From principles and concepts like ahimsa, the golden rule, veganism, and environmentalism, we can discern a trend, an ethical—and very practical—line of thinking that points toward “not taking,” or what may be called “nonsumption.”  Nonsumption represents the exact opposite of what for-profit businesses and “economists” who seek to “stimulate the economy” want: consumption. It’s also the opposite of the ego-serving drive, motivation, or incentive to waste resources, to take up space and attention, to own things, to kill or capture—a tendency eloquently labeled “conspicuous consumption” by Thorstein Veblen.

That’s the basic motivation behind Nonsumption, an unpublished work-in-progress begun in 2011.  This project grew out of the Plutonomics project, which in turn grew out of the Thoroughthought (epistemonomy) project and the The Matriarchy to Come project. The need for the concept of nonsumption was also made evident from working for the Humane Party: the philosophical framework necessary to accomplish the ultimate goals of the Humane Party was not readily available.  For instance:

While veganism and ahimsa are extremely powerful and ethically mandatory, they do not, in their original or most-commonly understood form, easily address life choices that do not immediately involve other beings. Veganism and ahimsa, in short, lose clarity once the chain of causation becomes extended.  Environmentalism, meanwhile, appears to be so loosely defined or understood that any product or practice that is slightly less destructive than another version of that product or practice—a slightly more energy-efficient car, for instance—is regarded as “green” or “environmentally-friendly.”  Environmentalism tends to reduce to a relativistic, “well-it’s-better-than-nothing” approach; it does not easily produce a bright line in the way that veganism does with respect to, say, a piece of food.

What we need, therefore, is a very specific standard and goal that is applicable at any scale and can be used to evaluate any decision, from that of one individual to that of an entire society. The hope is to finish Nonsumption as soon as possible, because the nonsumption paradigm provides a comprehensive alternative to the consumption paradigm that is wiping out the planet’s other species.