.

Adam Smith was of course primarily a moral philosopher and as such he would probably agree with what is written here:

http://www.dabase.org/socrevip.htm

All of the traditional Social Wisdom Teachings have to one degree or another called people to understand and limit their desires in one way or another. By contrast capitalism depends on its "success" by the deliberate magnification of unlimited desires on the part of every body.The former seven deadly sins are now the seven cardinal virtues.

Anybody who argues against the current system is dismissed as a curmudgeon (Clive Hamilton for instance)

This essay gives a unique and humorous assessment of the situation.

http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/dreadedgomboo/chapter11.html

Capitalism of course arose in anal-retentive Protestant Northern Europe.

"When the entire human world founds itself on the adolescent motive to aggrandize the individual ego-"I", then everyone is collectively working towards the destruction not only of human culture and mankind itself, but even of the Earth itself,the very vehicle that supports life.The root of that terrible destructiveness is simply the aggrandizement and idealization of egoity, and the illusion that the ego-"I" is great"

The above quote is taken from this essay:

http://www.dabase.org/freedom.htm

There are many authors and books which point out that Adam Smith was primarily a moral philosopher. One that I particularly like is "the Barbaric Heart: Faith,Money, and the Crisis of Nature" by Curtis White. Chapter 7 "On the Uses and Abuses of Adam Smith" is a gem.

peter, if you want "good stuff', don't go to malls, they are just for people who are less discriminating. the cost of building a mall means the owners have to extract top rent and to do that you have to be big enough to be attractive enough to people with disposable income, to kill off smaller competitors - law of the jungle stuff.

Malls also offer services, it is certainly not just stuff, getting a haircut or your shoes mended is not buying "stuff".

For retail businesses, it's a captive and creative area to separate people from their money, and it's all voluntary and legal, people love it!

You might not have been happy, but I'll bet most of those around you were .. if you want to see unhappy people, go to a Casino.

Oh and this statement by another poster has me in stitches, I've cut it out and sent it to some friends, they are also in stitches "Capitalism is near the end of its road", and then to follow it, I saw this one "(Capitalism)is unsustainable"

hahaha, yes of course, tell that to the Chinese, the Indians, and all the refugees and immigrants who want to come to a 1st world country.

With capitalism, comes safety and law, just a couple of side benefits, and of course a safety net for most of the "have nots" .. at least they don't starve, unless they want to.

If you don't like it, don't partake, and for those unfortunates who find misery in everything capitalistic, why not go somewhere where this is no capitalism, where YOU can be happy .. now where would that be? hmmmm, beats me .. maybe whining is you being happy?

This could have been a whimsical piece of fluff about becoming disoriented in shopping malls, Mr Tapsell.

But - as with any fluff - if you try to put too much weight on it, it will collapse into a meaningless smudge.

Which is exactly what happened when you wrote:

"when Adam Smith was philosophising did he envisage a world where we were subservient to the economy?"

We are not, at all, "subservient to the economy".

We are the economy.

Or at least, the economy is what we make it.

No more, no less.

Almost every body on the planet is now dependent on the viability of the one inter-connected system.If it collapses it will be a disaster for every one.

For instance there is a global remittance economy worth billions of dollars. It consists of monies sent by workers in wealthy mainly Western countries to their relatives in impoverished "third" world countries. These relatives depend on these remittances for their very survival.

If the system altogether goes into a recession, a depression, or collapses altogether all of these millions of people will be destitute.

In the 60's and 70's there was a popular slogan/poster which said: Live simply so that others can simply live.

There are positive aspects to capitalism, just as there are positive aspects to it's polar opposite; communism.

But both extreme capitalism and extreme communism have little to offer us. Just like in our own lives we will be happy if we are both strong and gentle but messed up if we are either aggressive or weak. The middle way is the one for us.

A new paradigm is emerging that recognizes paradox and polarity: for example the polarity of cooperation/competition or self-interest/benevolence. While this new paradigm is yet to seriously find it's political legs, it is beginning to dominate our thinking. We have the rise of feminism, environmentalism, increasing democracy, human rights movements etc, etc.

With the melting of the negative polarity between capitalism and communism, both capitalism and communism are hopefully near the end of their road. What we need is to find a new way.

Peter Tapsell:

Man; "light" thoughts for this "Blog".

Great "Stuff", and "Stuff" the "deep and meaningful"!

Thank you, Pericles: a beacon of common sense as usual.

If the author had advocated that we all stay home for a year and avoid going to plays, buying new books or hiring DVDs, I can imagine the outrage he would have provoked. But attacking other kinds of shopping is OK, apparently. Most of those 'brainwashed consumers' have earned their money legitimately and worked hard for it. It's nobody's business but theirs what they do with it.

The argument is good, useful stuff vs unnecessary frivolous stuff. The latter causing much of the problems which confront us daily, be it production pollution or financial dilemma.
It doesn't really help our economy all that much because as soon as income rises the prices follow. It's a perpetual catching up game in which no-one ever wins but everyone loses.

Excellent article, very entertaining and I totally agree with the sentiment. But unfortunately it's the way of the world.

'Stuff' makes the world go around (by generating money circulation).

Besides, I enjoy getting new stuff... It's exciting