The dynamics of willingness to consume

It is increasingly acknowledged that the growing consumption in the North c onstitutes an important part of global environmental problems. To improve t he possibilities of dealing with this aspect of the problems, this paper ex plores some of the driving forces behind the growth in consumption. The fir st section introduces the environmental debate on consumption including the relationship between final consumption and the consumption of resources, t he recent political acceptance of dealing with consumption, and the fundame ntal conditions for consumption growth in the North. In the following secti ons, a cross-disciplinary approach is applied in a broad search for the dri ving forces behind the willingness to consume. Throughout the exposition tw o questions are explored: (1) Why are productivity increases largely transf ormed into income increases instead of more leisure? (2) Why is such a larg e part of these income increases used for the consumption of goods and serv ices with a relatively high materials-intensity instead of less material-in tensive alternatives? The explanations are divided into three groups: first , the economic explanations, including socio-economic aspects related to th e institutional set-up of the economy; second, socio-psychological explanat ions focusing on consumption from the perspective of the human being embedd ed in specific social relations; third, historical and socio-technological explanations focusing on different aspects of everyday life. The paper conc ludes with some reflections on the political implications of the analysis. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.