A world without consumerism

Today's a holiday, so we went to a local city centre (前滩) for dinner. (On a side note, I went for a run at the park there before dinner. I ran 6km for the first time, in 41 minutes!)

A new mall (太古里) had its grand opening today, so we avoided it and went elsewhere instead. The mall we chose (晶耀前滩) was also completely packed. We waited 1.5 hours for a table (fortunately, I got to spend most of that time running).

As we waited, I walked around the mall and wondered how there are so many stores. I also noticed that aside from a few of the restaurants, I had not spent any money in any of the establishments here.

I'm a minimalist, which I suppose makes me anti-consumerism. My mind began to wander - and as an intellectual exercise, I considered what these malls would look like if everyone here had my consumption habits.

The Apple Store would definitely still exist - I buy an Apple product almost every year. Maybe a Uniqlo and a couple of sports brands too, and a good selection of restaurants. Besides these, I think not much else will exist. It would appear that a lot of people would be out of work in a world made up only of Jimmys.

The point, I think, is that I'm "cheating the system" to some degree. Things are built in such a way that people are expected to consume. Consumerism is a necessary precondition to capitalism. If people stopped wanting more stuff, then by definition, demand would drop off a cliff, and supply would follow.

If everyone were like me, the modern economy would probably just collapse.

Being the exception is often a valuable and privileged position. Consider the United States and Western Europe, with living standards that are the envy of citizens from most other countries. An often overlooked fact is - if the rest of the world were to adopt these same living standards, the amount of energy consumed and waste created would destroy our planet in short order.

As Peter Thiel once said, globalization - where everyone aspires to be like America - will lead to ruin, not riches. Instead, technology is much more important because it will be needed to bridge the gap.

Similarly, anti-consumerism if widely practiced will likely have catastrophic consequences as well. Of course, it may be wrong to assume that minimalism will eventually be prevalent. But if it does, I'm quite certain new technologies would be needed to ensure that it's sustainable.

The replacement of modern capitalism with something better seems to be a fantastical concept. I wonder if I'll get to witness it in my lifetime.