The Consumer Spending Revolution

Almost every day there is yet another report of sluggish consumer spending. On the one hand, it's something that seems good. We're saving for the future, saving up in order to buy things, holding back on using those credit cards. We're feeling insecure because of the rocky employment picture, we're feeling poor because of the reduction in value of all our assets, so we're holding back.

According to the commentators, our greater thrift is holding back the economy. They sound as if they wish we would just plunge into that high-spending way of life that went before the financial meltdown that led to this Great Recession.

I say it's not consumer thrift that's the problem. I say the shift is an opportunity. Greater thrift creates an opportunity for the people and institutions who make loans to think anew about what they are doing. This is a time for investment in a new way of life, and the savings creates a funding source. Invest in green technologies, in farms closer to places where people live, in neighborhoods where people can get what they want by walking or riding a bike, in railroads that move things more cheaply, in all those things that will make real a different way of life. Invest in ways to recycle materials and reclaim waste for profitable use.

Let's not go back. Let's make art and put on plays, read poetry and do sports, go walking just for fun, hang out in coffee shops and go to church. Let's fix the equipment we already have so we won't be throwing so much away. Let's build a society where consumer goods are not the be-all and the end-all, but rather tools to enrich our relationships with one another or tools to our enjoyment of our own minds and bodies. Let's go on saving and letting the saving turn into investments that can undo some of the damage we have done to the planetary ecology on which our lives depend. We can have a nice life without so much stuff. A nicer life, even, if we open our eyes and look around at the possibilities.