We had the first signs this week that, after a decade-long spree, we may be stopping shopping. Like-for-like sales on the high street were down 1.6% last month, the first fall in two years, according to the British Retail Consortium. Clothing and footwear had their worst showing for eight years. A new poll shows the equivalent of 28 million adults in the UK are cutting back. That's bad news in an economy built on growth, fuelled by ever-rising consumer spending.
We had the first signs this week that, after a decade-long spree, we may be stopping shopping. Like-for-like sales on the high street were down 1.6% last month, the first fall in two years, according to the British Retail Consortium. Clothing and footwear had their worst showing for eight years. A new poll shows the equivalent of 28 million adults in the UK are cutting back. That's bad news in an economy built on growth, fuelled by ever-rising consumer spending.
Our spending stimulates production, sustains employment and guarantees the tax revenues that pay for our schools, hospitals and state retirement pensions. So we know what to expect. Like Ken Livingstone in the wake of the July 7 London bombings, we will be exhorted to "keep shopping". Across the pond, George Bush has sanctioned $156bn of tax rebates to lure Americans back to the malls. Here there are calls for interest-rate cuts and support for bank lending. The gargantuan marketing and advertising industries will attempt to ensure, whatever the economic weather, we don't stop shopping till we're dropping.
There's madness at the heart of this system and it has got us into a terrible mess on two levels: personally and environmentally. Our grandparents, raised on the maxim of "neither a borrower nor a lender be", feared debt; those who fell into it were stigmatised. Clothes were darned and altered, furniture cherished for the next generation. But in a nation of homeowners lulled into false security by seemingly perpetually rising house prices, personal debt (along with disposable clothing and furnishings) have become the norm. A celebrity culture that places a ridiculous value on possessions and appearances (and bank and shop staff incentivised to sell us credit) have turned us into a nation of spendthrifts. Scots, once renowned for their prudence, are now saddled with personal debt of close to £9000 each (excluding mortgages).
For some, predominantly women, the outcome is oniomania, the posh word for an addiction to shopping, the habit of the debit, the thrill of the bill. It's sometimes known as the Madame Bovary syndrome, after Flaubert's profligate heroine. Each purchase carries the initial adrenalin rush and a fleeting sense of renewal, followed by guilt and anxiety, assuaged only by more buying. Shopping has become a form of both celebration and balm.
I confess to a difficult relationship with shopping. After every confrontation with sub-Saharan levels of poverty, I blush at the size of my wardrobe and stay away from the Buchanan Galleries for a while. On the other hand, one family sobriquet - "the Imelda Marcos of necklaces" - is not altogether unfair. Part of me clings to the idea that my bold jewellery marks me out, makes me what I am, shapes my relationship with the world, even though I can see perfectly well that my Ethiopian friends, who own little more than the clothes they stand up in, don't need such props.
American psychologist Tim Kasser, author of The High Price of Materialism, suggests the origins of our acquisitive instincts: "Our early ancestors were not big or fast but using stuff helped us survive. At this point in our evolution, acquiring things has become almost a virtue." But it doesn't appear to make us happy. Kasser illustrates this with a graph. The line representing personal income slopes steeply upwards, while the one representing the numbers who describe themselves as "very happy" remains the same. His thesis is that hyperconsumerism in the developed world is a response to insecurity.
The irony here is that on a global level this massive overconsumption is making us even less secure. Every person in the UK generates 9.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. If everyone in the world did the same, we'd need three planets to sustain us. Britain's emissions figures on this are much worse than they look because, during the time they have been measured, much of our heavy industry and manufacturing has been outsourced to the far east. The Stern Report and the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may have been a wake-up call on this issue but they have left us with what's known as a "value-action gap". People's aspirations are greener than their behaviour. We're waiting for someone else to tell us what to do.
This was the issue faced by the government's Sustainable Development Commission in an interesting report entitled I Will If You Will (visit www.sd-commission.org.uk). Once you get past the gobbledegook of "choice editing for sustainability" and the like, there are lots of handy ideas for changing our patterns of consumption. Tucked away on page 57 is the real crux of the issue: "The existing economic structure operates as a major disincentive to sustainable consumption."
There's the rub. Listen to every politician - Gordon Brown, George Bush, Wen Jiabao, Alex Salmond. Economic growth is a mantra, a political virility symbol for every one of them. That's why the standard political response to Stern and the IPCC is that climate change can be addressed by a combination of changes in consumption, energy-efficiency and green techno-wizardry. A lot of us know deep down that this isn't going to be enough: that ultimately addressing climate change is not just about consuming differently but consuming less, and it's going to hurt. No politician is going to admit that, especially in the midst of a credit crisis. When the Treasury was asked about it, officials dismissed it as "going back to living in caves".
It's up to individuals to challenge this agenda. We should be doing the easy things already. The easiest overconsumption to eliminate is the stuff we buy but never consume at all. For instance, about a third of what we pile into our supermarket trolleys ends up in the bin. The big grocers are forever parading their green credentials but instead of "bogofs" (buy one, get one free offers) we should be operating on the basis of "fetpob" (for every three, put one back).
This sort of prudence isn't about living in caves but it does involve all of us deciding to live more simply and modestly. It involves teaching our children some of the simple frugality that was second nature to our parents. When my in-laws moved into residential care, we found drawers in their little house full of neatly folded paper bags, different lengths of used string and rubber bands. We laughed at their austerity but now I rather admire it. It was a hangover from the enforced drop in consumption, achieved by rationing and propaganda during the 1940s.
That will be the stuff of 21st- century politics unless we act unilaterally and find ways to drag the politicians along with us.
It may be a nightmare for Gordon and Alex but the way to start is by drastically pruning our absurd levels of consumption, regardless of the knock-on impact on economic growth. When their predecessors died on me, I was delighted to acquire my new eco-kettle (which can boil one cup of water at a time) and a AA-rated condensing boiler, but at heart I know this is mere tinkering. I'm considering trying a year without personal shopping for anything other than food and fuel. It could be a liberating experience. Fancy joining me?
