We begin by changing our consumption patterns

Toward another economy

In the creation of the other economy, the starting point is the transformation of consumption. The reason for this is clear enough: If the goal of the new economy is the human being, his or her self-realization and happiness, we have to begin by examining whether consumption of the goods and services produced by the economy is serving that objective. This implies satisfying the real needs of human beings. The capitalist economy is not interested in whether people are happy or in whether they are flourishing as communities. It is only interested in assuring that individuals remain in the marketplace and buy as much as possible. For that, it would be even better if they remained unsatisfied as long as that encourages them to buy more goods and services. The current sort of consumer practice leads people to experience their needs in a way that makes them passive, dependent and competitive. The kind of consumption that turns us into creative, autonomous and socially engaged people would be radically different. However, this new way of consuming implies understanding human needs in a different way. We need to stop thinking about needs as a matter of what is lacking as if they were empty spaces that need to be filled up with goods and services, as if there were some sort of bi- or univocal correspondence between needs and products or services. If that were so, there would be a corresponding need for each product and each product would correspond to a need. However that would mean that needs are not experienced as needs of ones own being but rather as needs to buy and have goods and services. In addition, this presupposes that needs are recurrent, that is to say that we are satisfied every time the emptiness is filled up with certain products but that in a short time we become unsatisfied once more and so we are always demanding goods and services that satisfy us for a while and then return a bit later as empty and lacking. However, is this really the way we are as human beings? Are we merely things with a multitude of elements that are lacking, with so many empty spaces
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Luis Razeto M.

Santiago de Chile

to be filled and that empty out, that multiply and grow and that are always demanding more goods and services with which to fill themselves up? Or, is this rather what the capitalist market wants? Currently needs and consumption are growing enormously, both through the logic of the capitalist market as well as through the patron State, so that the economy is strongly pressured to grow and to multiply its offer of goods and services in order to satisfy both the collective demands that the State demands and also to respond to the individual demands that are expressed in the marketplace. From both perspectives and following the logic of both, we see a rising threshold in the quantity of products that are sought out and the level of access to which people aspire. The modern consumer appears to be insatiable and is tremendously demanding and exigent. The consumer of today considers that he or she has the right to have the State provide everything that is needed for entering the average social standard and, in addition, has the right to receive from the market everything that she or he wants and can pay for. And if the consumer cannot pay, it is considered a right to be given the required credit to buy. This real explosion of needs and demands projected toward the market and the State generates an enormous pressure on the productive system. It is a pressure to grow, that is to say, to accelerate the production of goods and services along with a corresponding expansion of needs. Still, we have to ask: Is this indefinite growth possible? Are there enough resources and capacity to sustain this permanent growth? If we were to continue along this back, will the consequences we see in the environment and in ecology be reversible? And will it be possible to deal with the very serious impacts of this exacerbated consumption on our collective living together, on governance, social ethics and cultural and spiritual values? Even more, are we not reaching the possible limits of this growth of consumerism, which is today becoming quite evidently a systemic crisis of modern civilization and that points to the urgent necessity of

Translation by Richard Renshaw

constructing a distinct civilization and economy? And then, going to the bottom line of this matter: Is it true that by having access to more products and services we are achieving a better satisfaction of human needs, that we are happier, more fulfilled as persons? The modern consumer is not a creative, autonomous and socially engaged consumer. Quite the contrary! His or her consumption is an imitation, is dependent and is competitive. It is a consumption that diminishes people and that definitely generates unhappiness and a lack of satisfaction, which appears to be an habitual and increasingly extensive state, one through which many people find themselves at the terminal phase of the crisis of modern civilization. We need to be liberated from this imitative, dependent, compulsive and competitive consumption so that we can move toward an autonomous, creative and socially engaged consumption that is required for a new and higher civilization. That change will not be brought about by the market or by the State. It is absurd to ask it of the market or to demand it of the State, who are the proponents of dependent and passive consumption. A change in the patterns of consuming is only possible if we do it ourselves by changing, each one of us, and generating from within ourselves a cultural change that expands into a new way of living with needs and consuming that corresponds to our personal fulfilment and our social development. The creative, autonomous and socially engaged consumer identifies his or her objectives by looking for fulfilment as an integral human person, the satisfaction of real needs, which are not those that the market and the State point to or those indicated by our immediate instincts. Rather they are those we discover through knowledge of our human nature, of what we are and of what we are oriented to be. And probably such a person is integrated into a community of equals and lives in a natural environment along with many other living beings and species with which he or she has basic responsibilities. When we experience needs in a really human way, it is on the level of consciousness. Even physical needs, such as those of feeding or housing ourselves, are subjective. Needs are not satisfied only through external things we possess or by actions to which we have access but rather through the action of the subject who uses the external thing or service.

The best satisfaction of needs, access to a higher quality of life and personal or group fulfilment do not imply more purchases and more consumption. Rather, a good consumer, a fulfilling consumption, carries with it a radical transformation of production. If production happens for the satisfaction of needs and human development, then a large part of what currently passes as production is no longer necessary or useful. This is particularly true of many goods and services satisfied by consumerism as well as dependent consumption. A new structure of production will be created to the extent that more people and groups adopt the criteria proposed by good consumption. In that sense, we can foresee a growth in agriculture and the production of basic goods and services along with education, culture, communications and local services. What would diminish would be mining, heavy industry, transportation, the petroleum industry and its subsidiaries, the chemical industry, financial services and the extensive production of junk. In this perspective, we can see how in the other economy there should be a large development in autonomy and associative work, self-production and the processes of local development. As a result of all that, the environment and quality of life would generally improve and generate a sort of development very different from the current and unsustainable economic growth. Along with new forms of consumption, we will see a process that empowers the productive capacities of people, families, communities and local groups. We will see, in fact, that good consumption leads individuals and communities out of dependence and toward autonomy. It is a process and in reality autonomy becomes possible once a certain level of personal development has been attained. What make acquisition of things and the recourse to external services so highly valued is insecurity and an absence of capacity, of relationships as well as the lack of conviction. But, when we reach a certain level of personal development we become more self-sufficient, less in need of goods and services from outside. If anyone has a good personal development, it is very likely that there will be less need to buy goods and services, not because the needs have been wiped out, but rather because they are satisfied more autonomously. Those subjects give less attention to these dimensions and are able to self-generate projects and q satisfaction on their own account.
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