A REINTERPRETATION OF SUSTAINABILITY UNDER THE SIGN OF CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION

Ion Pohoata, Vladimir Mihai Crupenschi, Delia Elena Diaconasu

Abstract


Sustainability is usually constructed in terms of environmental preservation or of replicating a certain output level. To challenge the status-quo, we argue that it is a matter of preserving a certain version of social order, which can only be replicated by a trickle-down pattern of conspicuous consumption enforced by the efficiency gains and productivity achievements of the given socio-economic system. We also present a different view on the relation between sustainability and time by conceiving longevity as a measure of the physical changes that the system undergoes rather than the classical acceptation of a period determined by two temporal coordinates. This allows us to propose a classification of time, distinguishing between cyclical and chronological time based on the physical changes required to create the sense of progression, in each of the two cases. We relate our theoretical propositions to anthropological, sociological and historical facts, culminating in a short exposition of the way in which sustainability has been transformed from a matter of survival to one of ever increasing consumption and expanding output.

Keywords


sustainability; conspicuous consumption; social symbolism; social order; longevity

References


Asheim, G.B. (1994) Sustainability, Ethical Foundations and Economic Properties, Policy, Research working paper, no. WPS 1302.

Boulding, K.E. (1973) The Shadow of The Stationary State, Daedalus, 102(4), pp. 89–101.

Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Brown, B.J., Hanson, M.E., Liverman, D.M., Merideth, R.W. (1987) Global sustainability: Toward definition, Environmental Management, 11(6), pp. 713–719.

Coe, M.D. (1999) The Maya, Sixth Edition, Thames and Hudson Publishing House, London.

Costanza, R., Patten, B.C. (1995) Defining and predicting sustainability. Ecological Economics, 15(3), 193–196.

Costanza, R., Wainger, L., Folke, C., Maler, K.G. (1993) Modeling complex ecological economic systems: toward an evolutionary, dynamic understanding of people and nature, Bioscience, 43(8), pp. 545–555.

Daly, H.E. (1991) A Catechism of Growth Fallacies, in: Steady State Economics. Island Press, Washington, pp. 98–129.

Daly, H.E. (1974) The Economics of the Steady State, The American Economic Review, 64 (2), pp. 15–21.

Dietrich, O., Heun, M., Notroff, J., Schmidt, K., Zarnkow, M. (2012) The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey, Antiquity, no. 86, pp. 674–695.

Folke, C. (2006) Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses, Global Environmental Change, 16(3), pp. 253–267.

Folke, C., Holling, C.S., Perrings, C. (1996) Biological Diversity, Ecosystems, and the Human Scale, Ecological Applications, 6(4), pp. 1018–1024.

Galbraith, J.K. (1998) The Affluent Society, Mariner Books, New York.

Gatto, M. (1995) Sustainability: Is it a Well Defined Concept?, Ecological Applications, 5(4), pp. 1181–1183.

Geertz, C. (1977) The Interpretation Of Cultures, Basic Books, New York.

Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1975) Energy and Economic Myths, Southern Economic Journal, 41(3), pp. 347–381.

Goodland, R. (1995) The Concept of Environmental Sustainability, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 26, pp. 1–24.

Harari, Y.N. (2017) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Polirom Publishing House, Iași.

Hayden, B. (2009a) Funerals As Feasts: Why Are They So Important?, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 19(1), pp. 29–52.

Hayden, B. (2009b) The Proof Is in the Pudding: Feasting and the Origins of Domestication, Current Anthropology, 50(4), pp. 597–601.

Hayden, B. (2003) Were luxury foods the first domesticates? Ethnoarchaeological perspectives from Southeast Asia, World Archaeology, 34(3), pp. 458–469.

Hayden, B. (1990) Nimrods, piscators, pluckers, and planters: The emergence of food production, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 9(1), pp. 31–69.

Hayden, B., Villeneuve, S. (2011) A Century of Feasting Studies. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, pp. 433–449.

Hayek, F.A. (1990) The Fatal Conceit The Errors of Socialism, Routledge, London.

Holling, C.S. (1996) Engineering Resilience versus Ecological Resilience. Engineering Within Ecological Constraints, pp. 31–44.

Holling, C.S. (1973) Resilience and Ecological Systems, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4, pp. 1–23.

Johnston, P., Everard, M., Santillo, D., Robèrt, K.-H. (2007) Reclaiming the definition of sustainability. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 14(1), pp. 60–66.

Keynes, J.M. (1965) The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Harcourt, Brace & World Press, New York.

Khaldun, I. (2015) The Muqaddimah : An Introduction to History, Princeton University Press, New Jersey.

Lacewing, M. (2010) Philosophy for A2: Unit 4: Philosophical Problems, Routledge, New York.

Landes, D.S. (2013) The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, Polirom Press, Iași.

Lotka, A.J. (1922a) Contribution to the Energetics of Evolution, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 8(6), pp. 147–151.

Lotka, A.J. (1922b) Natural Selection as a Physical Principle, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 8(6), pp. 151–154.

Mebratu, D. (1998) Sustainability and sustainable development: Historical and conceptual review, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 18(6), pp. 493–520.

Morelli, J. (2011) Environmental Sustainability: A Definition for Environmental Professionals, Journal of Environmental Sustainability, 1(1), pp. 1–10.

Nietzsche, F. (2002) Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Nietzsche, F. (1918) The Antichrist, Alfred A. Knopf Publishing House, New York.

Owens, S. (2003) Is there a meaningful definition of sustainability?, Plant Genetic Resources, 1(1), pp. 5–9.

Robinson, J. (2004) Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development, Ecolo. Economics, 48(4), pp. 369–384.

Schopenhauer, A. (2012) The World as Will and Representation, Humanitas Press, Bucharest.

Schumpeter, J.A. (1994) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Routledge, London.

Shearman, R. (1990) The meaning and ethics of sustainability, Environmental Management, 14(1), pp. 1–8.

Smith, A. (1761) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Second Edition, A. Millar Press, London.

Trigg, A.B. (2001) Veblen, Bourdieu, and Conspicuous Consumption, Journal of Economic Issues, 35(1), pp. 99–115.

van Pelt, M.J.F., Kuyvenhoven, A., Nijkamp, P. (1995) Environmental sustainability: issues of definition and measurement, International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 5(2-3), pp. 204–223.

Veblen, T. (2009) The Theory of the Leisure Class, Publica Press, Bucharest.

Voinov, A., Farley, J. (2007) Reconciling sustainability, systems theory and discounting, Ecological Economics, 63(1), pp. 104–113.

White, M.A. (2013) Sustainability: I know it when I see it, Ecological Economics, 86, pp. 213–217.

Whitehead, A.N. (2015) The Concept of Nature: Tarner Lectures, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Wicks, R. (2017) Arthur Schopenhauer, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Wolf, E.R. (1999) Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis, University of California Press, Berkley.

Yates, J.J. (2012) Abundance on trial: The cultural significance of “Sustainabilityâ€, The Hedgehog Review, 14(2), pp. 8–25.

Yengoyan, A.A. (2001) Foreword: Culture and Power in the Writings of Eric R. Wolf, in: Pathways of Power Building an Anthropology of the Modern World, University of California Press, Berkley, pp. 7â€17.

*** (1987) World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford.


Full Text: PDF

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.