Would a Less Consumerist Society be Better?

Deep inside a book called The Day the World Stops Shopping by J. B. MacKinnon, the people you and I call Escapologists are cited as anecdotal evidence by a professor of Finance called Aswath Damodaran: The idea that a less consumerist society would be better stems from the fact that everyone today knows somebody who stepped off the money-in, money-out treadmill, simplified their life and ended up happier. That’s us! We’re setting the example! We’re making them think! But would everyone stepping off the treadmill really make for a better society? Mackinnon, a journalist, looks to the fall of the Soviet Empire: What is most extraordinary about the collapse is that civilisation did not, in fact, come to an end. We find neither massive starvation nor strikes and food riots, neither the destruction of society nor its explosion. and: 92 per cent of the nation’s potato harvest came from dachas and gardens … By night, people would enjoy the fruits of their labour, playing cards, debating and…