As supply chain woes stymie America’s hunger to shop, a leading free market think tank writes that living “more like Europeans” would be better for the economy, the planet, and mental health.
“Supply chain shortages are constraining U.S. consumers’ endless appetite for buying whatever they want whenever they want,” writes Allison Schrager, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, in a recent op-ed for Bloomberg. And “it’s about time,” she adds, as “the U.S. economy could be healthier if it were less reliant on consumption.”
Household consumption currently generates roughly 67% of the United States’ GDP, compared to Germany, where 50% of GDP owes to the buying habits of regular people.
Per capita consumption in America grew 65% between 1990 and 2015, compared to 35% in Europe, and it shows in the numbers: the size of the average home jumped 300 square feet between 1980 and 2015, even as the size of the average family shrank.
Two other data points offered by Schrager: in 1980, 15% of U.S. households did not own a television, but by 2015, 40% had three or more, “including 30% of households earning less than US$40,000 a year!” And “clothing purchases have increased five-fold since 1980 and the average garment will only be worn seven times before it’s disposed of.”
Schrager says the U.S. has “become a nation of shopaholics” as the country got richer while consumer goods became cheaper and more accessible, courtesy of cheap labour (mostly from China and Mexico, she writes.) Access to the Internet helps, too, making it easier to find more goods at low prices without ever leaving home.
“But there are reasons to believe the age of over-abundance is over,” she writes. While the pandemic has helped to show the cracks in this “hyper-efficient global market”—most notably the fragility of supply chains—a federal move to boost resilience by encouraging domestic production has been in the works for a while.
In the long run, Schrager adds, “made in America” will mean less trade, which “tends to mean less variety of goods at higher prices.” While “we will certainly not be deprived,” she says, “we will trim back our excesses, perhaps be more thoughtful about what we buy and purchase fewer, higher-quality goods.”
Trimming back the excess will be good for the economy: “long-term, sustainable growth doesn’t come from going deep into debt to buy stuff we don’t really need. It comes from technology and innovation, where we come up with new products and better ways of doing things.” And “if we are truly serious about protecting the planet, being a good global citizen will take more than driving an electric car or installing solar panels. It means consuming less so that we throw less away.”
Buying less might also make for happier people. Describing a culture “where buying stuff feeds the empty part of our souls,” Schrager hazards that it might be worth a try to take a long bike ride rather than fill up that Amazon cart. Even if that bike ride doesn’t change much on its own, at least it’s a more eco-friendly way “to shut out the darkness.”
Canadian commentators are echoing Schrager’s message. In a recent CBC interview, X (formerly Ryerson) University sustainable design professor Lloyd Alter said that while government policies geared to reduce climate emissions are essential, so too are personal efforts to cut carbon through careful consumer choices.
“You can buy a low-carbon diet, you can buy a low-carbon house, and you can buy low-carbon transportation—and it’s absolutely, fundamentally, a matter of the choices that we make,” Alter said [speaking at least to the segments of the population that can afford those choices—Ed.]. “Just make everything last longer and buy less,” he advised.
