Here’s the blurb for David’s talk:

In recent years, as we have become more aware of the negative effects of our high-impact lifestyles, a number of environmental responses have been introduced – such as increased insulation and energy-efficiency requirements for buildings, improvements to public transport, conservation of urban green space, and more water-sensitive urban design. At a personal level, a few individuals are also adapting by, taking in boarders, sharing backyards, or returning to the multi-generational family unit. 

We have barely scratched the surface, however, of the profound improvements that the application of permaculture principles and strategies could deliver for the sustainability and livability of today’s suburbs.

David Holmgren, the co-founder of Permaculture, will explore how suburbs can, and are, responding to the converging economic, energy and climate crises. He will show how household and community resilience can be stimulated in the face of these pressures.

For those who want an introduction of the subject matter, here is a short but thought-provoking interview with David which has been posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTYe8WloF1U

The following sections outline several ‘techniques of the self’ that may provide a useful starting point for actually practicing voluntary simplicity. Voluntary simplicity, as readers of this website know very well, refers to an oppositional living strategy with which people seek an increased quality of life through a reduction and restraint of one’s level of consumption. This way of life generally involves providing for material needs as simply and self-sufficiently as possible, minimizing expenditure on consumer goods and services, and directing progressively more time and energy toward non-materialistic sources of satisfaction and meaning. In the context of overconsuming societies, adopting lifestyles of voluntary simplicity arguably provides a remarkably coherent philosophy of life with which to respond to the three problems stated above – ecological degradation, poverty amidst plenty, and consumer malaise.

Nevertheless, consumer societies are the very ones that relentlessly encourage ever-higher levels of consumption, and most of us probably internalize that message to some degree. If it is the case, however, that the escalation and expansion of consumer lifestyles is driving several of the world’s most pressing problems, then it may be that ethical activity today requires that we engage the self by the self for the purpose of refusing who are – so far as we have been socially conditioned to be uncritical consumers – and such a ‘refusal’ would be the first step toward creating new, post-consumerist forms of subjectivity. This attempt to live simply in a consumer culture should not be conceived of as something that has a destination, however; instead, it should be conceived of as an ongoing creative process. From this perspective, resistance to consumerism begins within the self, not beyond it.

The following ten techniques have been developed to outline ways of overcoming aspects of our identities, behaviors, and perspectives that may have been shaped, deliberately or by accident, by contemporary consumer societies. The aim of these techniques is to transcend, through self-cultivation, the subjectivities that have been imposed upon us by consumer societies and to create something new. It is important to note, however, that voluntary simplicity does not have anything to say about what form that ‘new self’ will ultimately take; rather, the purpose is to help break the consumerist mould of the ‘existing self’ so that new, post-consumerist forms of subjectivity can emerge.

1. Read about Consumerism and Voluntary Simplicity

The importance of reading about consumerism, to begin with, lies in the fact that many of the mechanisms of consumer society are not obvious and, for that reason, can escape our notice. But if those mechanisms are not recognized or understood, they obviously cannot be resisted. Consequently, we can find ourselves shaped by those mechanisms in insidious ways. For example, the complex concept ‘hedonic adaptation’[1] holds that once human beings have their basic material needs satisfied, further increases in material wealth can have short-term influences on happiness (the so-called ‘consumer buzz,’ of which we may be all aware), but little or no long-term influence on happiness (a phenomenon which may be much less obvious). That is, once human beings attain a modest material standard of living, evidence suggests that we end up ‘adapting’ to further increases in material wealth, which means that people typically find themselves no better off than when they were less wealthy. If this is so, and there is considerable evidential support for this phenomenon,[2] then this should affect the way we shape our lives, especially with respect to our pursuit of consumption. We might decide, for example, that if the pursuit of increased material wealth is unlikely to provide long-term satisfaction then that pursuit should not be the focus of our lives. But if we do not know about the process of ‘hedonic adaptation,’ then we cannot plan our lives with the aim of avoiding consumption that is wasteful from the perspective of happiness.

A second example of the subtle workings of consumerism – from the many to choose from – is known as the ‘Diderot Effect’ (named after the philosopher Denniss Diderot who was the first to write about the phenomenon).[3] The ‘Diderot Effect’ refers to how one consumer purchase can induce the desire for other purchases, which can induce further desires, and so on. The purchase of some new shoes looks out of place without a new outfit to match; a new car looks out of place parked in front of a shabby old house; painting the lounge can make the kitchen look even older; and replacing the sofas tempts one to replace the chairs too. This striving for uniformity in our standards of consumption is known as ‘the Diderot Effect,’ and it can function to lock us onto a consumerist treadmill that has no end and attains no lasting satisfaction. But if we are aware of this phenomenon, we can take steps to resist it, by foregoing the initial upgrading and thereby stepping off the consumerist treadmill. We can then do something else with our lives – something more ambitious, perhaps, than making sure our carpet matches our walls.

The point of these two examples is to show how consumerism can often lock us into practices of consumption that are wasteful of our time and energy (to say nothing of the waste of resources they entail). By dedicating some of our attention to the study of consumerism, however, we may deepen our insight into the world, and our lives, and this may well assist us in escaping consumerism and in the planning and creation of new, post-consumerist forms of life. By deepening our understanding of consumption and its effects, that is, we may find ourselves better able to live lives of what David Shi called, ‘enlightened material restraint.’[4]

As well as reading about consumerism, it is suggested that there is also great value in reading widely about voluntary simplicity. For those of us who have been educated into a consumerist form of life, within a consumerist society, it can be very difficult indeed to imagine that alternative forms of life exist.[5] In fact, so entrenched can we become in the consumerist form of life that we can resemble the fish that does not know it is in water. That is, we may not even recognize consumerism as consumerism – as one form of life among others – but assume instead that it is ‘just the way the world is.’ By reading about alternatives like voluntary simplicity, however, we can unsettle this assumption and expand our imaginations, and hopefully come to see that we have a choice in the way we live. We can change our lives, and perhaps begin changing the world, by changing our minds. Not only that, reading about voluntary simplicity can be self-fulfilling in that it can affirm and support the transition to a post-consumerist life. This is but an inflection of the old adage that what we give our attention to, we become. The choice, it would seem, is ours.

2. Keep Precise Financial Accounts and Reflect on Them

Although practicing voluntary simplicity is much more than just being frugal with money and spending less – it is also a state of mind – spending wisely does play an important role. In Your Money or Your Life[6] – a prominent text in the literature on voluntary simplicity – Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin provide elaborate financial exercises for readers to undertake which seek to provoke reflection on the real value of money and the true cost of things. Such exercises may sound mundane and a bit pointless – everybody assumes they are careful, rational spenders – but if the exercises are carried out with precision the results may well surprise, even shock. One might find that seemingly little purchases add up to an inordinate amount over a whole year, or over ten years, which may raise new and important questions about whether the money might have been better spent elsewhere, not at all, or exchanged for more time by working less. The aim of such exercises is not to create tightwads, but smart consumers who are conscious of the full cost of their purchases, all things considered. After all, as Henry Thoreau insisted, ‘the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.’[7] When exploring voluntary simplicity in this light, one might well find that some reductions and changes to spending habits, rather than inducing any sense of deprivation, will instead be life affirming. Furthermore, it is often said that how we spend our money is how we vote on what exists in the world. Clearly, then, our relationship to money is an area that deserves close attention, for if we do not have a precise understanding of how we are spending our money, we can find ourselves misspending our money and thus our lives. Through the ‘technique’ of keeping precise accounts of our income and expenditure, however, we can bring this issue to the forefront of our attention and allow us to better negotiate a fulfilling and meaningful life in a market society.

3. Cultivate Non-Materialistic Sources of Satisfaction and Meaning

Voluntary simplicity, it could be said, is about progressively directing increasing amounts of one’s attention away from the materialistic side of life toward the non-materialistic side. But cultivating a deep appreciation of non-materialistic goods often requires a certain degree of training. This training can be conceived of as an investment, of sorts, in the sense that effort expended in the early stages of development are justified on the basis that they will have positive, long-term impacts on one’s life (and perhaps positive, short-term impacts also). Learning to play a musical instrument, for example – say, the cello – may require some investment in this sense before one can appreciate the joy of performance or the profound beauty that can emanate from a cello in the hands of a competent cellist. But once that degree of competency has been attained, the non-materialistic satisfaction that can flow from playing a musical instrument is essentially limitless, and perhaps, one might even say, infinite. Another example might be reading. The more one reads, the better one gets at reading (in the sense of reading more deeply). But once a certain degree of competency has been attained, books have the potential to provide us with an inexhaustible source of non-materialistic wealth, all the better for the fact that a book itself – which is, of course, a material object – can be shared or ‘consumed’ without limiting its non-materialistic re-consumption by oneself or another, again and again. The point of this technique, once more, is to deliberately cultivate satisfaction and meaning in life through non-materialistic pursuits, rather than materialistic ones.[8]

4. Work on Overcoming Status Anxiety

It is sometimes said that modern consumers spend their lives working jobs they do not like, to buy things they do not need, so that they can impress people they do not like. Whether this is an exaggeration or not is less important than the issue it raises about what motivates our consumption – in particular, the issue of whether or to what extent we consume for the purpose of seeking or maintaining social status.[9] There is in fact considerable evidence to suggest that status seeking and social positioning is highly relevant to consumption practices, especially in consumer societies.[10] But there are at least two problems with this approach to consumption: firstly, social positioning through consumption is a zero-sum game, in the sense that when one person’s social status is increased, someone else’s must have relatively decreased, meaning that overall social satisfaction is unlikely to change; secondly, a strong argument can be made that, ultimately, it is much more important that we have the respect of ourselves rather than the respect of others, especially since the former is within our control, and the latter is much less so. Accordingly, if we choose to care about what others think of us – and it is a choice, although it may sometimes be a difficult choice – we are giving up some of our freedom to define our lives on our own terms. It can be argued, therefore, that practicing voluntary simplicity implies cultivating an indifference to social status, which would involve constantly thinking about what is truly valuable in life and recognizing, perhaps, that it is more important to shape one’s life for the purposes of gaining self-respect than for the purpose of seeking the respect of others. After all, if one merely seeks the respect of others, one might come to the end of life and have succeeded in attaining that respect, but have little respect for oneself. A case can be made that such a life would not be a successful life.

5. Regularly Undertake the ‘Deathbed Experiment’

The ‘Deathbed Experiment,’ so-called, is a technique of the self (popular among the Stoics) that can assist in the evaluation of what is most important in life, including how important money, possessions, and status are to a well-lived life. The thought experiment can be expressed in the following terms: Imagine you are on your deathbed and someone asks you about which attitudes defined your life. What would you want to be able to say? The Stoics argued that this type of thought experiment is important for at least two reasons: first, because the technique of trying to look back on life from the vantage point of our life’s end can help us prioritize our time and attention today as effectively as possible; and second, it can help us accept without complaint those things we cannot change and prompt us to set about changing those things we can.

Taken seriously – and it ought to be taken seriously or not at all – the Deathbed Experiment can provoke us to reflect on life’s ‘big picture’ and what role our attitudes have in shaping it. In particular, the experiment potentially has great relevance to the idea of voluntary simplicity because it has implications on how we value money, possessions, and status. That is, it raises the question of what attitudes we will have toward these things on our deathbed. The purpose of considering this issue prior to lying on one’s deathbed is so that our conclusions shape our thoughts and actions today in the hope of avoiding regrets in the future.

One might suppose, for example, that a person on their actual deathbed rarely says, ‘I wish I had spent more of my life working to pay for more consumer goods.’ More likely, perhaps, at least in consumer societies, is that a person might come to the end of their life and have some regrets about dedicating too much of their time and energy toward materialistic pursuits, at the expense of various non-materialistic goods, such as time with friends and family, or time to engage in creative activity or community engagement. In short, the Deathbed Experiment is a tool or technique that can be used (repeatedly) to avoid the regrets of overconsumption. To paraphrase Henry Thoreau, we should aim to live what is life, so that we do not, when we come to die, discover that we had not really lived.[11]

6. Acknowledge Freedom by Imagining Hypothetical Lives

Freedom, as the existentialists often insisted, can be terrifying. Freedom can be so terrifying, in fact, that we can sometimes pretend that we are bound by circumstances to live the life we are currently living when, in fact, we are really just avoiding having to deal with the reality of our own freedom. Jean-Paul Sartre called this living in ‘bad faith.’[12] For those brave enough to face their own freedom, however, the technique of imagining hypothetical lives can be a useful means, not only of highlighting one’s freedom, but also of actually expanding it. This technique involves imagining various alternative futures for your life, futures that depend merely on an act of will to initiate. Imagine, for example, radically changing careers, or deciding to dedicate your life to this or that burning passion – imagine it seriously. Imagine also, perhaps, living a radically simpler life. What would life be like? What could life be like? How could we get there?

It may be, of course, that the life one is currently living is the best life, the freest life, the most fulfilling life – in which case the alternative lives imagined need not be pursued. But by imagining alternative lives, we can become more aware of the nature and extent of our own freedom. Perhaps, as Michel Foucault suggested, we may discover that we are freer than we think we are.

7. Practice Negative Visualisation

Negative visualization refers to imagining bad things happening in your life for the purpose of preparing yourself emotionally when, as inevitably happens, something bad does actually happen. Of course, negative visualization may also help us avoid those bad things happening in the first place, which provides further justification for this technique. But human life is such that bad things sometimes occur that are entirely out of our control. If we are mentally prepared for such occurrences, they will never be as bad as when they strike us out of the blue.

With respect to voluntary simplicity, it can be helpful to imagine losing our entire life savings, or losing our home in a fire, or coming home one day and discovering we have been robbed of our most prized possession. By imagining such events and considering the various ways we could respond to them, we are more likely to respond effectively should they ever occur. We would be more likely, for example, to say to ourselves, ‘how best can I live my life from now on, given these circumstances?’

Negative visualization is a central ‘technique’ of Stoicism.[13] The Stoics argued that it is not events that hurt us; rather, we are hurt by the interpretations we give to those events. This is important because, while we are not always in control of the events in our life, we are in control of the interpretations we give those events. For example, continuing the above hypothetical, suppose we arrive home one day and discover we have been robbed of our most prized possession. This event can be ‘dealt with,’ from an interpretive perspective, in various ways. One response is to become angry, sad, or spiteful, but they are not pleasant or desirable emotions, so responding with anger, sadness, or spite generally makes a bad situation worse. Another way to respond, however, would be to show gratitude that our prized possession enriched our life for as long as it did; another response again would be recognize that there are many people around the world who have almost nothing, and this can make it seem rather perverse to bemoan the loss of our prized, but superfluous, possession. The point is that the same ‘event’ can impact on one’s life in various ways depending the ‘attitude’ with which we choose to deal with it. Again, the event is out of our control, but the attitude is not. To draw once more upon Nietzsche – a Stoic in his own way – we should live in the spirit of amor fati and ‘love thy fate.’[14]

8. Anticipate and Avoid Consumer Temptations and Seductions

Everybody in consumer societies has probably had the experience of walking though a mall, or watching a television advertisement, only to discover that such experiences can give birth to new, artificially imposed, consumer desires. We may not have even known that some product existed, but after being exposed to it through sophisticated marketing techniques, we find ourselves wanting it – needing it. Not only that, just knowing about the new product can make the things we currently own seem a bit old and dated, even though, prior to discovering the new product, our current possessions were a source of satisfaction. Those same possessions can become a source of dissatisfaction.

Within consumer societies people can be exposed to as many as 3,000 adverts each day,[15] and the message implicit to every ad is that our lives are not good enough as they are, and that our lives can be improved if only we buy this or that product. It seems we are easily persuaded. But we need not be passive pawns in this game. If we come to accept that marketing and advertisements can seduce us ever-deeper into consumerist practices, then one ‘technique’ for escaping those practices is simply to anticipate and avoid as many consumer temptations and seductions as possible. For example: do not go to the mall; do not read unsolicited junk mail or glossy magazines filled with ads; watch as little television as possible, etc. By regulating as far as possible what our minds are exposed to, we can change the nature of our socially constructed minds and thus our lives. If we give too much of our attention to consumer products, however, we, ourselves, might become the product.

9. Keep a Journal

As noted above, one of the greatest legacies of Stoicism is the idea that, while we may not always be in control of the events that happen in our lives, we are ultimately in control of the ways in which we respond to those events. But although we may be in ultimate control our responses, sometimes we do not always respond how we would have liked, and sometimes our responses can become habitual rather than considered or deliberate, at which time our freedom, our power, to respond as we wish seemingly diminishes. Keeping a journal is a good way of having a conversation with oneself about the happenings of the day. By reflecting on one’s actions and taking a few moments to reflect upon one’s responses to events, one becomes better able to negotiate life in the future and respond in the most fruitful ways. If one does not reflect in this way, the same mistakes can occur over and over again, and self-development essentially comes to a halt. Having a regular conversation with oneself through the keeping of journal is likely to help us in all areas of life, but in consumer societies, it may be a particularly useful practice with respect to consumption. By critically reflecting on a regular basis upon our consumer purchases, consumer motivations, consumer insecurities, consumer expectations, consumer desires, etc. we are likely to become more conscious of the forces external to ourselves that conspire to turn us into mindless dupes who dutifully turn the cogs of the consumerist machine.

10. Ask Yourself, ‘How Much is Enough?’

This question is perhaps the central question of voluntary simplicity, and it is suggested that any attempt to practice voluntary simplicity must involve meditating upon it with exceptional dedication. As it happens, however, ‘How much is enough?,’ is an extremely unpopular question within consumer societies, as it is widely assumed that ‘more is always better.’[16] But it is a question that is arguably of revolutionary import, for it has the potential to provide the fertile soil for growing a post-consumerist form of life.

This question, however, leads to an unexpected twist in the exploration of voluntary simplicity. We discover that it is impossible to answer the question ‘How much is enough?’ until will have first answered a prior and perhaps even more important question, ‘Enough for what?’ This ‘prior’ question challenges us to specify the point of our consumption, for if we cannot identify its purpose we cannot know if our economic efforts have succeeded. Without some ‘chief end’ in mind to guide and justify our labor, we would merely be running in the ruts or acting for no conscious purpose, like the Brahmin who chained himself for life to the foot of the tree, but could not explain why he did it. The warning here, in effect, is that if we do not have a clear sense of what we are doing with our lives, or why we are heading in one direction rather than another, we will not be able to tell if our attitudes toward material things are keeping us on the right path or leading us astray.

Voluntary simplicity, however, can offer no guidance on the question, ‘Enough for what?’ – which is to say, we must each create as an aesthetic project the meaning of our own lives. The ethics of consumption explored herein merely insists that we must face this question when shaping our attitudes toward money and material things. Once we have developed some answer to that question, however, then we are in a much better position to answer the question, ‘How much is enough?’[17] Many participants in the Voluntary Simplicity Movement are discovering that much less is needed than was previously thought, and perhaps, one might hope, others will come to realize that they, too, are freer than they think they are.[18] By needing less, people may come to realize that they would not need to work so much to provide for themselves, and it is hoped that the ten ‘techniques of the self’ presented above, if practiced seriously, might assist in that realization. Liberated from the limitless pursuit of more consumption and the endless labor that it demands, post-consumers are then free to set about doing something else with their lives.

Trying to understand what that ‘something else’ should be may well be the most exhilarating struggle we ever find ourselves engaged in.

The materialistic orgy that is Christmas, of course, is but an exaggerated normality for Western societies. In everyday life we often do not notice ‘materialism’ because, like fish that do not know they are in water, it is all around us – it is the very stuff of the world. But at Christmas time, the water of materialism begins to boil and everyone notices. Let’s face it, it can get pretty ugly.

I don’t want to be the Christmas Grinch again this year – see here for my Grinch article, “Christmas: The Assumption of Consumption.” But I do wish to counter some of the uber-consumerist messages that we all receive this time of year. I wouldn’t suggest we don’t give gifts to our friends and family. My message today is simply that we be thoughtful at this time of year and think carefully about our acts of consumption. In short, let us try to give gifts that improve the world, rather than degrade it.

Below I’ve listed a few of the best books I’ve read this year – books that I feel ought to be read very widely. One way to improve the world through consumption is to help promote important ideas. Christmas provides us with this opportunity. For those interested, a quick search online will provide places to purchase these deep but accessible books.

Richard Heinberg, The End of Growth: Adapting to our New Economic Reality (2011)

Chris Goodall, How to Live a Low-Carbon Life (2^nd Ed., 2010)

Ted Trainer, The Transition to a Sustainable and Just World (2010), which I reviewed here.

Paul Gilding, The Great Disruption: How the Climate Crisis will Transform the Global Economy (2011)

David Holgrem, Future Scenarios: How Communities can adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change (2009).   

Rob Hopkins, The Transition Companion: Making Your Community More Resilient in Uncertain Times (2011)

Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (2006)

And, finally, since my not-for-profit book sold out last time I did a post on it, I thought I’d repost the link for those who missed out: Samuel Alexander (ed), Voluntary Simplicity: The Poetic Alternative to Consumer Culture (2009).

The temperature today in Melbourne, Australia, reached a toasty 29 degrees (celsius) and that signifies the beginning of the season of solar hot water – but solar hot water the simpler way. Yes, ’tis the season for the outside shower!

In these temperatures, there is no need to use electricity or gas to heat your hot water for a shower; nor is there any need to purchase expensive and sophisticated solar hot water systems. All you need is black, watertight bag and a place to hang it, and there you have it – an outside shower that provides hot water. It’s really as simple as that.

And as  Leonardo da Vinci once wrote: ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.’

Not only does this simple method of solar heating save money on energy bills, it also significantly reduces the amount of water used in washing, both of  which are financially and environmentally beneficial. Best of all, perhaps, is the experience.

This is one of the many luxuries of the simple life.

The text is available here: http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Voluntary-Simplicity-Samuel-Alexander/9780986453700

It is 7.15pm as I write these words, and I now have a badly sprained neck, having been forcibly removed from our peaceful protest in City Square by the riot police some time after midday. I’ll try to fill in the gaps, but I’m sore so it’ll have to be brief.

Whatever you think of the Global Occupy Movement – whatever you think of Occupy Melbourne, in particular – what happened today in City Square was disgraceful and unforgivable. I’m frustrated that those words just don’t express what I wish they could express, but I have no other words.

As I have discussed in recent posts, Melbourne’s City Square has been occupied for the last six days in peaceful protest. We have taken meticulous care of this public space, and each other, and we have been engaging ourselves and the public about various issues, ranging from corporate influence in politics, economic inequality, and the degradation of the environment. Does that sound so terrible? Like so many others, we are worried about where the world is heading and what this means for ourselves and our children. So we decided to do something. We decided to ask questions and raise difficult issues, in the most peaceful and authentic way possible. We would hand out flyers during the day; talk amongst ourselves and with others about social and ecological problems and potential solutions; at 6pm we would hold a General Assembly; and in the evening we would make our own dinner, make our own music, and continue our critical discussions.

Apparently this is unacceptable behaviour. Apparently peaceful protest is intolerable. Apparently the Mayor of Melbourne didn’t want to see a few tents in the City Square when the Queen was driven down Swanston Street in few days. For God’s sake! So this morning, hundreds of aggressive police officers arrived, fully armed with pepper spray and mace, backed up by the cavalry and the riot police, and forcibly removed us from this public space. It is important that you understand what happened, so please watch this short video: http://goo.gl/gY2Wq

Is this an appropriate use of police force? Of all the problems in the world, was it necessary to violently evict several hundred engaged people who were simply trying to question the status quo? Is this what democracy looks like? We must not take that word “democracy” for granted, or it’s meaning will be debased further.

As I sat in the gutter after being evicted from the square, nursing my sore neck, I heard numerous people walk by sniggering at what was taking place, mocking us for what they simply could not understand or chose not to understand. At one stage, not being able to contain my rage, I stood up and quietly asked these people: “What have you ever stood for? What do you, in fact, stand for?”

They were silent and quietly moved on.

So it goes.

—————————————

For my 4,000 word statement on Occupy Melbourne, see: http://simplicitycollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IgniteRevised1.pdf

For some thoughtful news coverage:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/inchoate-yes-but-thoughtful-20111023-1meek.html

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/why-do-the-occupiers-so-preoccupy-our-masters-20111023-1meem.html

I woke up in City Square again this Thursday morning. The sun was rising, the vibe was characteristically joyful and positive, and the conversation was critical and engaged. Not only that, seeing the City Square full with tents was an inspiring spectacle, one that never gets old, and it must surely be prompting some reflection among those who walk past with confused stares. Exactly why they are confused, I am not entirely sure – as if the need for our occupation were not perfectly obvious!

Anyway, I returned home this morning for a shower and found myself compelled to write an “unspoken” address to the Occupiers. What I produced was a polemical outburst, rather than a calm, academic address. But that was what my mood dictated, and who was I to interfere. Were I a great orator, I would have liked to deliver this in person with fire and passion. As I am who I am, my quiet pen must suffice as my weapon.

Whether or not my fellow Occupiers agree with everything in this statement, I cannot say. No doubt there will be many points to take issue with, and I certainly do not claim any authority to speak on behalf of the movement. However, I hope this is seen as a genuine attempt to contribute to the conversation. I look forward to continuing this conversation soon. For now, however, I’m exhausted and need a few hours sleep.

A PDF of my statement can be downloaded here: Ignite.

I presume you have all heard about the occupation of Wall Street that began a few weeks ago in New York? Thousands of people have been staging an extended protest – an occupation – of Wall Street, voicing their diverse objections to a global financial system that has gone amuck. It may well be, however, that some of you have not heard about this historic event, and the reason would be because the newspapers are barely covering it. The occupation of Wall Street has only just started getting attention in the U.S, despite it commencing several weeks ago. And in Australia, where I am writing, the occupation has barely been mentioned in mainstream media at all.

Why is this? Why is it that thousands of people camping in the streets, in peaceful, democratic protest, for weeks on end, does not deserve media attention? It is because mainstream media are intimately connected with the very politico-economic system that is being objected to – that is being rejected – by the masses in the streets. The newspapers, of course, find space for terribly important articles on the infidelities of movie stars, as well space to cover the latest verbal ejaculations from climate change deniers; and there is always space for pages of advertisements to tell us what we need to buy if we are to be happy and successful. But the newspapers cannot seem to find space to cover this truly remarkable grassroots expression of civil discontent. Free press? Yeah right. Those days are well gone, and let’s not pretend otherwise. If you want news, don’t rely on Murdoch.

However, by deliberately avoiding any significant coverage of this prolonged mass protest – a protest that, it cannot be denied, deserves coverage – mainstream media (as dutiful representatives of Empire) are telling us something critically important. They are telling us that they are nervous about what is going, that they feel threatened by it. Otherwise why pretend that nothing is going on? It is clear they are scared of fuelling the fire. Little do they know, however, that those on the streets smell this fear, and are now feeding off it. To read more, see: http://occupywallst.org/ and http://www.occupytogether.org/ . See also, a rare mention in the news here.

Let’s face it, thousands of people camping in the streets of New York doesn’t happen everyday. And now the “Occupy Wall Street” movement has spread across America and indeed the globe. At the time of writing, there were 1235 cities involved through meetup.com and a growing list of cities currently ‘occupied’ can be found here: http://www.occupytogether.org/actions/. What’s going on here? Is this the start of something? Are we the people we have been waiting for?

This Saturday 15 October the occupation of Melbourne is commencing at City Square, and the organizer’s Facebook page already has almost four and half thousand expressions of support, and counting. No one can predict whether this movement will realize it’s potential. Perhaps it will flop and merely signify our last opportunity to avoid having the boot of Empire stamp on the face of humanity forever. But perhaps – just perhaps – there is something real going on here. Just perhaps this is the moment of madness that will shake the world awake.

I must confess that I do not have a great deal hope that anything will come of this movement, but I have some hope, and that’s all anyone should need to take part. As Gramsci stated: ‘Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will.’ I’ll be heading down to the City Square in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon to see what’s going on. I invite all of you in Melbourne to head down too, and please tell your friends about it. It’s strictly a peaceful, no alcohol or drugs, protest, so bring the family; a book; a picnic; the guitar; perhaps even a sleeping bag and a pillow! And if it turns out that only a few hundred people show up, then so be it. At least we can say that when we were called we stood up to be counted. We don’t get opportunities like this everyday. In fact, this opportunity could be unique. It would seem, then, that we are the people we have been waiting for. We must be.

As I was writing this post – there is so much more to say, but for now this must suffice – I found myself thinking of the closing passage in one of William Morris’s essays of 1884, which I will leave you with to mull over. I hope to see you on Saturday.

It is Peace, therefore, which we need in order that we may live and work in hope and with pleasure. Peace so much desired, if we may trust men’s words, but which has been so continually and steadily rejected by them in deeds. But for us, let us set our hearts on it and win it at whatever cost.

What the cost may be, who can tell? Will it be possible to win peace peaceably? Alas, how can it be? We are so hemmed in by wrong and folly, that in one way or other we must always be fighting against them: our own lives may see no end to the struggle, perhaps no obvious hope of the end. It may be that the best we can hope to see is that struggle getting sharper and bitterer day by day, until it breaks out openly at last into the slaughter of men by actual warfare instead of by the slower and crueller methods of “peaceful” commerce. If we live to see that, we shall live to see much; for it will mean the rich classes grown conscious of their own wrong and robbery, and consciously defending them by open violence; and then the end will be drawing near.

But in any case, and whatever the nature of our strife for peace may be, if we only aim at it steadily and with singleness of heart, and ever keep it in view, a reflection from that peace of the future will illumine the turmoil and trouble of our lives, whether the trouble be seemingly petty, or obviously tragic; and we shall, in our hopes at least, live the lives of men: nor can the present times give us any reward greater than that.

The PDF of this presentation can be downloaded here: Peak Oil and the Twilight of Growth

A slightly revised article with more references can be downloaded here: Peak Oil and the Twilight of Growth (New)

1. Introduction

Good afternoon everyone, I’m sorry I can’t be with you today but I’m very grateful for the invitation to speak with you about peak oil, economic growth, and law in a post-growth world. More specifically, I will take this opportunity to explore the hypothesis that the peaking of global oil supply might signify the twilight of economic growth as we have known it. I was fortunate enough to present a paper at Australia’s first Wild Law conference a few years ago in Adelaide and my presentation today will be building quite directly upon the arguments I presented there. (See Earth Jurisprudence and the Ecological Case for Degrowth).

In Adelaide I argued that the extent of ecological overshoot and resource depletion, coupled with projected population growth and the need for the poorest nations to grow their economies in some form, means that the richest nations, if they are serious about ecological sustainability, should immediately initiate a ‘degrowth’ process of planned economic contraction – a process about which I will have more to say shortly. I also argued that the deep ecology of law being developed within Earth Jurisprudence not only is the most coherent legal framework within which to question the dominant macroeconomics of growth, but it also provides the most fertile jurisprudential soil within which to begin cultivating a post-growth economy and a post-growth legal system. (My apologies for using a gardening metaphor so early on in my talk.)

I’d like to begin today by briefly unpacking the foundations of growth scepticism, because it seems to me that the extent of our current ecological predicament is often grossly underestimated, even by some environmentalists, and this puts in jeopardy our efforts to resist and respond effectively to the matrix of problems that we face. If we don’t recognize growth economics as the root cause of many of those problems, we are at risk of formulating strategies of opposition within the very ideological framework that was designed, or at least functions, to keep environmentalists at bay. We must step outside the growth model, I will argue, if we are to be effective Wild Lawyers, or more generally, if we are to be effective human beings. We must quickly evolve, that is to say, from ‘homo economicus’ to ‘homo post-economicus.’

After trying to diagnose our current situation as clearly and concisely as possible, I’ll proceed to introduce the idea of ‘peak oil’ and then outline the hypothesis that, due to the imminent stagnation in the supply of cheap energy, we may have entered, or are entering, the twilight of economic growth.[1] I’ll conclude by discussing very briefly some of the implications of this hypothesis, although my purpose today is focused more on raising questions than providing answers. I hope I can provide some fodder to chew upon during discussion time.

2. The Growth Model of Progress

Celebrated economist, Sir John Hicks, began one of his essays with the pronouncement, ‘We are living in an age of growth.’ It is a proposition that applies more so today than ever before, at least as a statement of economic desire, if not as a description of recent or anticipated economic reality. As the world economy slowly emerges, at least superficially, from the Global Financial Crisis, a crisis in which many economies around the world suffered recession, the imperative of all governments around the world to maximize growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has never been stronger. In early 2010, then Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, arguably spoke for all nations when he declared: ‘Going for growth is the government’s number one priority.’

According to this dominant macroeconomic paradigm, growth in GDP provides governments, by way of taxation, with more resources to pay for the nation’s most important social services. It provides the necessary funds needed for national security and a police force, democratic elections, sophisticated heath-care and sanitation systems, public education, unemployment benefits, etc., as well as funding for such things as environmental protection programs, foreign aid, and the arts. These are all good things, but they cost money, and funds are always limited. Therefore, by maximizing growth of the economy a government can secure more funding for those services and thereby contribute most, so the argument goes, to social, economic, and ecological wellbeing.

Furthermore, the argument might continue, as an economy grows, so too do personal incomes, meaning that individuals, not just governments, have more money and thus more freedom to purchase those things which they desire or need most. Growth is unquestionably good, one might conclude, from which it would seem to follow that more growth must always be better. Needless to say, this macroeconomic model has deeply influenced the shape and evolution of our societies, including our legal systems, and has given them a pro-growth structure.

3. The Emerging Case for Degrowth

The growth model of progress, just outlined, strikes many people, most people, perhaps, as basically correct. Cracks have formed in this economic paradigm, however, which can no longer be dismissed as minor anomalies in an otherwise healthy system. This is illustrated most clearly when we reflect upon the degradation of the natural world which is currently tolerated, if that is the right word, in the name of economic growth. The best available evidence plainly illustrates that the global economy has physically grown to such a size that it now exceeds the regenerative and absorptive capacities of Earth’s ecosystems. That is, we are in ecological overshoot, by some way, and have been for some time.

The Living Planet Report 2010, for example, which is based on the scientific research of the Global Footprint Network, reports that humanity’s ecological footprint is now exceeding by 50 percent the planet’s sustainable carrying capacity. In other words, human beings are now consuming ‘natural capital’ and diminishing the capacity of the planet to support life in the future. Even from a narrowly economic perspective, this makes as much sense as the business that each and every year sells off some of its key assets and treats this income as profit – a practice of dodgy accounting that might seem fine on paper until the shareholders are told there aren’t any more assets. Put more vividly, today’s global economy resembles a snake that is eating its own tail. At what point, one might ask, will the snake recognize that it is feeding upon its own life-support system? To put it proverbially, if we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are going.

The fact that the global economy is already in significant ecological overshoot is even more challenging to mainstream views of economic growth when we bear in mind that, in the poorest parts of the world today, great multitudes are living lives oppressed by extreme poverty. The global challenge, therefore, in terms of humanitarian justice and ecological sustainability, can be stated as follows: The global community must find a way to raise the material standards of living the world’s poorest people – who surely have a right to develop their economic capacities in some form – while at the same time reducing humanity’s overall ecological footprint. The difficulty of this challenge is intensified, of course, by the fact that the global population is expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, and reach 10 billion around 2080, according the most recent UN estimate.

The implications of this admittedly dire situation have proven easy for rich nations to ignore but they are impossible to escape. If the poorest nations are to have ecological ‘room’ to grow their economies sustainably and satisfy at least their basic needs, then it follows that the richest nations should not be aiming to grow their economies without limit. It should be clear enough that limitless growth within the richest nations is only going to exacerbate the greatest social and ecological problems of our age, not resolve them. Needless to say, however, there are no signs that the richest nations are actually prepared to even entertain the thought of giving up growth, let alone act upon some post-growth philosophy.

This is the point at which neoclassical economists and their handmaidens in the political mainstream speak up, declaring that environmentalists like us, in our naivety, have failed to grasp the transformative importance of science and technology and/or the efficiency of markets. Rich economies don’t need to stop growing, these people will object. All that needs to happen is for economies around the world to adopt ‘sustainable development,’ which in theory means using science and technology to produce and consume more cleanly and efficiently and then leaving markets alone to do their work. Growth is the solution, from this perspective, not the problem.

A nice story, perhaps, or perhaps not even a nice story; but here’s the problem. Although economies are demonstrably getting better at producing commodities more cleanly and efficiently (a process called ‘relative decoupling’), overall ecological impact is nevertheless still increasing, because every year increasing numbers of commodities are being produced and consumed. We might have more fuel-efficient cars, for example, but the rebound effect is that we are also driving more and buying more cars. This is but one example of the Jevons Paradox, a phenomenon that permeates market societies and beyond and is negating the overall efficiency improvements in production.

It is theoretically possible, of course, for an economy to grow and its overall ecological impacts reduce (a process called ‘absolute decoupling’). Nobody denies that this is indeed theoretically possible. But despite many techno-efficiency improvements occurring, all the evidence shows that an overall reduction in the ecological impact of economies – which is obviously what is needed in an age of ecological overshoot – is not occurring. Therefore, it is not just misguided but dangerous and irresponsible for neoclassicists and their sympathizers to propagate the fantasy that rich nations will grow themselves out of the ecological crisis.

What is needed, first and foremost, is a dedicated reduction in the overall ecological impact of the human economy, and this depends primarily on the richest nations on the planet voluntarily producing and consuming less stuff. That is, ecological sustainability depends for its realization on some framework of post-growth economics. As I argued a few years ago at the Adelaide conference, the most coherent framework for this transition is provided by the literature on degrowth, a term that has been defined as an ‘equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human wellbeing and enhances ecological conditions.’ Degrowth, therefore, does not mean recession. Avoiding unemployment in a degrowth economy would require, among many other things, a restructure of the labor market for the purpose of systematically exchanging income for more time, and for sharing the available work among the population. In this way it can be argued that quality of life would increase in a degrowth society, despite a phase of decline in material standards of living. Degrowth, as I have argued elsewhere, implies lifestyles of voluntary simplicity.

To sum up this section: if we accept that the global economy is already in ecological overshoot, and if we accept that the poorest nations on the planet have a right to develop their economic capacities, and, finally, if we accept that we are facing a global population in excess of nine billion within a few decades, then by force of reason and evidence it would seem that the richest nations should initiate a degrowth process of planned economic contraction. Once again, however, there are no signs that degrowth will ever be voluntarily adopted as a politico-economic program – at least, not in the foreseeable future. As I will now argue, however, there are some reasons to think that we might be facing economic contraction all the same, sooner than we might think, and whether we want it or not.

3. Peak Oil and the Twilight of Growth

The notion of ‘peak oil’ has received almost no attention within the legal academy, so allow me to begin by this part of the discussion by presenting an overview of the basic idea.

Oil is not just another commodity. It is the lifeblood of industrial civilization. For one hundred and fifty years it has provided us with a cheap, portable, and highly charged source of energy. Almost every aspect of the economy today depends on oil, directly or indirectly, owing mainly to the importance of oil-dependent things like transport, mechanization, plastics, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and so forth. Industrialized food production, in particular, is oil dependent, especially in a globalized economy.

Currently the world consumes approximately 89 million barrels of oil per day. That figure once more: 89 million barrels per day. I’m not sure about you, but that figure boggles my mind. We could call it our addiction to oil. The figure becomes all the more astonishing when we bear in mind the incredible energy density of oil. The typical North American, for example, would need approximately 100 personal ‘energy slaves’ working 24 hours a day to provide the energy needed to sustain their lifestyles. In ways that are not always obvious, our Western-style living standards are exceedingly energy intensive.

This leads me to the first point I would like to make in this context: The unprecedented growth in economic activity that has occurred in the last 150 years has only been possible because of our cheap and abundant supply of energy, of cheap oil in particular. Without this cheap energy, economic growth as we have known it simply would not have been possible. To achieve what we have achieved, the ‘energy slaves’ I just spoke of were absolutely necessary.

What would happen to the US economy, we might ask, or the Australian economy, or the global economy for that matter, if the global supply of oil stopped increasing and began to decline? Is there a chance of oil supply stagnating or decreasing, and, if so, when? And what would the consequences of this be? These are the central questions of the peak oil debate, and it is worth considering the issues in a little more depth.

Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource. For geological reasons, the extraction of oil from the ground roughly follows a bell shape curve, with extraction increasing at first, then reaching a plateau, and the declining. That is, oil isn’t extracted from a well at the same rate until the last drop of oil is consumed.  Rather, over time, extracting the oil first gets easier, and then gets harder, and ultimately the extraction process slows down until it stops. Oil generally stops flowing from oil wells not because the well becomes empty, but because continued extraction becomes uneconomic, in the sense that the financial or energy costs of continued extraction become greater than the financial or energy returns.

This basic pattern has been shown to occur in every oil well ever drilled, and the same pattern also applies to nations. For example, oil production in the U.S. began in 1859, peaked around 1970, and has been on a downward trend ever since. That is, the US never produced as much oil per year as it did in 1970. And this is not a phenomenon limited to the US, of course. A 2005 study by the Royal Swedish Academy (which bestows the Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics) reported that 55 of the world’s 65 largest oil-producing countries have already reached maximum oil production or were in decline. It should be clear enough, then, that there will come a time when the global supply of oil will peak, and in fact, a consensus is forming that conventional oil supply peaked around 2006. This has even been acknowledged by the International Energy Agency in their World Energy Outlook 2010, released last November, and the International Energy Agency, I should note, is a very conservative, mainstream institution. It seems, then, that peak oil is no longer the domain of fringe theorists and Wild Lawyers but has become a generally accepted fact by those who have explored the literature seriously.

And perhaps the peaking of oil supply shouldn’t surprise us. Before we can extract oil we have to discover it, and world oil discovery peaked around 1965. Since that time, the trend has been to discover less oil each year, even though consumption of oil has steadily increased. A useful analogy here is a fruit tree: we pick the low hanging fruit first since that is the easiest, but once the easy stuff is gone, as time goes on it gets harder to find and pick the same amount of fruit. We’ve picked the low hanging fruit, it would seem, and the drilling in the Gulf of Mexico proves this. No one would go to the expense and danger of drilling in 3000 feet of water if there were more accessible oil on land. The fact is, the easy-to-find oil is gone, a point acknowledged even by the biggest oil companies. Today the world consumes approximately 3 barrels of oil for each barrel it discovers, a ratio that is plainly unsustainable. Furthermore, in the 2008 World Energy Outlook, the IEA noted that the reserves in existing oil wells are declining at roughly twice the rate they had previously thought, adding further support to the argument that conventional oil supply will not increase in the future and, after it’s current plateau, enter terminal decline in the foreseeable future.

So, what’s the problem with oil supply peaking? There are three main points here. The first is that there has been an extremely close correlation between oil supply and economic growth in the past, and this provides extremely strong grounds for thinking that economic activity is based on energy, a point that is well nigh indisputable. If the supply of cheap energy stagnates or declines, therefore, it is very likely that economic growth as we have known it will also stagnate or decline, and I refer you to Richard Heinberg’s new book, The End of Growth, which came out last month, for the details of this argument.

The second point is that the trillions of dollars of debt that many nations have taken on in recent decades was predicated on the assumption that future growth would be similar to the growth experienced over the last few decades. But if it is the case that we are reaching the twilight of growth, those debts will become bad debts, the implications of which I do not wish to speculate upon. Suffice it to say that it will not be good news, which is to say, it will be bad news.

The third problem with the peaking of oil – one closely related to the first two – is that that the demand for oil is still expected to grow significantly, despite a stagnation in supply. This increased demand is mainly due to the rapid industrialization of oil-hungry nations like China, India, and Brazil. The most basic economic principles tell us that as the supply of a commodity decreases and demand increases, the price of that commodity will increase, perhaps exponentially. The issue is not that human beings will ever run out of oil, therefore. We will never run out of oil, I want to be clear on that. The issue is that we may soon run out of cheap oil, and that is what peak oil is all about.

Over the last few years we have seen how fragile and delicate the global economic system is – owing in part to its oil dependency. We saw the price of oil spike to $147 in July 2008, which we can be sure was not unrelated to the crash that followed. In fact, economist James Hamilton in a recent paper has shown that 10 out of the 11 economic recessions experienced by the US post-WII were preceded by high oil prices. This does not bode well for the global economy, and while I’m not going to claim to know everything about what the future holds in terms of oil and its economic impacts, it is clear that the age of cheap oil has come to an end. This signifies a hugely significant turning point in history, in the sense that the future of energy supply, of liquid fuels in particular, may soon be less than it has been in the past. Of course, there are some alternative liquid fuels and alternative energies that are available to help mitigate the worst impacts of this turning point, but none will be able to replace the cheap oil that has been the foundation of economic growth historically. One thing is sure: peak oil is a subject we are all going to be hearing a lot more about over the next decade. It urgently needs more attention, and I encourage you all to give it its due.

4. Conclusion

In closing, you will have noticed that there was a conspicuous absence of the word ‘law’ in my discussion. In the time available, this was necessary, but it should be clear enough that degrowth and peak oil have great implications for law and legal analysis. Over the last two centuries the legal systems of advanced capitalist societies have acquired a pro-growth structure, and this means that if there is to be any desirable transition beyond those structures, a fundamental legal restructuring of the economy will be necessary. Although I cannot explore the nature of such restructuring here, I have explored that issue in my doctoral thesis, entitled ‘Property beyond Growth: Toward a Politics of Voluntary Simplicity’ which, for those interested, is available on the Simplicity Institute website at www.simplicityinstitute.org/publications.

I hope you enjoy the rest of conference.

Thanks very much.

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A slightly revised article with more references can be downloaded here: Peak Oil and the Twilight of Growth (New)