More or Better?

Thinking about what makes for an economy of life, Bill McKibben conjures up an intriguing image. He suggests that for most of human history, the two birds More and Better roosted on the same branch. You could toss one stone and hope to hit them both.

What is different about our time is that Better has flown away to a different tree. Rather than More also meaning Better, you have to choose between them. It is either More or Better.

Partly this is a response to our contemporary environmental crisis. If we all aim to get More, this will mean extracting the resources of our environment at an unsustainable rate. The result of this will definitely not be Better. Instead, things will get a lot worse.

McKibben also amasses a great deal of evidence to show that, even in terms of personal happiness, in affluent societies the accumulation of more and more goods does not result in greater fulfilment and satisfaction. More does not mean Better.

He concedes that it is different for the very poor. He even puts a figure on it – for people whose annual income is less than US$10,000, More does mean Better. They are living with so much privation that any increase in their material welfare does make life better.

This rings true with me here in Malawi, where most people earn far less than US$10,000 per year. For them, even a little bit more makes life a lot better.

At the same time, Malawi, for all its poverty, demonstrates another point that McKibben is making. Visitors to Malawi are always surprised by how happy people are. In part, this simply reflects Malawians’ skills in hospitality. But there is also a sense of community, born of human solidarity in face of adversity, that genuinely yields a greater degree of happiness than the more individualized and isolated lifestyles of affluent societies. Malawians cheer up their Western visitors by showing them what they are missing.

McGibben’s prospectus makes sense to me. For the very poor, if they have more, things will be better. For those who are already well-off, more material goods will not make things better. They need to look to values, relationships, community and justice if they would like things to be better.

Reference: Bill McKibben, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, New York: Times Books, 2007.