When asked, most people could say something about their personal philosophy—those beliefs and values that guide them on their path through life. In their theorizing and empirical work, economists normally assume that we humans make choices in the world for the purpose of maximizing our well being. The philosophies behind our choices rarely get much traction in economic research beyond the idea of maximization itself. This I believe to be mistaken. Beliefs and values indeed influence the choices we make, economic and otherwise. My contention in the entries ahead is that shifts in personal philosophies matter and can fundamentally alter economic arrangements and outcomes. We may seek to maximize our well being, but our notion of what this means shifts with time and circumstances. What's of importance to us today may not be so tomorrow.
To make my point in this blog, I will describe a fundamental value shift underway globally and explore actual and potential economic changes flowing from it. This shift amounts to a weakening of an orientation to simple economic materialism and a strengthening of interest in more complex qualitative accomplishments and experiences that don't always require an expansion in private possessions. For economic materialists, the essential human purpose is the accumulation of material possessions even if basic biological survival is well assured. Economic materialists see experiences of life in the form of power, pleasure, status, social intercourse, creative accomplishment, and spirituality as heavily dependent on what one owns and privately consumes. Life is all about possessing and consuming, and little else. For post-materialists, access to material goods matters but is secondary to a life of meaning defined by a value-driven personal philosophy. The essential difference between materialism and post-materialism is one of emphasis. In the first case, the human psyche focuses on acquiring material possessions, and in the second it shifts to emphasize not only the experiences of life but the realization of an array of human values as the final source of meaning. In this shift we move further away from a basic quantitative and biological orientation to the satisfaction of physical needs and toward a qualitative satisfaction of wants for mental experiences. We in effect move from an emphasis on the material hardware to the qualitative software of life.
Post-materialism is premised on already secure economic conditions and emphasizes the special importance in life of personal freedom and autonomy, social tolerance and informality, humane treatment of all individuals, protection of the natural environment, democratic participation in one's work and community life, and a self-creative approach to spiritual or philosophical connections beyond the self. Materialism by contrast presumes that life's meaning is best secured through material possessions. In practice of course, the two notions stand at two ends of a spectrum of behavioral possibilities with most of us residing somewhere in between. In our daily experience today materialism predominates and is intensely familiar to us. We in the affluent countries of the world today take for granted a materialistic consumerism that heavily influences our private and public life experience. Social scientists nonetheless point to an increase in post-materialist values among younger generations especially prevalent among those coming of age in conditions of reasonable economic security.
My purpose in the blog entries to follow is to review the evidence for a post-materialist value trend and to then establish and explain the economic changes flowing from it. My basic conclusion will be that personal philosophical outlooks have economic consequences. The future economy in a post-material world will feature such changes as these: more flexible working hours and shorter workweeks; a return to downtown living; an expanded clean energy sector and greenhouse gas emissions reductions; a substantial shift from acquisition of material possessions to more shared experiences and a rising demand for shared public goods; an activist fiscal policy to sustain employment in the face of weakening private sector consumption; and more expansive economic democracy and employee ownership. This vision looks like a political liberal's dream and a political conservative's worse night mare. I could easily be wrong about its realization, but let me now tell you in the entries to follow why I think I am right. Then you can judge.
No comments:
Post a Comment