Taking a long-term view of progress

Stimulus packages initiated by many governments to reverse the economic downturn by encouraging consumption are unanimously claimed as necessary, and they definitely are, given the necessity of maintaining enough jobs and keeping the economic machine running.

Yet, that is based on short-term thinking. We can hardly justify the act of encouraging people to throw away their motor vehicles and electrical appliances that are still usable in order to stimulate economic development by increasing consumption. It definitely runs counter to the concept of sustainable development.

As elaborated by Canadian writer Ronald Wright in his book A Short History of Progress, we have fallen into progress traps by doing so. No matter how different we are in culture and political systems, we humans as a big civilization in an economic sense have been feeding on the whole planet's natural capital. If our civilization is to survive, we must learn to live on the interest rather than on the capital of the nature, according to Wright.