by David Suzuki
They counselled us to live within our means and to use our money sparingly for the “necessities” in life. Conspicuous consumption was frowned on as showing off. What pulled the country out of the Depression was World War ii, which provided jobs not just for soldiers but for those producing weapons and war machines. But what would keep the economy going when peace returned and the production of armaments would no longer be necessary? That’s what U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. Its solution was consumption.
This notion was expressed by retailing analyst Victor Lebow: “Our enormously productive economy. . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever accelerating rate.”1
In 1959, the chairman of President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers stated that the American economy’s “ultimate purpose” was “to produce more consumer goods,” which now seems to be assumed as a fundamental part of economies. According to Pablo Ruiz Nápoles, a Mexican academic, “For contemporary economic theory, in general, consumption, the satisfaction of human needs, is the final aim of economic activity.”2
The idea was to keep the economy growing by offering more and more stuff for people to buy. But if something is made well, then eventually the market will be saturated. There are ways to keep it growing anyway: making sure that fashions keep changing; seeking new consumers, such as younger and younger people, poorer people, and people in developing countries; bringing out new models of things, with slightly different shapes and more bells and whistles; setting “best before” dates on consumable items. Still, if the primary role of the consumer item is filled, the market will decrease.
Disposable products ensure a never-ending market but come at a cost to Earth. It is the hyperconsumption driven by the need of industrialized countries to keep their economies growing that is the primary cause of ecological devastation today.
After the tragedy of 9/11, President George W. Bush asked Americans, on September 20, 2001, for “continued participation and confidence in the American economy.” Reporting on the speech for Time magazine, Frank Pellegrini added, “And for God’s sake, keep shopping.”3
As our political leaders rush to embrace the benefits of a global economy, they forfeit any hope of controlling or managing the economy nationally. When Brian Mulroney was prime minister of Canada and appeared on Larry King Live on CNN, King suggested that Canada’s economy wasn’t very strong. Mulroney replied that he couldn’t be blamed for what happened in the global economy, which was beyond his control. Exactly, but then why embrace it?
I’m not an economist, but in 1933, one of the giants of economics, John Maynard Keynes, wrote, “I sympathize . . . with those who would minimize, rather than those who would maximize, economic entanglement between nations. Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel—these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national.”4
Globalization provides countries with access to a larger market for a nation’s goods and thus can add to corporate opportunities, but in a time when brand names like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Toyota, and Nike determine our choices, globalization hides local ecological and social consequences. We buy a brand unaware of the health and ecological costs of growing cotton, mining metals, depleting resources, or polluting waters. We just want the brand product, so we pay the money and use it. But the act of buying has repercussions that reverberate invisibly around the globe.
After World War ii, when we left British Columbia to move to Ontario, we were destitute, though as kids we never saw ourselves as “poor.” But because of my parents’ experience during the Depression, all through my childhood we were exhorted with slogans such as “You don’t get anything for nothing” and “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” The most important of these mini-lessons was that we had to work hard. We were expected to go to work, and I don’t ever remember my sisters or me complaining that we were too tired or didn’t want to work. There was no point, because we all had to.
In Ontario in 1946, I was ten years old, and that was the first summer I worked for money. We would do “piece-work” (meaning that we’d get paid by the amount of work we did) on farms, and the first job I remember was picking strawberries and raspberries—for a nickel or dime a basket, depending on the size of the basket. My mother was a whiz at picking, and no matter how fast I picked, she always beat me handily. All the money we earned went to Mom. There was no such thing as an allowance for us; we contributed to the family, and in return, our parents took care of our food, clothing, and school things. One of the problems with that is that I wore what clothes I had, usually blue jeans and a work shirt. I never paid attention to style or fashion because my folks bought my clothes. So I have no fashion sense and I don’t care.
We worked on different crops through the growing season. I loved picking tomatoes because of the incredible aroma and flavours of the ripe fruit. They were thin-skinned and juicy, and when we bit into them, the sweet pulp and juice would run down our faces. We kids would get into trouble by starting tomato fights for fun. It astounds me to see tomatoes today that have no odour and skin so thick we have to use a knife to cut it.
Harvesting potatoes was back-breaking work. We stood on the runners of a potato digger, which had a big blade that dug up the plants and dropped them onto a metal belt that moved them upward. We would stand along the sides of the belt finding and throwing out clods and plant tops as the potatoes moved up the belt and dropped onto another belt, which pushed them into sacks at the back. After each long row, we would exchange positions so that no one got stuck on the hardest part of the digger, down by the blade, where we had to bend the farthest.
Our days would begin at 7:00 a.m. and end at 5:30 or 6:00, with a half-hour for lunch. We were paid 35 cents an hour for ten or more hours’ work a day, often under a blazing sun, and yet I remember those days fondly because we were always making up little tricks to play on each other.
Celery was one of the toughest vegetables for me. We would bend over and pull up the plant, then trim off the roots with a curved blade. That was okay, but there was something in the leaves that would rub onto our bare arms, and I would develop what we called celery rash, large purple blisters that would take months to heal.
One year we lived on a peach farm, and I loved that. I was only eleven, but I got to drive a tractor pulling a flat-bed onto which the pickers would load their baskets. The tractor was not speedy, and we didn’t have to back up or shift gears, so even a kid could drive it. I would eat the luscious fruit all day until I got “fuzzitis,” our name for a rash around the mouth from the tiny hairs on the peach skin. I often had to run behind the trees because I’d get the runs from eating so many peaches.
In 1947 we moved from the farm to Leamington, a town of about ten thousand people. Dad got a job in a dry cleaner’s, because that’s what he had done before the war. The owner of the dry cleaner’s put us up in a house on an acre lot he owned. He suggested we go into partnership and grow onions on the lot. The owner would provide the land and everything we needed to grow the vegetables, and we would provide the muscle power. The profits would be split equally. Since Dad was working at the dry cleaner’s full-time, it fell to my sisters and me to do the bulk of the work on the lot once the onions were in the ground. We had to weed and hoe and spread fertilizer, but it was always just play. Dad had dreams of making a killing and promised I would get enough money to buy a bike. That was incentive enough for me, and I spent the summer working my guts out on that one acre.
Finally the onions grew nice and plump, and we had to pull them up and lay them beside the rows so that the tops could dry out. One day while they were still drying, it
poured rain. But eventually the rain stopped, and a few days later, we cut the tops off, graded the onions by size, bagged them, and sent them off to market. You can imagine my excitement as I anticipated my new bicycle.
A few days later, Dad came home looking sad. The rain had worked its way down the drying stalks and the onions had rotted in the centre. Most of them were worthless. The good ones had been separated out and sold, but the salvaged remnants didn’t pay enough to cover costs. The owner lost money and we got nothing. Dad came to comfort me that night and slipped me a ten-dollar bill for that summer of effort. I cried bitterly that night because I had worked so hard but had “counted my chickens before they had hatched,” and that was another life lesson.
A constant injunction from my mother was “Share, don’t be greedy”—one more lesson from the Depression. All during my early childhood, before and after the war, weekends were spent with relatives as uncles, aunts, and cousins gathered at my grandparents’ farm. Those gatherings were affirmation of the importance of family, but I realize in hindsight that a lot of the food grown on the farm was being shared out within the family.
But the notion that sharing was important extended beyond family. It was what we did. Whether it was with food or muscle power or talent, we never squawked when asked to help out. Sometimes during those years after the war when we were so poor, I would watch with puzzlement as my parents gave neighbours or visitors food we’d grown or fish we’d caught or treats Mom had baked. When they’d left, before I could ask why, Mom would say, “Don’t begrudge your neighbours and friends, because you never know when you might need their help,” a self-interested point of view but one that makes a lot of sense.
The Depression had given my parents a deep sense that we have to “live within our means,” that we should always “save some for tomorrow.” That seems so quaint and irrelevant today, when using credit cards and buying things on time (with a mortgage or loan) are so widespread. A friend told me a few years ago that it’s better to go into debt because over time, inflation means that the payments get relatively cheaper and cheaper. That notion of deliberately going into debt makes me cringe the way I do when someone scrapes a fingernail across a blackboard.
When I was a boy, Mom and Dad would constantly tell us we were working hard because we needed the money to “buy the necessities.” I don’t know what your generation would consider a necessity, but for us it was food and clothes, then a stove, an icebox or a refrigerator, a bed and bedding, a radio, and cooking utensils like pots and pans. People were just beginning to think that telephones and cars were necessities too. So we were on the cusp of huge changes. In a society in which consumption is a sport, entertainment, or even our civic responsibility, it seems we work hard to fulfill our wants, not our needs. And there’s no end to what we want.
When I was a kid, a car was a necessity to get from point A to point B quickly, not a statement of wealth or importance, and clothing was material to cover the naughty bits and to keep us warm in winter, dry in the rain, and cool in the summer sun—not a fashion statement. There were people who loved to flounce about in fancy new clothes and some who loudly showed off a new car, but we were taught to feel sorry for them because they seemed to feel these things made them better or more important than we were. “They’ve got onto the wrong road,” my dad would say.
Perhaps it was just a way of justifying our poverty, but to this day, I try to teach you what my parents taught me. When the great economic collapse comes—and it will come during your lifetimes—you’ll be better prepared for it by incorporating those values that the Great Depression taught my parents.
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WHY DO SPORTS MATTER?
MY DARLING GRANDCHILDREN,
As you know, I take great joy in cheering for you when you participate in sports, whether it is soccer, hockey, or snowboarding. I spent many, many early-morning hours at the ice rink while Uncle Troy played hockey, and Ganhi, Tiis, and Ryo, I embarrassed your moms with my rabid cheering when they played basketball. I loved watching you play hockey, Midori and Tamo, but Tamo, your snowboarding stunts always terrified me.
I am a big spectating fan of certain sports, especially football and basketball. But I wasn’t raised playing sports. When we were moved to the camps at Slocan shortly after the war began, there was no school for over a year because there was a shortage of trained teachers among the Japanese Canadian population. So I spent all my time roaming the lakeshore and the mountains around the camps. It was very remote country, and for a kid without any school, you can imagine what a magical playground it was. In the 1970s and early ’80s, the area became a battleground over logging. The battles ended in 1983, when the mountains on the west side of Slocan Lake were declared to be Valhalla Provincial Park.
Once school started at the camp, I don’t remember any organized sports or even formal physed classes. During those years, few resources were available in such a remote place. When we moved to London, Ontario, in 1949, I was thirteen and Dad’s emphasis was on school. He believed and taught us that the way out of our poverty was hard work and education. When he was mad at me, his worst threat was to pull me out of school.
My cousins Art and Dan were my age and had lived in London during the war, so they were completely integrated into the community. They also played football and basketball and were excellent athletes. I knew nothing about those sports. One time, my cousins needed another player for their touch football game and recruited me to play. I stood on the line without any idea what to do, so everyone ignored me. Consequently, no one bothered to cover me, and suddenly there I was, wide open. The quarterback threw the ball at me, and it bounced off my chest because I didn’t even know how to catch the torpe-do-shaped ball. My cousins never asked me to play again.
Life for me was going to school and coming straight home after classes to do homework or chores around the house. On weekends and during summer holidays, I worked for Suzuki Brothers Construction, a company my uncles had established to build houses. (I was amazed to learn in my civics class that most of the kids didn’t work over the summer; they had holidays.) From shovelling gravel into cement mixers to hammering sheeting onto rafters to finish roofs, I loved working in construction. As always, every paycheck went straight to Mom.
Dad regarded playing sports as a frivolous activity because it meant time spent away from chores or work. He thought my cousins were wasting their time by playing sports and saw no irony in the fact that we spent a lot of time camping and fishing. So it never occurred to me to try out for any team. But at school, I would eat my lunch in the gym and watch kids play pickup basketball, which looked like a lot of fun. Eventually, I was tempted onto the court to shoot baskets and finally to play with a group of other nerds like me. Because I worked in construction, I was in great physical shape, and I found that I was coordinated too. Soon I started to play every noon hour after bolting down my lunch. Then I discovered volleyball and, finally, touch football. Now, as an old man looking back, I wish I had tried out for teams in high school, because I think I could have made them—but I didn’t have a clue how to play the games properly or what the rules were.
Activities like tennis, swimming, and walking are great and can be continued into old age. But I also think team sports teach vital lessons about getting along with others, cooperating, and working together toward a goal. And there’s something very primal and tribal about identifying with a team—we get so bound up in its fate that we can be at the height of elation or in the depths of despair for days, even weeks, after the victory or the defeat of our team.
Identifying with a team can also be a unifying factor, as we saw in the magnificent film Invictus, about Nelson Mandela and the South African rugby team. And as they say, “We can’t have a healthy mind without a healthy body.”
I see now that Dad was dead wrong: playing sports is a vital part of both growing up and adulthood. The most important aspect of playing sports of any kind is that it is fun, but it also keeps us active
and makes us move our bodies. After all, that’s what a body evolved for. Our evolutionary roots go back to the plains of Africa, where we often had to respond to threats or opportunities by hitting, grabbing, running, or climbing. We had to be in condition to survive. And when you think about it, exercising the body is how its parts stay strong. I mean, that’s what lifting weights is about, isn’t it?
We need to be active, so if there are sports that we enjoy doing, what better way to stay in shape? When you look at the profile of diseases of aging like diabetes, cancer, stroke, and Alzheimer’s, the one common factor that reduces the risk for each of them is exercise. I tell the proprietor of the gym I go to that I don’t go to bulk up and look good; rather, at my age, exercising is the best preventive medicine there is.
We don’t think about that reality when we build the world around us. It’s as if we want to eliminate every reminder of our biological needs. A car, for example, is a wonderful technology that enabled us to travel farther than we could by walking or even riding a horse. But we began to design our cities not to do what was best for us but to serve the automobile. Cars pushed bikes and public transit to the periphery so that our transportation system was primarily focused on serving private automobiles. In a time of cheap oil, we could use a car to take a quick trip to the grocer’s or to visit a friend rather than walking or taking public transit. Not only have cars created pollution, they have made us less healthy. It may be convenient to drive a few blocks, but walking is a lot better for us—and besides, why are we always in a hurry?
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MOTIVATION AND VALUES