Life After the Economic Collapse: How Having Less Will Make Us Happier

By Sarah van Gelder and Doug Pibel, YES! Magazine. Posted December 11, 2008.

Here are some of the things we’ll need to do:

• Economic policies for the future must assure that everyone is included, and that we lift up those at the bottom. When we allow inequality to burgeon in our society, we create crime and violence and hate, which damage everyone’s ability to find happiness. We can no longer afford nine-figure paychecks for CEOs and double-digit returns on speculative investments. To paraphrase Gandhi, we have enough for everyone’s needs, but not for everyone’s greed. 
• The environmental overshoot game is up. The next economy must function within the present production of our environment. We can no longer afford to live off the bounty of the past, like the millions of years of fossil deposits that make up today’s diminishing oil reserves. Instead we must turn to solar energy, wind, and other renewables, and grow food and fiber by building the soil, not by dumping petroleum products on it. We can’t continue to use our atmosphere, oceans, aquifers, and soils as dumps. No amount of “Runs for the Cure” will solve the cancer problem if we continue to poison our food, water, and air. And the climate is reaching a dangerous tipping point. 
• We can no longer allow the money economy to grow like a cancer on our society, until it takes over all facets of life. The economy needs to serve people, communities, and the health of natural systems, not the other way around. Instead of relying on footloose unaccountable global corporations, we can turn to local and regional production to serve our needs and provide sustainable employment, including small and medium-sized businesses, co-ops, farmer’s markets, and so on.
• As we do that, we’ll get much clearer on real sources of happiness. Research tells us that the sources of the good life are in loving relationships, mutual respect, meaningful work, and gratitude, and as we discover the power of these qualities, the lure of advertising and materialism will no longer fool us. Overconsumption will take its place alongside other passing fads.

As we begin to relearn the skills and rebuild the relationships we lost in the pursuit of money and things, we will begin to find a happiness that we are in charge of; one that is not dependent on the fluctuations of the stock market or the amount of stuff we own.

Painful as it may be in the short term, we can emerge from this crisis healthier and wealthier, with the sort of wealth that really matters: strong communities and relationships with loved ones, healthy ecosystems, and the skills to make a living and enjoy life.

Sarah van Gelder & Doug Pibel wrote this article as part of Sustainable Happiness, the Winter 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Sarah is executive editor and Doug is managing editor of YES! Magazine.

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Sarah van Gelder is Executive Editor of YES! Magazine where you can read her blog.

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