Utopianism for a dying planet : life after consumerism / Gregory Claeys.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

After Consumerism contends that the alarmingly likely prospect of catastrophic environmental breakdown cannot be solved by technological innovation alone, but requires substantial modifications in both individual and collective behaviour. The author argues that consumerism, and particularly the excessive desire for luxury goods, commenced in the 18th century, and peaked within the past fifty years. Using the utopian tradition, which has often been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, the book sees a shift from private to public luxury, and an accompanying emphasis on increasing public sociability, as offering the best chances of weaning ourselves from excessive consumption and eventually stabilising the process of ecological deterioration, by offering compensation through social pleasures. A survey is offered of the treatment of these themes in utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. The argument is unfolded in three main sections, the first defending a plausible or "realist" definition of utopia, and focusing on ideas of sociability and belongingness as central to utopian narratives; the second surveying the development of these themes in the 18th and 19th century; and the third examining 20th and 21st century debates about and alternatives to consumerism. The conclusion details a radical Green New Deal programme which weds together the necessary withdrawal from fossil fuels and cessation of immoderate and excessive consumption of other unsustainable commodities with the theory of sociability outlined earlier.