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WORD COUNT
696
JUNE 24, 2009
THRIFT,
NOT CONSUMERISM, IS THE ANSWER – b y Alicia Gravitz
My grandparents married during the Great Depression and began raising
their young family during World War II.
My grandmother would tell me stories about those times with pride. She
couldn’t buy a car or nylon stockings. But she did save every bit of
aluminum for the war effort, mended socks, and planted a victory garden.
Though they had very little, when they could save ten cents, she would
get another stamp for her war bond book.
As tough as those times were, my grandmother felt that what she did
every day mattered for the country and her children’s future. Families
across the nation took these same actions, and, together, they did
indeed make all the difference. The victory gardens, the recycling, the
$185 billion in war bonds raised by 85 million cash-strapped Americans
(nearly $2 trillion in today’s dollars), and the retooling of Detroit
for tanks and planes provided our country with the resources and
capacity for the war effort.
Taken together, these actions gave the economy a whole new set of
priorities—moving from a failing consumer-based economy to an economy
focused on providing for the country’s future.
As a nation, we are again at this kind of pivotal time. We can choose to
reprioritize the economy. And we know how to do it -- we did it during
World War II.
The steps this time around will look familiar to those who experienced
these days. We need to embrace thrift as a fundamental value, and
collectively shift our economy from one depending on consumerism, debt,
and speculation, to one that spends its precious resources on what
sustains health and well-being for people and the planet.
Like the economy my grandmother experienced during World War II, the
consumer sector can no longer be the economy’s driver. But instead of a
war effort, the priority now needs be to on economic activity and jobs
that bring about a sustainable future—from energy efficiency, mass
transit, and sustainable agriculture to education, health, and building
resilient communities, that make sure no one is left behind.
The good news is that we’re already doing it. When gas prices spiked
last summer, we saw millions of Americans finding ways to cut back on
their driving. When Juneau, Alaska faced an avalanche-induced power
outage last year, the town reduced its electricity use by 30 percent
within weeks. And just this past spring, we saw the reports that the
economic downturn can be seen at our nation’s landfills, which have been
taking in less trash, as more Americans shift to thrift.
Smart transportation, energy efficiency, and a reduction of our landfill
footprint: they’re not only a smart reaction to a crisis, but they’re
part of the right response which, sustained into the future, will help
us create the new economy that will work for all of us.
Unlike after World War II, we can’t go “back to the way it was” when our
current crisis is over. We need to create the fundamental system change
that keeps to these new priorities and reinvents a new economics that
doesn’t depend on unhealthy growth—a system its cost on others,
producing a range of modern social ills, from sweatshop labor to
pollution. Instead, we need to build a new system that provides
well-being for all in a sustainable, steady-state economy.
We need to make conspicuous consumption a thing of the past, and in this
new economy, you and I, like my grandmother, will be growing that
garden, mending, and recycling. We’ll get more creative about
cooperating with family, friends, and neighbors to take care of the
basics – and have more fun. The money we save will go to priorities
like making our homes more energy-efficient, and into investments that
help our entire country shift to renewables and provide the preventive
care to keep families in good health.
No more defaulting back to consumerism as the engine that drives the
economy and speculative investment that sends money speeding around the
globe, divorced from the real, Main Street economy. We need to create
the fundamental system change that embeds these new priorities –
reinventing a new economics, with a new green engine, that provides
well-being for all.
--
Alisa Gravitz is the executive director of Green America, the national
organization advocating for a just and sustainable economy,
www.greenamericatoday.org
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