…to a reasonable degree, at least.
When you have to spend on things like haircuts, repairs, etc, keep the money in your social network.
While I agree with the idea of not buying garbage, there is absolutely no way we can unconsume ourselves out of the capitalist ploy to extract surplus value. Do not put the blame on people who try to (often) satisfy legitimate needs, but on those forcing labor to be spent at the cost of both the environment and workers themselves.
Ecofascism (not accusing you here) is not going to solve the climate crisis.
I’m not suggesting unconsuming, I am suggesting consuming outside of the corpo economy and limiting the use of fiat economy. And this is an ideal to work toward. I think about money I don’t spend to a corpo as money that hasn’t been extracted from my community.
It is nice where possible and can help locally, but on scale it will not force through any changes. To see why, we only need to consider the historical material conditions that allowed the development of the current capitalist form in the first place. Small businesses where defeated by capitalists that could employ tactics the others couldn’t answer.
In order to answer to the consequences of our current mode of production, we have to force changes to how production is carried out. Saying we want our products locally, ethically and environmentally made will only change their branding, not the fundamental exploitation in search of surplus value.
Oh, sorry, you misjudge my goals. The United States of America is an internally collapsing slave empire built on stolen land. Developing these habits allows me to retain my access to culture and higher-end services while participating less in the slave empire’s corporate economy. I like haircuts by people who know their craft and I like watching entertainment and playing video-games. I don’t want my luxuries to contribute to corpo wealth.
Out of spite.
(edit, clarity)
