What inspired the Peak Individualism idea?
This has come from a collection of sources. From studying traditional economics I was never convinced by its overly simplistic way of how humans behave. That they will always act in a logical fashion which is in their best interest. As its a rather western agnostic view. While religions vary, they have tremendous similarities. These are likely to include that we should treat others in the way that we want to be treated ourselves. That we should be ethical, avoid sins / harem and seek enlightenment.
None of this religious belief is accounted for in economics. In addition, in studying marketing and consumer buyer behaviour we have empirical evidence to disprove supply and demand theory. The notion is that as the price rises less people will want to buy the product. This is logical but unfortunately it is overly simplistic. As price is often used as determination of quality, for example on wine or fine clothes when the purchaser does not have the required skills to know high quality from low. Economics realise on ‘perfect information’ everybody knowing everything. This also seems to come from somebody with very limited wisdom.
The notion that ‘a parking lot has the same moral value as a forest’ is something which I think a large number of people will struggle to agree with.
Therefore the first key stepping stone to the notion of peak individualism was the recognition that economic theory is fundamentally flawed and outdated. It doesn’t understand modern technology such as the internet. This is simply because the internet was not around when economic theory was written but it now forms a cornerstone of our economy. Therefore new economics must find a realistic way of explaining it.
As we move away from basic goods, more and more services are sold on emotion not logic. Look at an advert for a sofa. It does not say “this will last you years, it is comfortable and affordable” as an economist would have you believe. They show pictures of loving families, making the sofa part of that picture and classically conditioning the happy family with the sofa. People what a happy, loving family and therefore they buy the sofa which is of inferior quality but told them it would bring their family together. Humans are emotional beings and in today’s society we generally have our material needs met and therefore seek emotional value from the things we buy. This is well understood by marketers and is used in the majority of modern advertising. This culture is at odds with “humans are logical” which economics teachers.
As we understand the issues with traditional economics and the way it is has been misinterpreted we can begin to address these issues. Economic growth is a means of progressing, not an ends. But in today’s society it is often seen as a goal. However, just as there becomes a point for individuals when spending more time at work or getting more responsibility/stress from it is not worth the additional financial compensation. On a national level there becomes a point when the social and environmental costs are higher than the economic benefits.
To truly know if we are progressing we need a better indicator than economic growth / GDP. Thankfully there are alternatives, such as Redefining Progress’ Genuine Progress Indicator. In short, we need to take into account all work i.e. voluntary as well as paid in a measure of economic, social and environmental well being. We live in such an information age we are able to create a range of very interesting metrics as to how we are progressing.
When we use these metrics we often see that while on an individual level it looks like things are getting better. On a society level they may not be progressing. For example, insurance, pharmaceuticals and climate change.
The above describes the idea, it was named peak individualism along the lines of Peak Oil, Peak Uranium and Heinberg’s latest book Peak Everything. My philosophy is that the changes needed to overcome climate change and peak oil will be a significant shift but one that will result in positive social change. Therefore I wanted a ‘peak’ something that is positive. Therefore Peak Individualism was the name of my theology.
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