Climate Change and Unnecessary Consumption
Climate change is driven by unnecessary consumption. Not consumption for actual human needs, but consumption manufactured to maintain capitalist profit growth.
The Root Cause
Capital requires infinite expansion, which demands ever-increasing consumption regardless of need or environmental cost. Capitalist extraction requires waste. Products are designed to break (planned obsolescence), made non-repairable to maximize replacement, subject to fashion cycles creating artificial obsolescence, promoted through marketing creating needs that don’t exist, wrapped in excessive packaging to maximize shelf presence, duplicated in redundant variations to fill shelf space. Suburban sprawl requires car dependence, office commutes persist when work can be done remotely, and food waste occurs from overproduction and artificial scarcity pricing.
The Pattern
Corporation produces widget. Widget could last 20 years. Corporation designs it to break in three years. Corporation prevents repair by serializing parts, using proprietary screws, and threatening legal action. Consumer is forced to buy new widget every three years. Consumption is six times higher than necessary. Profits multiply. Environment is destroyed.
Examples of Manufactured Consumption
Workers live 30 miles from office and could work remotely but companies demand presence. They waste 12 hours per week commuting, burning fuel and creating emissions. Offices exist to justify middle management and real estate investments. Actual productivity would be higher working from home. The consumption of fuel, car wear, time, and emissions is all unnecessary.
Smartphones are designed to slow down after two years. Manufacturers control software updates and force obsolescence. Units are repairable for $50, but companies charge $400 or suggest buying new $1000 phones. Consumers buy new phones every two to three years instead of using the same phone for ten years. Mining, manufacturing, shipping, and e-waste are all multiplied by a factor of five.
Tractors require manufacturer diagnostic software to repair. Farmers can’t fix their own equipment. Manufacturers charge $200 per hour for service calls. Farmers used to fix tractors with basic tools. Now they’re forced to buy new tractors or pay extraction rents to manufacturers.
Clothing is designed to fall apart after ten washes. Marketing creates artificial trends every season. Consumers buy four times more clothing than actually needed. This creates textile waste, labor exploitation, water pollution, and emissions. We could make durable clothing that lasts years, but it’s not profitable enough.
40% of food produced is wasted. Supermarkets discard edible food to maintain scarcity pricing. Artificial cosmetic standards prevent crooked carrots from being sold. Overproduction maintains low commodity prices for processors. Farming inputs, water, land, labor, and emissions are consumed, then food is thrown away.
The Democratic Socialist Climate Platform
We mandate minimum product lifespans: phones must last seven years, appliances 15 years, and so on. We implement right to repair laws with criminal penalties for manufacturers blocking repair. We require mandatory parts availability for product lifetime and open repair documentation. We ban serialization and software locks. We provide public funding for repair cooperatives.
We make remote work a default right with employers having to prove in-person necessity. We provide tax incentives for companies supporting remote work. We eliminate commercial real estate tax advantages. We invest in robust public transit for necessary commutes. We enable dense mixed-use zoning so people live near where they work and shop. We implement four-day workweeks, reducing commuting by 20%.
We support regional manufacturing cooperatives. We reduce shipping distances, eliminating cross-country shipping of water bottles. We make public investment in local food systems. We create community workshops and tool libraries for sharing rather than everyone owning. We establish repair cafes and skill-sharing networks.
We require producer responsibility for entire product lifecycle. We mandate take-back programs. We design for disassembly and material recovery. We create public recycling and materials recovery facilities. We ban single-use plastics where alternatives exist. We build composting infrastructure.
We eliminate cosmetic standards for produce. We require supermarkets to donate edible food. We create public food distribution networks. We support community kitchens using “imperfect” produce. We support gleaning programs. We end subsidies that incentivize overproduction.
Carbon Tax With Worker Rebate
We tax emissions at source, targeting production not just individual consumption. Revenue is returned directly to workers as rebate. This makes wasteful consumption more expensive. Workers break even or come out ahead because wealthy people consume more and pay more. This incentivizes efficiency without burdening workers.
The Fundamental Change
Worker cooperatives don’t have the same growth imperative. Traditional corporations must maximize shareholder returns, requiring growth and increasing consumption. Worker cooperatives maximize worker wellbeing, achieved through stable income (not infinite growth), sustainable practices that preserve long-term viability, community health (workers live in community), quality products that build reputation (not planned obsolescence), and meeting actual needs efficiently (not manufactured consumption).
Integration With Full Platform
Universal basic services eliminate consumption-as-status-signaling. When everyone has housing, healthcare, food, and education, there’s no need to consume to demonstrate you’re not poor. Consumption shifts from social signaling to actual use value.
Public ownership of energy eliminates profit motive to sell more electricity. Instead, the incentive is efficient provision of needed energy. Investment shifts to efficiency and renewables, not marketing to increase consumption.
Breaking monopolies enables local production. Amazon’s model requires massive shipping infrastructure, packaging waste, and elimination of local retail. Local cooperatives and small businesses serve local needs with minimal shipping, less packaging, and direct relationships.
This is how we address climate change. Not through individual consumer guilt. Not through green capitalism. Through fundamental restructuring that eliminates manufactured waste.