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While environmental unsustainability might take a while to affect lifestyles in North America, economic unsustainability won't be so slow. In fact, it's affecting all of us right now (whether we want to acknowledge that fact or not).
As I write this, the House of Representatives is voting to cut Head Start, and Community Service Block Grants, and other programs which demonstrably help the country's socio-economically disadvantaged to (1) become employable, (2) join the consuming class, (3) pay taxes, (4) stay out of prison, and (5) consume less in social services over a lifetime. The "stay out of prison" one is especially important, even limiting consideration to the direct costs of incarceration. Somehow, I have trouble reconciling the "deficit cutting" logic of this with the GOP's insistence late last year that income tax rates for billionaires be kept low.
Is my disgust with this situation ideological? Probably. But it's also practical. Prison inmates, life-long illiterates, and people abused or neglected as children (who are more likely to develop into inmates or illiterates than the rest of us) have great difficulties maintaining sustainable livelihoods, even in this the richest of nations. They don't pull their weight as consumers (leaving aside the argument of whether any of us should). Investing a few dollars (far less than the cost of maintaining the billionaires' tax cuts) would bring demonstrable benefits to the national economy.
See, consumption patterns vary by income level. Folks in the working (lower and middle) classes spend pretty much every dollar they earn, because they have to. That's what drives three-quarters of our economy. (Or it did when last our economy had any drive.) But when folks are unemployed, or under-employed, or unemployable, they don't have a lot of dollars to spend and so consumption goes down.
Folks in the investing (upper) classes manage to save and invest portions of their income -- the portion rises as income goes up. But, for all its virtues, savings/investment is a drag on consumption -- it may lead to more income and more consumption in the future, but it decreases consumption in the present. And it doesn't seem to be doing a lot for domestic employment levels of late, either.
So here's a study I'd like to get some economics grad student to do: play "what if" games. What if domestic consumption as a percentage of income were to stay the same as it is now at each income level, but the percentage of GDP going to earners at each income level nationwide looked like it did in 1990? or 1980? or 1970? or 1960? What would be the theoretical impacts on consumption? On employment? On GDP going forward? Now, what if corresponding historic income tax rates were re-imposed? What would be the impacts on all of the above plus the federal deficit? I could well be wrong, but I'd expect the results to show the impact the US is currently experiencing from increasingly polarized income distribution and decreasingly progressive income tax rates.
Is the scenario simplistic and ideologically-driven? Probably. But I'd suggest that it's no more simplistic and probably less ideologically driven than much of what now goes on inside the Capital Beltway. And the results might contribute to a shift in thinking about economic sustainability in these United States. Which might, subsequently, even lead to a shift in thinking about economic sustainability worldwide.
Crazy talk, I know. But then, we live in crazy times.
