Live simply; conduct business ethically

In this world there is enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed. ‘To be’ is more important than ‘to have’. Do not be bullied into unnecessary consumption by unscrupulous advertising. Shop less and live more. Teach values like ‘sharing is caring’ to counter materialism. All goods, services, taxes and rents should be charged at a fair rate with zero tolerance for corruption. Companies should make fair profits and pay fair wages. Economic growth is only possible in a finite world if it is environmentally sustainable.

Much of our consumption is driven by companies that entice us with aggressive marketing and socalled fire sales. Think of the volumes of junk mail or relentless radio advertising that pester us daily. Many of these goods and services we might not need, and if we did buy them, would only offer marginal benefits compared with those we already have. The brand strategy of some technology products creates ongoing obsolescence to trap us into buying newer and supposedly better products. Christmas is a time for rejoicing in the birth of Jesus; we should try to temper the material side and keep a sense of proportion when we buy presents. Avoid incurring debt on purchases as much as possible.

An extreme example of excessive consumption would be the recent spending of $78 million on a super luxury yacht which made front page news in the NZ Herald with the headline ‘Inside our richest man’s new super toy.’ Will it buy him happiness? Back in 1965 Robert Kennedy said: ‘Too much and for too long, we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere accumulation of material things’ (2). Paul Gilding, former CEO of Greenpeace Australia, advocates a community-led ‘shop less and live more’ campaign where shopping is for food and essentials only (2). Reducing our consumption to meet our more basic needs would curb the relentless pursuit of economic growth in favour of an approach to development that is better balanced and more sustainable.

Professor Stephen Emmott refers to an authoritative economic analysis of the value of bio diversity conducted by a group of highly respected scientists in 2008. They found that the cost of business activities of the world’s largest corporations in loss and damage to nature and the environment was $2.2 trillion per year and rising.

The leader of the group, Pavan Suhkdev, elaborates:

‘The rules of business urgently need to be changed for corporations to compete on the basis of innovation, resource conservation and satisfaction of multiple stake holder demand, rather than on the basis of who is the most effective in influencing government regulation, avoiding taxes and obtaining subsidies for harmful activities in order to maximise the return for just one stake holder – the shareholder.’(5)

Social justice advocate Bryan Bruce, says:

‘30 years ago NZ changed from a ‘we’ society to a ‘me’ society as the then Labour govt. introduced its neoliberal policies.’ (27) The fact is this is a global trend!

Further, ‘Neoliberalism is an economic theory. . . that encouraged entrepreneurs and businesses to make more and more money that was to eventually trickle down to the poor… but National (the govt.) put it on steroids. It’s a theory that promotes competition over cooperation. A theory that rewards cunning over compassion. . . . on the premise that greed is good.’(27)

Some sobering figures illustrate the imbalance of resources: almost half the world’s wealth is owned by just 1% of the population and if the world’s population is ranked according to wealth, the bottom half owns less than 1% of the wealth (28). This is not to say that wealth (within reason) is a problem or that it is the cause of poverty. However, excessive concentration of wealth is a problem, as is excessive consumption, which has a large, unsustainable footprint. Many political leaders too, accumulate huge personal wealth and follow corrupt policies, which trap their people in poverty.

Guatemala is a case in point: 2% of the population own over 84% of the agricultural land which is predominantly used for growing bananas, sugar cane and coffee for export, resulting in milk having to be imported from New Zealand. To add insult to injury, their gold is mined by Canadian companies that pay a pittance in royalties at 1% (29). The same inequity corrupts the Philippines: all the land is owned by a few rich families with strong political connections and a Fairtrade advocate, Romeo Capalla, lost his life as his advocacy and skill in organising economic groups caught the eye of the anti-insurgency military and police (30).

Consider the supposedly successful Apple Corporation: last year it had sales of US $571 million in New Zealand but only paid 0.4% of that in tax (31). The disparity in earnings between a typical CEO and an average worker in the US is now 257 times, up from 180 in 2009 (32). Despite the lessons from the 2008 financial crisis, the sense of entitlement of CEOs knows no bounds: the head of the NZ Superannuation Fund accepted a pay increase of 18% to $800 000 in 2014 just for doing his job (33). Granted the fund had done well but it is a public fund. The amount paid to CEOs is important because they set the tone in their organisations and they have considerable influence in society and with their governments. These are just a few examples of the inequality that is affecting many countries today.

This inequitable income distribution would be alleviated by fairer profits, fairer tax, fairer wages and fairer trade. Companies should strike a fair balance between labour and mechanisation. How will jobs be created if everything is automated? All goods, services, taxes and rents should be charged at a fair rate with zero tolerance for corruption. All these factors would help to distribute wealth rather than concentrate it.

Let us consider the issue of the poor suffering as a result of our consumption. New Zealand human rights lawyer Marianne Elliot explains this succinctly in her book on Afghanistan:

‘In Ghor I finally understand that if we don’t protect and preserve the environment there will be nowhere left for people to live. I also realise that as we degrade the planet, the first people to feel the effects of that degradation are the ones least equipped to adapt to the changes. While in the west we go merrily along consuming more than our fair share of the earth’s resources and polluting what remains of its beauty, the poorest people on the planet, who rely most directly on the environment for their survival and who are exposed to the effects of extreme weather, are already suffering the impacts of our excesses.’ (34)

The world has regions varying from extremely dry to extremely wet. Many people live in very dry regions and the poor in these regions depend on farming for their food. Climate change has made these areas even drier and the weather more unstable. Marianne Elliot noticed that the children and adults were all small for their age. Many of them were severely malnourished.

‘Ghor has been hard hit by many years of erratic rain in Afghanistan. There has been rain so technically it is not a drought, although many call it one. But the rains come later and all at once, in massive downpours that wash away the fertile topsoil and destroy rather than nurture the crops. It is exactly what climate scientists predicted would be the effect of global warming.’ (34)

CWG adds absolute clarity (1.3):

God: ‘Most people are satisfied with a world in which survival is for the fittest, “might is right,” competition is required, and winning is called the highest good.

Most people are satisfied, even though such a model produces people who are often killed when they are judged “wrong,” starved and rendered homeless when they are “losers,” oppressed and exploited when they are not “strong.” _ _ _

Exploitation of the underclass is justified by the self-congratulatory pronouncements from the upper class of how much better their victims are now than they were before these exploitations. By this measure the upper class can ignore the issue of how all people ought to be treated if one were being truly fair, rather than merely making a horrible situation a tiny bit better – and profiting obscenely in the bargain.” _ _ _

Most people even think there is no other natural way to be, _ _ _ that to act in any other way would kill the inner spirit that drives man to succeed. (No one asks the question, “Succeed at what?”) _ _ _

Most people do not see that they are destroying their Earth – the very planet which gives them Life – because their actions seek only to enhance their quality of life.’

If you wish to calculate your carbon, food, housing, goods and services footprints, consult the web addresses in ref. 35 and 36. Even a moderate lifestyle has a large footprint i.e. greater than the resources one earth can provide. This means that if everyone on earth enjoyed the same lifestyle, there would not be enough space to provide all the resources required.

Quite simply: Spend less, earn less, work less (a four day week?) and create more jobs! Make fewer goods, use fewer resources. Live simply that others may simply live. Remember joy is in us, not in the things we own. ‘To be’ is more important than ‘to have.’ (29)