Airs – Ian Lance Taylor

The Golden Age

My father’s father bought a new car every year. He and my grandmother had two cars. Every year he traded in the older one and bought a new one. There were two car dealerships in town, and he alternated each year.

One measure of the wealth of a society is what it can afford to discard. By that measure we are not as wealthy as we used to be; very few people buy a new car every year these days. Or, perhaps, my grandfather’s society was not as wealthy as it thought it was: perhaps their trash was incurring a hidden cost, a cost which we are paying today.

Our society has a common notion of progress. We think that things are getting better. Periodically some poll comes out saying that people think their children won’t be as well off as they are, and that generally causes some handwringing and comments that that has never happened in the U.S.

In some ways, we clearly are better off today–medicine today is vastly better than it has ever been. Admittedly our unhealthy diet may be causing average lifespan to decrease, but that is a different problem. However, if you measure success by material consumption–which seems like a natural measure in a capitalist society–then I’m not sure that we are better off than we used to be. We face limits, we recycle, we conserve. These are not issues that our country faced fifty years ago. That we face them now, is that maturity? Or poverty?

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Ian Lance Taylor

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3 responses to “The Golden Age”

  1. bartv Avatar
    bartv

    I would not define success as material consumption per se. That would be onesided. A better measure for success to me seems benefits gained per unit material consumed.

    Regarding the story of your grandfather : keep in mind that a car then is not the same as a car now. It probably didn’t have airconditioning, gps, airbags, electric windows, mp3 sound system, a reliable low-maintenance engine and much more. In fact, featurewise your grandfathers car might even have a hard time competing with the Tata Motors car which is on sale for 2500$. At that price most people are able to change cars twice a year if they felt like it. But they would certainly trade all that in for a more comfortable car every 3 years…

  2. rwild Avatar
    rwild

    > One measure of the wealth of a society is what it can afford to discard. By that
    > measure we are not as wealthy as we used to be

    Well that is a measure that explicitly favors over-exploiting resources, thus ignores costs put off to the future. Do you consider yourself wealthier if your benefit comes at the cost of depriving your offspring (or yourself at some later point) from similar chances?

    > Our society has a common notion of progress.

    Is that really true? Would you consider it progress if you could have roughly the same amount of benefits using less resource consumption? In other words, is there a chance that you could consider recycling and conservation as progress, at least in some cases?

    I think I do; but I live in a society that may differ with yours on that point, as much as they otherwise have in common (or, really are the same society).

  3. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    bartv: Capitalism doesn’t have any limits. You could use a ratio to measure success, but I don’t see why that is any more appropriate. You’re right that measuring benefits, somehow, would be better. And you’re right about the cars of yesteryear in terms of safety and features, of course.

    rwild: I think capitalism inherently favors over-exploiting resources. Under exploiting them is leaving money on the table. The costs borne by future generations are externalities–the only way to measure them in a pure capitalist society is through some sort of regulatory regime. This is to some extent a caricature, but I think it is the logical consequence of a fairly popular belief system.

    I agree that recycling and conservation can be regarded as progress. When I said a common system of progress, I really just meant the notion that things get better over time. Not all societies believe that.

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