So I just came back from lunch at a little cafe near my house here in Buenos Aires, and an op-ed I read in La Nacion just won't get out of my head. In all earnestness, the columnist said that the time for rejecting "excessive consumerism" is over. Now we're in crisis. We can't afford to be "ascetic" now and "reject that shiny new car".

No. We have a moral obligation to buy.

Because THAT, producing stuff we might not necessarily need but can buy, is what gets people employed. And he goes on to conclude that, save "all of us getting a plot of land and returning to subsistence agriculture", which would imply "giving up all technical advance, modern medicine, etc", the production-consumption cycle is the only way.

Wow.

What ever happened to the idea of less work, more live/art/love/leisure? Why do we need to be organized in a way that only the 10-hour-a-day production of useless goods will provide us with enough share of the world's resources to live a dignified life? What if we all took a step backwards, looked at the big picture, and started to re-organize the way we do things?

If it won't happen in THIS crisis, with the impending doom of global havoc wrought by climate change and a global slowdown of "stuff-making" - when WILL it happen?

Sometimes I despair.