Minimizing consumption

["Barry Brooks" <durable@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear PKT,

I wonder what you PKT subscribers think about the use of durability to
conserve.

If an item lasted twice as long we would only need to produce half as many
to supply demand. As we seek economic growth to consume even more we only
speed the coming of exhaustion of non-renewable resources. As I understand
it, the need to make jobs requires a consumer society.  The increase in
consumption is all that has kept machines from causing unemployment.  But,
the growth goal of our economy is at odds with conservation, which requires
using less.

Needless to say, business types don't like the idea of increasing durability
to conserve.  Engineers like it a lot, but they don't enter into policy
debates.  Economists know about to possibility of using increased durability
to conserve, but they never mention it.

To avoid resouce and pollution problems we need to build an economy that
tries to minimize consumption, the opposite of the consumer economy.

For more on durability as a means of conservation see
http://home.earthlink.net/~durable

Sincerely,
Barry Brooks