Affluence, happiness and development
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Hasan Mahmud
THE general definition of affluence is a condition where all the material wants of the people are met. Human beings have various material wants for its survival and nature is the ultimate source of the means to meet those wants. However, all concerned agree that the way of life should be sustainable if the human race is to perpetuate its existence. The next question comes -- "How to approach the nature for extracting necessary resources?" The fundamental concern is to strike a balance between material wants and the resources that are disproportionately distributed over the world. Then two strategies are readily at hand-either to limit wants leaving plenty of resources reserved, or to extract more and more resources keeping wants unfettered. Hence emerge two groups of people leading opposition lifestyles with ensuing consequences on Nature as well as the human race itself.
One group assumes a very simple (which sounds radical to modern mind) strategy that material wants are limited and therefore natural resources to meet those wants are in plenty. Sounds crazy? Ok, let's look at the lifestyle of the original affluent people. Who are these lucky people having all their material wants met and still have a reserve of recourses? It must be some people in the wealthiest West. But what is anthropologist Sahlin's tale? The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa and the Aborigines in the arid Australian bushes are the original affluent societies! They don't have a single possession to fight against poverty and are constantly on the move in search of only foods, let alone other wants! Leaving aside our amazement for a moment, let's examine their material conditions with our knowledge of affluence.
By the notion affluence we understand a condition where all of our material wants to live a standard life are met. For example, we have basic wants of food, shelter, clothing, sound health and leisure to reproduce our physical labour. The opposite of this is poverty where wants remain unsatisfied. We all work hard to meet these wants, and as soon as these are met, we feel satiated. Having these material wants fulfilled, we enjoy the leisure through various ways of entertainment viz music, playing, partying or just sleeping -- all that make us happy. How can we argue that the hunters-gatherers are able to meet all of their material needs and are satisfied and enjoy life?
Stalking and hunting animals is a necessary and indispensable way to fight hunger, which is the most immediate need of hunters. After the food is procured, no matter how much it is, hunters consume all themselves or, in case there is a surplus, share it within their camps. Surplus -- an indicator of richness -- is a burden rather than a benefit to the hunters. They consistently roam about not because of scarcity of food; instead they follow the natural crop-cycle of their area, because they know which food item is available in a certain place in a given season. They follow specific trails because they know for sure that such trail would lead to secure food and shelter.
Therefore, storage of food, tools or other properties is perceived as transportation burden for their movement. Since they limit their want to the crudest amount necessary for material survival, they spend less time working compared to primitive peasants and even workers in today's modern market economies.
By the commonly used standard of calorie-intake, they are quite well-off. They take more than what is considered as required with regard to their body weight, daily activities and age-sex composition. How many hours have to work for collecting the required amount of foods? To the surprise of our modern mind once again, it is only about five to six hours daily! Then what do they do during the rest of the time? The simple answer is -- "They rest and enjoy leisure". How do these "poorest of the poor" people become so happy, even living in the grave scarcity of natural resources, fighting against the toughest natural disasters with literally no technology?
Before going to the answers of the question, let's revisit our common wisdom of the modern society that claims to be more advanced, more affluent compared to those primitive people allegedly viewed as struggling with Nature for bare subsistence in abyss of hardcore poverty.
The modern mind, more precisely the 'economic man', assumes that our material wants are unlimited and natural resources are scarce. Therefore, we have to strive hard to extract as many resources from the nature as we can. This leads to technological innovations and with improving technology, man's capacity to extract necessary resources from the nature also increases. Thus economic yield accrues to an enormous stack that we see today in the most advanced societies in the West. But affluence is still a far cry, and consequently they continue improving their technology for exploiting Nature more and more. The wealth of the advanced societies is a thousand times greater than that of the hunter-gatherers. But what keeps them from being affluent and happy?
The key to affluence is the strategy of balancing between the material wants and resources that meet those wants. Human beings have total control over their wants, but virtually no control over the stock of natural resources which is a fixed amount, and at one point, saturates by continual exploitation. If we limit our wants, we would need to work far less than what we must do now. Hence we would be able to enjoy leisure, be satisfied and happy. Very simple. But if we do not limit wants and keep on extracting more and more, we must fall prey to an endless cycle where fulfilment of one wants brings forth various others to meet.
Neo-liberalism -- the 'religion of developmentalism' -- tells us that we have unlimited wants to meet with scarce resources. Therefore, we have to manage resources efficiently to get optimal benefit. And our persistently improving knowledge and technology helps us in this regard. Hence we see neo-liberal economic policy engrossed in maximisation of benefits from the natural resources through deploying modern technology and efficient management. But we see no improvement in the lot of the poor people in the developing countries for whom the development project is apparently aimed. Instead, we see an unprecedented accretion of wealth in the West. Still the wants remain unsatisfied. This is absolutely because of our imprudent strategy of not limiting our wants. Therefore, the more we feel unsatisfied, the more we go all-out to extract resources with increasingly forceful technology, thus precipitating the impending demise of the entire ecosystem of the earth expressed in global warming, fierce struggle over control of the natural resources, vastly widening income gap between groups of people, etc.
The final question is whether we want to be affluent. Certainly we all do want it. Then, the only way is to limit our material wants. But what will happen to development, advancement of knowledge and technology and material comfort so far achieved? If none of the knowledge, technology or comfort makes us affluent, then what is their use? "Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise". Let's be the Stupid Primitive and say Sayonara to Development. Cheers!!!
The writer is a Mon-Busho Scholar in the Global Studies Programme, Sophia University, Japan and may be reached at 'mahmud735@gmail.com'
THE general definition of affluence is a condition where all the material wants of the people are met. Human beings have various material wants for its survival and nature is the ultimate source of the means to meet those wants. However, all concerned agree that the way of life should be sustainable if the human race is to perpetuate its existence. The next question comes -- "How to approach the nature for extracting necessary resources?" The fundamental concern is to strike a balance between material wants and the resources that are disproportionately distributed over the world. Then two strategies are readily at hand-either to limit wants leaving plenty of resources reserved, or to extract more and more resources keeping wants unfettered. Hence emerge two groups of people leading opposition lifestyles with ensuing consequences on Nature as well as the human race itself.
One group assumes a very simple (which sounds radical to modern mind) strategy that material wants are limited and therefore natural resources to meet those wants are in plenty. Sounds crazy? Ok, let's look at the lifestyle of the original affluent people. Who are these lucky people having all their material wants met and still have a reserve of recourses? It must be some people in the wealthiest West. But what is anthropologist Sahlin's tale? The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa and the Aborigines in the arid Australian bushes are the original affluent societies! They don't have a single possession to fight against poverty and are constantly on the move in search of only foods, let alone other wants! Leaving aside our amazement for a moment, let's examine their material conditions with our knowledge of affluence.
By the notion affluence we understand a condition where all of our material wants to live a standard life are met. For example, we have basic wants of food, shelter, clothing, sound health and leisure to reproduce our physical labour. The opposite of this is poverty where wants remain unsatisfied. We all work hard to meet these wants, and as soon as these are met, we feel satiated. Having these material wants fulfilled, we enjoy the leisure through various ways of entertainment viz music, playing, partying or just sleeping -- all that make us happy. How can we argue that the hunters-gatherers are able to meet all of their material needs and are satisfied and enjoy life?
Stalking and hunting animals is a necessary and indispensable way to fight hunger, which is the most immediate need of hunters. After the food is procured, no matter how much it is, hunters consume all themselves or, in case there is a surplus, share it within their camps. Surplus -- an indicator of richness -- is a burden rather than a benefit to the hunters. They consistently roam about not because of scarcity of food; instead they follow the natural crop-cycle of their area, because they know which food item is available in a certain place in a given season. They follow specific trails because they know for sure that such trail would lead to secure food and shelter.
Therefore, storage of food, tools or other properties is perceived as transportation burden for their movement. Since they limit their want to the crudest amount necessary for material survival, they spend less time working compared to primitive peasants and even workers in today's modern market economies.
By the commonly used standard of calorie-intake, they are quite well-off. They take more than what is considered as required with regard to their body weight, daily activities and age-sex composition. How many hours have to work for collecting the required amount of foods? To the surprise of our modern mind once again, it is only about five to six hours daily! Then what do they do during the rest of the time? The simple answer is -- "They rest and enjoy leisure". How do these "poorest of the poor" people become so happy, even living in the grave scarcity of natural resources, fighting against the toughest natural disasters with literally no technology?
Before going to the answers of the question, let's revisit our common wisdom of the modern society that claims to be more advanced, more affluent compared to those primitive people allegedly viewed as struggling with Nature for bare subsistence in abyss of hardcore poverty.
The modern mind, more precisely the 'economic man', assumes that our material wants are unlimited and natural resources are scarce. Therefore, we have to strive hard to extract as many resources from the nature as we can. This leads to technological innovations and with improving technology, man's capacity to extract necessary resources from the nature also increases. Thus economic yield accrues to an enormous stack that we see today in the most advanced societies in the West. But affluence is still a far cry, and consequently they continue improving their technology for exploiting Nature more and more. The wealth of the advanced societies is a thousand times greater than that of the hunter-gatherers. But what keeps them from being affluent and happy?
The key to affluence is the strategy of balancing between the material wants and resources that meet those wants. Human beings have total control over their wants, but virtually no control over the stock of natural resources which is a fixed amount, and at one point, saturates by continual exploitation. If we limit our wants, we would need to work far less than what we must do now. Hence we would be able to enjoy leisure, be satisfied and happy. Very simple. But if we do not limit wants and keep on extracting more and more, we must fall prey to an endless cycle where fulfilment of one wants brings forth various others to meet.
Neo-liberalism -- the 'religion of developmentalism' -- tells us that we have unlimited wants to meet with scarce resources. Therefore, we have to manage resources efficiently to get optimal benefit. And our persistently improving knowledge and technology helps us in this regard. Hence we see neo-liberal economic policy engrossed in maximisation of benefits from the natural resources through deploying modern technology and efficient management. But we see no improvement in the lot of the poor people in the developing countries for whom the development project is apparently aimed. Instead, we see an unprecedented accretion of wealth in the West. Still the wants remain unsatisfied. This is absolutely because of our imprudent strategy of not limiting our wants. Therefore, the more we feel unsatisfied, the more we go all-out to extract resources with increasingly forceful technology, thus precipitating the impending demise of the entire ecosystem of the earth expressed in global warming, fierce struggle over control of the natural resources, vastly widening income gap between groups of people, etc.
The final question is whether we want to be affluent. Certainly we all do want it. Then, the only way is to limit our material wants. But what will happen to development, advancement of knowledge and technology and material comfort so far achieved? If none of the knowledge, technology or comfort makes us affluent, then what is their use? "Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise". Let's be the Stupid Primitive and say Sayonara to Development. Cheers!!!
The writer is a Mon-Busho Scholar in the Global Studies Programme, Sophia University, Japan and may be reached at 'mahmud735@gmail.com'