ICYMI – in case you missed it!
August 2024
Liz Allen posted a link to an article on underconsumption from the New York Times and asked:
Is this a re-branding of a cyclical trend that pops up every decade or so in response to economic anxiety? Or is it about being tired of seeing a never ending parade of product influencer content? There is growing awareness among Gen Z that consumption in wealthy nations is wildly out of step with planetary boundaries. Is this a passing trend, a generational shift, or something in between?
Quotes from the article
Tired of Influencers, TikTok Users Try ‘Underconsumption Core’ to Cut Costs
By Remy Tumin
Published July 25, 2024, Updated July 26, 2024 NYT
The trend of “underconsumption core” romanticizes buying and using only what you need. Yes, being normal is now trending. Experts say it’s a response to a period of economic hardship…….
After years of being told what to buy, TikTok users are trying something new: buying and using only what they need. They’re calling it “underconsumption core,” the latest move away from influencer culture. Instead of pristine fridge shelves, makeup bags with the latest products and fashion fads, users are posting simplified closets, secondhand clothes that have lasted for years and minimal makeup and skin care collections……;
The trend is an offshoot of “de-influencing,” which involves creators sharing negative experiences with trendy products and telling viewers not to buy them……..
But in a world where everything becomes a trend — and tacking “core” onto the end of any word can make it a thing — this latest movement can be seen simply as part of a broader pattern of consumer spending that dates back 50 years, said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia University’s business school.
After a major economic downturn, usually about every decade or so, a similar back-to-basics trend follows, Mr. House said. Take the 2008 financial crisis, for example, when a “new intensity around artisan goods and experiences” arose in opposition to mass-produced products from big brands, he said.
This recent cycle may have begun in the wake of post-lockdown “revenge spending,” when shoppers bought large amounts of goods to make up for time lost to the Covid-19 pandemic. As that boundless period gave way to the “vibecession,” a term for consumers’ general feelings of anxiety about the economy, many people responded by tightening their budgets, which has brought us to the era of “underconsumption core,” Mr. House said. “People should think about the downward shift as appropriate consumption rather than underconsumption.”
Responses and Dialogue
Joe Heyman
Note that there is also involuntary reduction in consumption (not enough income, not adequate access, etc.) related to a mood of economic anxiety.
Ilan Kelman
1. How much underconsumption is influenced by a trend away from paying for products toward paying for experiences? Certainly, experiences–from entertainment to travel–require consumption. It might not be seen as such and, if local experiences, could have less overall consumption than purchasing little-used products. Would overland, backpacking tourism within one’s own country (experience) count as underconsumption compared to a new phone and wardrobe every year (products)–or be perceived as such?
2. Would there be parallels with voluntary rationing, such as during wars? Rationing was often imposed (involuntary underconsumption or involuntary correct-consumption), at times with an undercurrent of ‘voluntary allocation systems’ or ‘methods short of rationing’ (ostensibly voluntary underconsumption or ostensibly voluntary correct-consumption).
Rich Rosen
I note that our generation (over 70) used to love to collect and use antiques for the rest of their lives, which is an important form of recycling. I hear that younger generations don’t want to buy and use antiques, and use their parents’ old furniture and household items.
Joe Zammit-Lucia
In the context of reduced consumption, one of the things that doesn’t seem to be much discussed is what people are supposed to do with their disposable income. If we don’t want them to consume goods, not consume services, not pay for experiences – how do we want people to lead their lives?
It is reasonable to say that people consume according to their available disposable income. Short of arguing to make everyone poorer so that they consume less, or pushing for continued inflation so that people’s income goes less far, what are we suggesting that people do with their disposable income?
Ilan Kelman
That comment perhaps addresses the core of overconsumption. With so many prevalent inequities, why do a reasonable percentage of people, although far from the majority, earn far more money than they could spend sustainably? One clear answer is to have sufficient income during a long, reasonably comfortable retirement, especially retirement before the state-mandated age. Pensions are being eviscerated and the ‘guaranteed retirement income’ from contributions is not necessarily guaranteed. Similarly, jobs are far from secure. Therefore, people save for expected bouts of unemployment or caring leave. I know people who are content earning and saving reasonably for part of the year, because it keeps them going when they do not have work or when they choose not to work. Finally, given the condition of health systems around the world, it would be wise to save extensively for private, even overseas, medical treatment. Overall, ‘disposable income’ this month is not so disposable for lifelong and lifesaving planning.
Ashley Colbey
In my neighborhood in Chicago there are facebook “no buy” groups where people give away things for free they no longer want or need. These groups are incredibly active with thousands and members and dozens of posts per day of people giving things away. This serves to keep consumer goods out of landfills and to limit buying something new. These “buy nothing” groups fit neatly into getting a “bargain” or a deal and are a nice alternative to having to donate goods to a local thrift store.
This is not a group that is self-consciously making the choice due to environmental or sustainability reasons but for frugality, practicality, etc.
Robert Rattle
Freecycles, waste nothing/zero waste and related groups are very widespread and take on a variety of forms/goals. They’ve been around for at least a quarter century and closely align with local currencies, voluntary simplicity and downshifting values/groups. It’s interesting how they vary from city to city/region to region by membership, activity and goals, social and cultural norms and regional status/incomes. These groups tend to ebb and flow with outside factors such as economic anxiety, and micro-targeting and peer pressure in the digital age, but given their persistence, there’s clearly an underlying constituency that support sustainable consumption (in various definitions/forms) that helps to maintain their base.
Halina Brown
Let me be a skeptic, as an old hand who has seen many such trends since the 70s. Here are some of them: downshifting, voluntary simplicity, minimalism, experiences over things, adbusters, green local currency. They are not the same, but they are part of the same family: a fatigue from aggressive advertising, objections to the commodification of individuals as consumers, and longing for a simpler, less stressful and more community-centered life.
These are cyclical phenomena. Until I hear from relatively prosperous young people the words “sufficiency” and “how much is enough” I will not take these trends as a serious turn toward more sustainable consumption. I know young people who like the idea of simpler and more frugal life but when they see a beautiful very large house, they want it.
The top 10-15% of the population worries about how to spend their excess incomes. But for most Americans the reality is very different: between the costs of childcare, college education, medications, healthcare, elderly care, energy, and housing, they do not have a lot of disposable income. And what they do have, they should probably save because of the fundamental job insecurity that is the fact of life for most families. Most people consume way above their disposable income. The household debt in the US is huge and growing again, after the short pandemic-related blip downward.
Ruben Nelson
We live in a global economy of $100 trillion, where 1% of this is devoted to promoting the virtues and benefits of the modern ways of being and living, and maybe .005% is spend on truly alternative ways of seeing and responding to reality. Until some of these numbers change dramatically, do not expect fundamental change in a culture that trusts its life and future to “economic growth and more progress”; a culture that (falsely) believes that it can master every situation and “solve” every problem.
Dimitris Stevis
I wonder whether anyone found Raju Gound’s plans for his disposable income – as troublesome as that of the Adanis.
Philip Vergragt
What should be done with excess money if it is not spent on consumption or put in banks that foster economic growth or worse? The economic system, the pension system in many countries, the financial system are all instrumental to growth and consumerism; how can that be changed? Individual actions are morally right but do not help much to change the system.
However, individual actions do matter; Jacob Fugger, in the 16th century, singlehandedly, not only invented but also consolidated financial capitalism. It was then, as it is now, completely intertwined with the political power elite. Fugger financed and manipulated the election of Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor.
A system that has been created by people can also be changed; but who can orchestrate systemic change?
Julia Steinberger
Tim Jackson, Angela Druckman and Peter Victor have, in various combinations, been exploring the “surplus income” problem. They see a sustainability shift in economics as turning from private consumption to investment, and have run models and proposed policies along such lines. This is not exactly degrowth, but it’s aligned in some ways. It is consistent with George Monbiot’s direction of “private frugality, public luxury”. My research shows that high quality accessible affordable public services are THE lynchpin for the possibility of universal well-being within planetary boundaries.
Another point is that anyone interested in these topics owes it to themselves to read Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger. One of its core topics is the psychology of private overconsumption and self-help obsession (from gym to yoga to diets etc) as a predictable outcome of neoliberal economic policies which push economic insecurity (not the same as poverty, to be clear). In a context of chronic economic insecurity, and an ideology that says that we are individually responsible for our own security/health etc, individual overconsumption is indeed a self-preservation tactic, and turns into an ideology of its own.
Turning away from overconsumption without simultaneously tackling the economic structures and actors pushing neoliberalism is impossible.
There is a place for further discussion of neoliberalism and its actors/tactics within SCORAI.
Richard Rosen
Your post helps us avoid the negative impacts of literally “no growth”, and helps to convert the discussion into one of greater fairness and better public facilities.
Julia Steinberger
Regarding redistribution, Yannick Oswald (PhD with me) ran this excellent simple model. Redistribution is not the issue, basically, and investment is likely to be much more important. See also Jefim Vogel’s work.
Links: Yannick’s model of redistribution.
Link to Yannick’s blog commentary “Why a more equal world would be easier to decarbonize”
And link to Jefim Vogel’s analysis of the socioeconomic conditions enabling need satisfaction at low(er) energy use, see importance of public services and network infrastructures.
