Jared Diamond has an op-ed in today's Times about the "cruel hoax" of promising, explicitly or not, first-world consumption levels/standards of living to the other 80 percent or so of people presently living on the planet.
That said, Diamond also notes that many aspects and elements of "first-world" consumption, particularly here in the United States, provide no genuine net benefit, but instead, are little more than a giant middle finger to anyone and everyone else (for instance, in my mind, driving a Hummer).
Americans might object: there is no way we would sacrifice our living standards for the benefit of people in the rest of the world. Nevertheless, whether we get there willingly or not, we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable.
Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans’ wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures.
If you've got the time, by all means read the entire essay.
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