Q: What is your new book, Simple Prosperity, about?
DW: It’s a systematic description of an emerging American lifestyle in which we finally break free of over-consumption – what we called “affluenza” in a previous book. It is economically and geologically impossible for current rates of consumption to continue; we’re simply churning through too many resources too fast. Our current way of life is also not a great match with the equipment we were issued, our heads and bodies. This mismatch of psychology, biology, and politics prevents us from taking care of ourselves, and the environment. Fortunately, we are already inventing a new way of life that is twice as satisfying yet uses only half the resources we currently use, such water, energy, minerals, and soil.
Q: What will take the place of consumption, since it’s become a centerpiece of our way of life?
DW: I can easily imagine a lifestyle that is culturally richer yet materially leaner and more efficient. Information is much more precise and customized, eliminating a lot of waste; people are more involved socially, more aware aesthetically, and better caretakers of living systems – including humans.
Q. Are there examples of culturally rich lifestyles like the one you describe in the book?
DW. The world is filled with them, but through the commercially prescribed American lens, their moderate ways of life are somehow seen as inferior because their cars are smaller and their digital devices are slower. Yet when I travel to countries like Costa Rica, for example, or Vietnam, the people appear to be every bit as happy even though their incomes are very small compared to fluffed-up U.S. incomes. In countries like Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and Italy, peoples’ homes are much smaller – often half the size – yet Europeans in general are far more politically active; they have wider social networks; fewer violent crimes; better health; much more time for leisure activities like being in nature. One of my favorite examples of a joyfully moderate lifestyle is 18th century Japan. Land was in short supply, forest resources were being depleted, and minerals such as gold and copper were suddenly scarce as well. Japan went from being resource-rich to resource-poor, but its culture adapted by developing a national ethic that centered on moderation and efficiency. An attachment to the material things in life was seen as demeaning, while the advancement of crafts and human knowledge were seen as lofty goals.
Japanese shoguns established strict policies for reforesting. Training and education in aesthetics and ritualistic arts fluorished, resulting in disciplines like fencing, martial arts, the tea ceremony, flower arranging, literature, art, and skillful use of the abacus. The three largest cities in Japan had 1500 bookstores among them, and most people had access to basic education, health care, and the necessities of life, further enriching a culture that required very few resources per “unit of happiness.”
Q. You write that happiness depends on how well basic human needs are met. So if needs like social connection, stimulating work, and creative play are not met, you’re saying we resort to consumption instead?
DW. Absolutely. Over-consumption is an addiction, and addictions arise when we’re off-balance and insecure, as our society now is. Because we feel empty, we want something to want, but consumption can’t really fill us up unless we’re consuming something of real value in moderate, sensible amounts. On the other hand, when we are healthy, active, and stimulated by life’s many adventures, we don’t need or want to buy as much.
I make a clear distinction between gratification and true happiness. Gratification is about infinite and often insatiable wants, while happiness is more grounded in meeting achievable, satisfying needs. For the past fifty or more years, the hidden mission of the marketers has been to deliver dissatisfaction guaranteed, because real happiness is not as profitable. As a result, we aren’t meeting needs for nutrition, efficient cars, the respect of our peers, sufficient leisure time, as well as the skills and habits that can use leisure time well.
Q. What exactly are these needs you refer to?
DW. Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef classifies them in nine categories: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity, and freedom. These are anthropological needs that remain constant throughout history and across all cultures. What changes is the way the needs are met, and frankly, in the U.S., we’re falling short. The average American requires 30 acres of prime land and water resources for his or her excessive lifestyle (about 30 football fields in area), and is still not meeting the basic needs for nutrition, sleep, clean water, non-allergenic housing (subsistence), for social contact and support (affection, understanding), meaning and purpose (understanding, identity).
We Americans like to think we are number one in all things, but the data doesn’t support our arrogance. We may be on top when it comes to spending (Gross Domestic Product, health care expenditures, color TVs owned, average size of house) but we also lead the world in debt per capita, children in poverty, percent of people in prison, obesity, and infant mortality. In fact, the U.S. has recently been ranked 42nd among countries in longevity – right below Guam and right above Albania. So where is all the spending really getting us? We need to be getting more value out of each dollar, each hour, each spoonful of food, each square foot of house, and each gallon of gas.
Q You refer to your book as a portfolio of assets that constitute “real wealth.” Could you explain what you mean by this?
DW: Real wealth is the kind of capital that can meet the basic needs without deficiencies and dysfunction. There’s no price tag for some of life’s most essential values, for example, an abundance of memorable moments completely free of stress. Real wealth is the calmness and contentedness that comes with feeling good, physically; the sense of well being that makes anything seem like an event. Real wealth is finding the rhythm of natural cycles and jumping in. It’s understanding how the world works and substituting information and brilliant design for wasted resources. The bonds between people – what some call “social capital” - are the kind of wealth that never runs out; in fact, the more we spend, the more we have! When we build rich, organic soil, it’s every bit as valuable, and more tangible, than money, because rich soil holds water better and has more minerals in it. When we invest in good soil, we don’t need as much irrigation water, or sacks full of groceries.
When we choose real wealth, we can have exciting hobbies and adventures; work that challenges and stimulates us; and spiritual connection with a universe that’s infinitely larger than a stock portfolio. Instead of more stuff in our already-stuffed lives, we can have fewer things but better things of higher quality; fewer visits to the doctor and more visits to museums and friends’ houses. Greater use of our hands and minds in creative activities like playing a flute, building a table, knitting a sweater, or harvesting the season’s first juicy, heirloom tomato. These are the things that matter, and we can choose them if we spend less time, money, and energy being such obedient, desperate consumers.
Q. You’re calling for a totally different way of life. What will this new lifestyle look like?
DW. The changes will be sweeping, comparable to the shift from an agrarian civilization to an industrial civilization. The new era will find a balance by shifting to a more local orientation. Because we will learn how to get more value from better designs and less stuff, the pace of the world will calm down. We’ll ask, What kind of energy do we need to protect the stability of our climate? What kind of buildings and neighborhoods should we design to ensure high rates of social connection? What kind of agriculture not only provides a good living for farmers and the food industry, but also delivers the sort of nutrition that humans actually need? The good news is that a joyfully moderate way of life can close the gap between the starving and the overfed, and it can let the living systems of the world regenerate. Simple prosperity is not about what we give up, but what we take back: clarity, sanity, purpose, meaning, hope, and momentum.
At the personal scale, simple prosperity is about happiness. Recent research demonstrates that despite higher and higher incomes, Americans are no happier now than we were in the 1950s. But when we make time to take care of ourselves, and the environment, again, we can create a bright new way of thinking, a brilliant new way of being that historians may one day call the Second Renaissance.