Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth

This book has 3 principal ideas: 1) conventional economics no longer works, because 2) it cannot address the ecological crisis that is upon us, so 3) we need to embrace "plenitude" economics, a radical departure from business as usual. The book is both academic, hence full of dry prose and proofs, and an idealistic call to action. As written during the depths of the great recession that began in 2008, it is already somewhat dated in that it did not foresee the rise of populist nationalism.Schor does a good job of critiquing the current state of economic science. The fundamental flaw, as she sees it, is that economics regards natural resources - oil, minerals, the environment, ecological balance - as an external factor, a given that has neither cost nor inherent value. As such, if resources become exhausted, entrepreneurs can always move on or develop some new technology to overcome whatever problem or bottleneck has arisen. This limits policy to tweaking at the margins via interest rates, tax incentives, and regulation, all of which fail to address the basic problem of environmental degradation and the spoliation of natural resources. While academic economists have attempted to incorporate "real costs" by adding "externalities" to their equations, this will in her view affect only the degree. What is needed, she says, is a change on kind, i.e. the basic structure of how economies operate. Even government action is viewed by many as interfering with the otherwise optimal operation of the abstraction that is the "market". Moreover, the measures are crude: more income is assumed always "better", regardless of individual satisfaction and other measures of well being.So far, so good, even if climate deniers and small government purists would deny that there is any problem with this business as usual. Where the problems arise, in my opinion, are in the remedies that she proposes, viz "plenitude". While I find many of its elements a bit vague or unrealistic, it is nonetheless a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate that I think eminently worthy of dissemination.According to Schor, there are 4 elements to plenitude. First, we (Americans mostly) should work less, demanding more time for ourselves. This would not only free up employment to share with others, but allow us to better allocate our time for both pleasure and other enterprises. Second, rather than buying everything new from some massive, specialized corporation (in particular fashionable items that become obsolete quickly and cannot be repaired), we should learn to do more things for ourselves; this would range from cooking and gardening to participating as adders of value in manufacturing networks, in effect contributing to the customization of the output of local economic networks. A correlate of this is that large corporations would be less all encompassing, allowing new, smaller actors to emerge in these economic networks. Third, we should embrace "true materialism", whereby we would be aware of the environmental impact of our activities. Not only should manufacturers use industrial design to frontload these concerns into the DNA of their products, but consumers should focus their life styles to enhance ecological balance. Finally, we should invest more in communities and shared resources rather than private satisfactions, e.g. replace massive private yachts with livable town square and parks. There are, of course, many more details to her thesis, which I would recommend to all interested readers.Now, don't get me wrong, I like these ideas and in a sane world, we should agree to implement them. But in this era of poulist nationalism and radical libertarianism, I don't think they are realistic. We can't even agree on the necessity of combating climate change, let alone its very existence. That being said, it is evident that capitalism cannot go on as it has indefinitely and will be forced to radically adapt in this century.This is not a fun book to read. It is written in an academic tone and, while I respected its ideas, a lot of it is dull. I recommend this book with these caveats.

This book introduced me to the conversation that is going on about the way we are using the planet resources, and how this is making a impact on our planet.Also, it suggests and shows that there are other ways to do it. Other ways of living that gives back to the Earth and helps us feel better along the way.The book is full of references and examples, so I'm positive that anyone who is interested in learning about other ways of wealth will find this book interesting.I found the language difficult at times, but English is not my native language. With a little bit of effort I feel I was able to understand a good portion of the ideas exposed in this book.Enjoy 🙏🏽

Amidst the landslide of greening and sustainability books constantly being marketed and touted (get the irony?), two jumped out at me. Reading them as a pair made it clear that Plenitude, by economist Juliet B. Schor, and The Cheapskate Next Door by journalist Jeff Yeager are describing the same contemporary trends using very different language. People can earn fewer dollars without their quality of life being diminished, IF they also experience an increase in free time. This free time can be invested in social capital, healthy lifestyle, creative self-provisioning, and ingenious thrift, aided by everything from social networking to asking grandma to teach canning techniques. Schor's book is analytic; Yeager's is a how-to-do-it manual.Reading over and over again how we aren't "over" this Great Recession because none of us are buying enough, hence the jobs producing all of it are lagging, has often made me wonder how that squares with the carrying load of the planet. The fact that personal savings have actually increased seems like good news, not bad. The fact that demand for fossil fuels has decreased - isn't that the goal here? Schor, an economist with an emphasis on ecological concerns and the author of two other terrific books, The Overworked American and The Overspent American, reviews the basic theoretical underpinnings of modern economics and concludes that they don't square. As developing world incomes rise, driving massive additional consumption, the world's growth limits will be tested. We can't just keep on extracting finite resources on the cheap and expect it will all end well. Likewise, she predicts there will never again be enough conventional jobs for all who seek work. We're becoming too efficient and productive for that, through ever improving and disseminating technology.Schor's solution,, that we cut back on workers' hours, thereby employing more people over all, is not original. This has been tried in many places and times, often to avoid laying workers off. Kelloggs of Battle Creek, Michigan, famously offered a six-hour day for decades which workers loved, along with all the others lucky enough to live there. Schor's original synthesis is to combine this with the new realities of environmental as well as social stress, to definite a life of Plentitude less dependent on material excess. By editing out the waste of American life, and utilizing the dividend of extra time, whole new micro-economies are evolving, allowing people to live healthier, happier lives that - paradoxically - are lower income. She effectively decouples standard of living from quality of life, as happiness studies have been confirming is correct, once people move past subsistence.She cites examples of lowering overhead by resource sharing, plugging Freecycle, CraigsList, carsharing, Open Source internet software - much of which I have written about over the years. Local agriculture, from gardens to micro-farms, is a favorite example, written about glowingly throughout the book. She describes people once again learning to cook, preserve, sew, and build their own downsized homes. It all sounds very idyllic; I want to believe her, I really do. Except that what she is talking about as a trend looks more like an interesting trickle of outliers (Hi, Anna! How's the honey going?). OK, I grow a few tomatoes. That doesn't make me Ma Ingalls. But perhaps a generation from now her manifesto will prove true. If so, we will all be the better for it.The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below Their Means is a charming hybrid of two terrific classics, The Millionaire Next Door and The Tightwad Gazette. Those books were all about resource conservation from a financial standpoint - why leave good money on the table? TheMND describes a value-oriented affluent population who eschews conspicuous consumption. TTG was more about people scrapping together a nest egg, even on a tiny salary. The secret of both is living beneath one's means. However, they were written before the age of environmental awareness. All their strategies translate quite well to a new eco-age. The Cheapskate took himself on a national book tour - by bike, CouchSurfing his way across the country.His book is a lot of fun. My main takeaway is that if you create good habits, these too are hard to break. One becomes a reflexively resource-conscious consumer [a description I prefer to "cheapskate"]. Case in point. Two friends and I were at the beach in search of 1% hydrocortisone cream for my friend, suffering from a bee sting. We grabbed the first brand we saw. But I couldn't resist going back to look at the shelf, where I found a generic tube for half the price. Then I saw a generic tube half the SIZE. It is generally more economical, both financially and ecologically, to buy a larger quantity. But! Only if you will finish it all. Having just thrown out boxes of unused, expired OTC meds from my old house, I knew the smaller generic tube was a good choice. Time expended: 1 minute. Amount saved: ~ $6.00. Since I earn less than $6.00 a minute, it was a good use of my time. However, you can't send a child to college or pay for health care -America's two huge and ever escalating price tags - on small salaries supplemented by self-provisioning and judicious cheapskating.If you're following these authors' advice, be sure to check these books out from your local library soon!

The book is about a way of life that is attuned to the monumental shifts now taking place in the global economy, and the blindingly obvious reality that we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet with finite resources.There is overwhelming evidence from all around the world that more money and more possessions doesn't make you happy past a certain point where you have everything you need for a comfortable life. In our rush to earn and spend more, we've created a throw-away society that is completely unsustainable. We are working longer hours and are becoming increasingly stressed; we are buying more and more stuff that quickly becomes trash; and we are poisoning our planet to the point where we are quite literally on the brink of ecological collapse. For the most part we've also lost our connection to the earth, to our food supply, and to each other.A common misconception is that this shift will entail a move 'backwards' to a way of life from centuries ago. Nothing could be further from the truth, and modern technology will play an absolutely central role in making this way of life a reality. Small-scale customised production, made possible by cutting edge tech like 3D printing, is far more efficient than industrial mass production of goods followed by transportation over vast distances. And we all know first hand that small-scale local agriculture produces far better quality food than industrial monoculture, which is only made possible by using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that pollute our atmosphere and poison our land and waterways (not to mention then being wrapped in plastic and transported vast distances).'True Wealth' highlights that there is another way - a way of life where we slow down, we make things that last and mend things that break, and we reconnect with our local communities. As well as being economically savvy/ fiscally intelligent, this way of life is thriving because it puts us back on the right path and makes us wealthy in ways that have little to do with money and consumption.

Interesting book