Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

80 S politics and governance
Box 2.2. (continued)
lovers can buy a marvel of advanced technology: “The 24/7 selfcleaning,
scoopfree litter box!” Technology-oriented catalogues
regularly offer dozens, nay, hundreds of devices that digitally amaze,
ease, simplify, gratify, sort, store, scratch, waken, warn, multiply, compute,
freshen, check, sanitize, and personalize. It may be possible,
one day, to live in a digital, stainless steel nirvana of the sort George
Orwell once said would “make the world safe for little fat men.”
There are, however, many problems with an economy so
dependent on ephemeralities. It is a cheat because it cannot satisfy
the desires that it arouses. It is a lie because it purports to solve
by trivial consumption what can only be solved by better human
relations. It is immoral because it takes scarce resources from those
who still lack the basics and gives them to those with everything
who are merely bored. It is unsustainable because it creates waste
that destroys climatic stability and ecosystems. It is unintelligent
because it redirects the mental energies of producers and consumers
alike to illusion, not reality, which makes us stupid. And
because of such things an economy organized to promote fantasy
will eventually collapse of its own weight.
In The Memory of Old Jack, Wendell Berry describes the main
character as “troubled and angered in his mind to think that people
would aspire to do as little as possible, no better than they are
made to do it, for more pay than they are worth.” The masters of
the recently imploded fi nancial universe who made millions while
destroying much of the economy, including the chief executive offi -
cers of any number of corporations from Enron to General Motors,
would have appropriately aroused Old Jack’s fury, as it should ours.
I have a second suggestion, which is simply that we ought to
build a slower economy. It is also an old idea, embodied in aphorisms
such as “the race is not to the swift” and “haste makes waste.” In the
age of hustle, cell phones, and instant everything, we are inclined
to forget that lots of worthwhile things can only be done slowly.
It takes time for all of us, economists included, to think clearly. It
takes time to be a good parent or friend. It takes time to create