The international political economy of (un)sustainable consumption and the global financial collapse

Abstract

Adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit and elaborated at the Johannesburg Conference a decade later, sustainable consumption occupies an increasingly prominent political position. Numerous governmental ministries and supranational organisations have produced sustainable consumption plans. However, actual programmatic initiatives have been limited to modest information and education campaigns as policy proposals are constrained by political contexts. Researchers have documented flows of materials and energy, but have disregarded the political and economic dynamics that animate throughput movements. Inattention to factors that propel the global metabolism, scholarship largely failed to anticipate the ongoing global financial collapse. Work on the household economics and macroeconomics of consumption is reviewed and an international political economy of (un)sustainable consumption is developed. Realignment of the global economic order will require renegotiation of the tacit agreements that the USA strikes with its trading partners and the design of more efficacious systems of production and consumption.

Keywords:

• international trade
• debt
• deficits
• American empire
• degrowth

Notes

1. Data on household savings for other OECD countries were not available in comparable form.

2. The following discussion draws heavily on the report by Guidolin and La Jeunesse (2007).

3. Some of this disparity may be attributable to variability in how governments report savings rates. Comparative analysis is also complicated because nations differ in the way pensions are funded and programmes are designed to provide insurance against illness and unemployment.

4. The OECD data set does not include Belgium, Mexico and Turkey.

5. The Obama administration has announced ambitious intentions to cut the budget deficit by 50% by 2013, but prevailing economic conditions and inevitable political resistance to any tax increases will make this target very difficult to achieve.

6. Speculation currently abounds on the extent to which China's economic stimulus programme, announced in November 2008 and amounting to nearly $600 billion, will divert surplus funds otherwise earmarked to purchase American treasury bonds.