Because an economy driven mainly by consumerism is not sustainable in the long run. Such an economy requires unchecked growth and this falls apart once society starts consuming for the sake of consumption.
Why does it require growth, and why does that growth have to be "unchecked", whatever that means. I don't see why one person producing one thing and consuming those produced by others is unworkable....or is that not consumerism?
It's a pretty weak argument when you just pretend not to understand the language. There's no problem with consuming goods. That's necessary, but there are limits to what needs to be consumed. When the economy requires more consumption than is needed for its members to sustain a healthy lifestyle then it needs to be checked or at least not actively pushed further by government policies aimed specifically at increasing unneeded consumption.
"When the economy requires more consumption than is needed for its members to sustain a healthy lifestyle"
I'm not just pretending, I genuinely don't understand what that means. It kind of sounds like you think consumption beyond bare sustenance is bad and needs to be checked somehow? If I'm understanding correctly, then I disagree with you.
There's a myth out there that we are unconstrained by physical resources. And it has largely been true "since the beginning of time". But that time is quickly coming to an end -- the next big generation shift will be the acceptance of a resource-constrained world imho.
Look at meat consumption. It takes something like 10x as much energy to grow a calorie of meat as it does a calorie of vegetables. If the entire world (or even just the global middle class, if something like that exists) ate as much meat as the developed world, it would be an ecological catastrophe growing all that livestock, disposing of its waste, and fertilizing the grain needed to feed it. And guess what, as the populations of India and China are entering the middle class, they're adopting a taste for meat-heavy diets.
Energy consumption per capita is a pretty good proxy for human development. Whether it's meat or our plastic lawn furniture that we consume from amazon, all of it takes energy to produce. In other words, consumption is another word for energy, and if even a sizable chunk of the world consumed as much as we do in the western world, it would require something like more energy than all proven oil reserves. Clearly that's not going to work.
We can always hope for the deus ex machina ending and say that we'll find salvation in technological progress (whether it's an efficient way to store solar or figuring out fusion or an FTL drive top open up new worlds), but that requires a dangerous amount of hope. It's also the path of inaction -- wait for someone else to deliver salvation.
More realistically, I think consumption is starting to hit physical resource constraints and is inflecting towards the top of the S-curve. The entire global economy since the beginning of time may have been about consuming, but that doesn't mean the party can continue.
There may be no upper bound on the absolute amount of available resources, but there is still a limit on how fast you can expand.
Consider the following maximal example: If all of Earth's resources are exhausted (whatever that means, I don't rely on any exact definition), we need to head outwards into space. Because our expansion is limited by the speed of light, we can at most cover a distance
r(t) = c * t
and thus a volume of space
V(t) = (c * t)^3
where t is the time spent travelling through space. The amount of available resources (assuming an even distribution of resources on the scale of the universe) is proportional to V, and thus to t^3.
Cubic growth is much much much much less than exponential growth. In fact, the exponential function can be shown to grow faster than any power function.
If you put a population of flies in a closed container, even with an unlimited food supply, their population will grow and grow until it hits a peak and collapases. We are smarter than flies but to think we are not also constrained by nature is folly?
No one denies that we are constrained by nature and limited resources. There are two things that preclude your hypothetical "collapse" event from happening.
1. Scientific discovery and innovation. People were all in huge panic in the 17/18/19th century about the ability of our limited amount of land to feed the (exponentially-growing) populace, yet discovery of new methods/technologies increased the hypothetical yield such that the point became moot.
2. We live in a feedback-loop system. In the absence of perverse (and universal) government incentives, society will slow-down as resources become scarce. That is, until point number 1 kicks in again and the cycle starts fresh.
We're discussing a very specific type of economic collapse; one due to runaway growth and exhaustion of space/resources. If you have an example of that specific type of 'collapse' happening, I'd be most curious?
The only reason the fly colony would collapse is if it ran out of a resource. No point in giving them an unlimited food supply because it's a resource like any other.
There was no shortage of food or water or nesting
material. There were no predators. The only adversity was
the limit on space.
Initially the population grew rapidly, doubling every 55
days. The population reached 620 by day 315, after which
the population growth dropped markedly. The last
surviving birth was on day 600. This period between day
315 and day 600 saw a breakdown in social structure and
in normal social behavior. Among the aberrations in
behavior were the following: expulsion of young before
weaning was complete, wounding of young, increase in
homosexual behavior, inability of dominant males to
maintain the defense of their territory and females,
aggressive behavior of females, passivity of non-dominant
males with increased attacks on each other which were
not defended against.[2] After day 600, the social
breakdown continued and the population declined toward
extinction. During this period females ceased to
reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely,
never engaging in courtship or fighting. They ate, drank,
slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits.
Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars
characterized these males. They were dubbed “the
beautiful ones.” Breeding never resumed and behavior
patterns were permanently changed.
> If we run out of land, we take the sea. If we run out of sea, we take space. And so on.
This answer precludes the very real possibility that the necessary technology advances to "take the sea" or "go into space" don't come in time to be useful. Any plan that includes "things that haven't been invented yet" isn't a real plan, it's wishful thinking.
