David Barringer: The exchange might describe the dilemma of any representative hominid over the last 13,000 years of our self-conscious existence. We have our primitive needs, yes—our needs for food, shelter, clothing, kinship, affection. But we are not hunter–gatherers anymore. We are not farmers in a feudal system. We are consumer–traders. Yet when our survival is no longer at stake, we still balk at defining our desires and, instead, substitute our primitive needs, the fulfillments of which are no longer primitive, no longer basic, no longer about survival. What do you want? I don’t know, but how about weapons and wealth, conquest and concubines, slaves and sugar? I don’t know, but how about a hamburger and a hydrogen bomb, a cool drink and a new frontier? The substitutions are temporary because the need to substitute remains. Why? Because the question has not been answered, only deferred.
The deferment of desire drives our consumption of substitutes, our craving for new meals, new movies, new machines. The American belief that there will always be more to consume derives from our frontier history, an economy of endless progress, the value of capital dependent on accelerating consumption. In the past couple hundred years (a simple inhalation of breath as measured by the lungs of time), U.S. progress depended on the bounty of North America’s resources: land, fur, bison, tobacco, cotton, lumber, coal, corn, cattle, oil, steel, gas, lakes and rivers. The waves of our progress swept up Native Americans and slaves and deposited railroads and cities. And now, of course, we enjoy a globally interconnected economy of services and information, technology and finance.
Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of U.S. GDP. The U.S. economy depends on consumption, and we do a great deal of consuming while sitting on our lazy butts. There are 300 million of us, and we now spend as much money in restaurants as we do in grocery stores. We spend over $500 million on online-dating services and personal ads, $13 billion on internet pornography, $16 billion on video games, $43 billion on movies and $175 billion on online shopping. We like to consume so much that we overextend ourselves. U.S. credit-card debt is $790 billion (U.S. federal debt is $9.4 trillion)—and while we’re shopping online, we’re losing our homes. The nation had foreclosure filings on 223,651 properties during the month of February 2008, a nearly 60 percent increase from February 2007.
2008.04.23 at 9:11 am
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