When is Enough, Enough?
The New American Dream, its global implications, and its unsustainability.
The evolution of the American Dream
In reality, the American Dream is not just one dream, has not been a persistent dream across the eras, and most certainly hasn’t applied to (or been achievable by) everyone. “The” American Dream first appears as Puritanical ideology mixed with a refugee mindset—i.e., that hard work, bit by bit and year by year, would result in a modest but comfortable living that was defined by security and stability.
But then something changed. Call it the “New American Dream.” Instead of a modest abode, two kids, a car and a yard, the Dream became a McMansion and a Ferrari. Or, more accurately: whatever my neighbor has +1 (or +2 for good measure).
This one-upmanship, known as referent-dependent choice, has been a driving force in the the US economy for the past ~75 years. The bad news is that this mindset isn’t sustainable. The good news is that it has changed before and can change again. A course correction won’t be easy, though: societies that highlight independence as a core value have a side effect of encouraging hyper-local social hierarchies that bring materialism and ownership to the fore.1
Exporting the New American Dream
The U.S. economy is considered to be consumption-oriented: the current trend of consumption among U.S. consumers is the primary driving force in the economic health of the U.S. economy. This has its benefits: for example, the U.S. central bank (the Federal Reserve) wields generally-effective tools to stimulate or suppress domestic consumption, which has led to long periods of relatively-high macroeconomic stability.
Economies that rely on consumers in outside jurisdictions (i.e., export-oriented) have less effective tools and are impacted by the decisions of policymakers, bankers, and consumers in those other jurisdictions. For these and other reasons, countries have an incentive to adopt the New American Dream and move toward a consumption-oriented economy.2
Some might argue this is not altogether a bad thing, and they are almost certainly partially correct. As global consumption rises, it expands the global economy, fostering economic growth. And as more countries, and more people, achieve greater consumption over a short period of time, it results in fast overall economic growth.
That matters because economists, including many of the most prominent ones, assert that economic growth is the #1 way to support development. Economic growth, mainly driven by capitalism and/or capitalistic principles (including those implemented by a centralized State), has lifted not millions but BILLIONS of people out of the deepest rungs of poverty.
The problem is that perpetual-growth-as-development, and particularly when it is consumerism-led growth, isn’t sustainable.
Tracing the long horizon of perpetual-growth-as-development
Let’s conduct a thought experiment: what would the global economy look like if you waived a magic wand and all of the nearly 200 countries on Earth reached consumption and material-ownership parity with the 20th-richest-income country—i.e., that of Germany, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of $53,180?3
Global GDP would quadruple (from $100 Trillion to $420 Trillion) and energy consumption would double (179,000 TWh to 350,000 TWh), together resulting in a quadrupling (at least) of annual carbon emissions (from 37 Gigatons to 152 Gigatons).
A quadrupling of annual carbon emissions would almost certainly lead to an accelerated global temperature increase, making inhabiting the Earth… very difficult for humans (and most other species).
Number of vehicles on the road would triple (from 1.48B to 4.57B), resulting in not only massive resource requirements to create and deliver these vehicles, but terrible road congestion as well.
Annual chicken consumption would increase by 30% (from 130 million tons to 170 million tons), resulting in increased land requirements (for housing and feeding each animal).
An equalization in health factors would lead to an increase in global obesity rates by ~50% and overweight prevalence ~40%, leading to domino effects (e.g., cardiovascular disease) with huge implications on the global health system.
These are only a few of the impacts of achieving economic “development” if one assumes that such development is inextricably aligned to the New American Dream of materialism and consumption.
What can we do about it?
Back to the main question: “When is enough, enough?“
As long as Enough is undefined, unbounded, and assumed to be ever-increasing, it will be an issue for humanity and the planet. It is up to us, as individuals, communities and societies, to proactively discuss (and define) Enough.
What could Enough look like in practice?
Wealthy (and ultra-wealthy) urbanites declaring “1,000 square feet per person is enough ‘home’ for us,” leading to some alleviation of the housing limitations in major cities and a revitalization of the dynamism of urban cores through enhanced affordability (smaller units → more units in same footprint → greater supply → lower housing prices).
The senior lawyers at a major law firm declaring “30 billable hours per week is enough for each of us,” leading to the Partnership expanding by 2x - 3x to meet the same level of demand for senior-level expertise (and, one would hope, drastically altering the equitable makeup of such a Partnership through the elevation of a more diverse Partner set).
Those who eat meat and seafood declaring “58kg of meat and seafood per person per year is enough for us” (that number corresponds to the country at the ~50th percentile of consumption per capita—Cambodia), providing a pathway for more equality in global meat & seafood consumption… without growing the overall stock and suffering from the associated risks of doing so.
Having an Enough mindset—one that is founded on the principle that the footprint of your existence ought not to impair the possibility of sustainable, prosperous living for future generations—must become the “new” new American dream.
Go Deeper: Once again, I can’t recommend The Status Game (Will Storr) highly enough for the insights on human behavior it contains.
If you want to follow the subsequent math, you’ll need these links as well: German energy consumption, German carbon emissions, German vehicle ownership, German poultry consumption, German health metrics.