98 How Much Should a Country Consume? 



chained to a high level of production and consumption not by the 

 pressure of want but by the urgencies of economic security. 



IV 



What should be our policy toward consumption? 



First, of course, we should begin to talk about it — and in the con- 

 text of all its implications. It is silly for grown men to concern them- 

 selves mightily with supplying an appetite and close their eyes to the 

 obvious and obtrusive question of whether the appetite is excessive. 



If the appetite presents no problems — if resource discovery and 

 the technology of use and substitution promise automatically to re- 

 main abreast of consumption and at moderate cost — then we need 

 press matters no further. At least on conservation grounds there is no 

 need to curb our appetite. 



But to say this, and assuming that it applies comprehensively to 

 both renewable and nonrenewable resources, is to say that there is no 

 materials problem. It is to say that, except for some activities that by 

 definition are noncritical, the conservationists are not much needed. 



But if conservation is an issue, then we have no honest and logical 

 course but to measure the means for restraining use against the means 

 for insuring a continuing sufficiency of supply and taking the appro- 

 priate action. There is no justification for ruling consumption levels 

 out of the calculation. 



What would be the practical consequences of this calculation — 

 taken honestly and without the frequent contemporary preoccupation 

 not with solution but with plausible escape — I do not pretend to say. 

 As I suggested at the outset, I am impressed by the opportunities for 

 resource substitution and by the contribution of technology in facili- 

 tating it. But the problem here is less one of theory than of technical 

 calculation and projection. As such it is beyond the scope both of this 

 paper and my competence. It has been my task to show that at any 

 time that the calculation is unsanguine, restraint on consumption can 

 no longer be excluded as a remedy. 



However, let me conclude with one suggestion. There may be occa- 

 sions, in the future, when in the interest of conservation we will wish 

 to address ourselves to the consumption of particular products. (This, 



