JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH 99 



as noted, can only be in the context of a critical view of all consump- 

 tion.) The modern automobile may be a case in point. I share the 

 view that this is currently afflicted by a kind of competitive elephanti- 

 asis. As a result, it is making a large and possibly excessive claim on 

 iron, petroleum, lead, and other materials; but much more seriously 

 it is making excessive inroads on urban and rural driving and stand- 

 ing space and on the public funds that supply this space. 



But in the main it would seem to me that any concern for materials 

 use should be general. It should have as its aim the shifting of con- 

 sumption patterns from those which have a high materials require- 

 ment to those which have a much lower requirement. The opportuni- 

 ties are considerable. Education, health services, sanitary services, 

 good parks and playgrounds, orchestras, effective local government, a 

 clean countryside, all have rather small materials requirements. I have 

 elsewhere argued that the present tendency of our economy is to dis- 

 criminate sharply against such production.'^ A variety of forces, among 

 them the massed pressures of modern merchandising, have forced an 

 inordinate concentration of our consumption on what may loosely be 

 termed consumer hardware. This distortion has been underwritten by 

 economic attitudes which have made but slight accommodation to the 

 transition of our world from one of privation to one of opulence. A 

 rationalization of our present consumption patterns — a rationaliza- 

 tion which would more accurately reflect free and unmanaged con- 

 sumer choice — might also be an important step in materials conser- 

 vation. 



''The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, May 1958). 



