Voluntary Recession: Part I

Robert Reich in his Feb. 13, 2008 New York Times op-ed piece, Totally Spent, says “We’re sliding into a recession, or worse…”  Americans have been spending beyond their means for decades by having more women join the workforce; by working longer hours; and by borrowing on the value of their homes through home equity loans.  The American consumer is running out of ways to “keep the spending binge going.”  He suggests that we either have to accept a lower standard of living, or “reverse the trends of widening inequality and more concentrated wealth.” 

Both are radical solutions, given the power of the American beliefs in consumption as the way to happiness and in the inevitability of progress and economic growth. The etymology of the word radical suggests going to the root.  The roots of our worldviews and of our behaviors need to change simultaneously.  Since the levers of power are firmly in the hands of concentrated wealth, wresting any of that wealth would prove to be as difficult as it has been since the dawn of civilization.  

In this country, however, the constitution is still enough intact to allow such a change.  As Robert Reich says in his book Supercapitalism: “ government could change the rules.  In theory, it could enact laws to make it easier for all employees to unionize, require all large companies to provide … …health insurance and pensions, enact zoning regulations to protect Main Street retailers from the predations of big-box retailer, and raise the minimum wage high enough to give all working people a true “living” wage.”  

We could, if we saw fit, but we have been properly trained to hold sacred the separation of finance and state.  So removed has economics become from the concept of freedom that, as Benjamin Barber notes, we now view ourselves as consumers, not as citizens.  In other words, we have come to voice our opinion by what we buy, not through the voting booth.