I was caught off guard this weekend when reading an article about how high savings rates in Japan have had a devastating effect on that nation’s economy. According to Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times,

“The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages and depressed stock prices, turning free-spending consumers into misers and making them dead weight on Japan’s economy.”

This article ultimately warns Americans of the dangers of saving their hard-earned money. I was taken aback when I fully realized the predicament our nation is in. How can we continue living in a society that rewards consumers for taking unnecessary risks? And yet, how can we revive our economy without consumer-driven growth?

In a time where the economy and sustainability are the two largest problems the world faces, there is an inherent contradiction that we have yet to confront. Japan has shown that conservation, while more sustainable, can pull us even further into recession. But at the same time, we cannot be environmentally-, socially-, or (in the long term) economically sustainable if we don’t heed the necessary calls to conserve.

The issue is something that hasn’t been widely addressed. For our GDP to sustain the relatively consistent growth we have seen since the industrial revolution, we need to continually increase consumption (and thereby increase pollution and environmental degradation). This growth, however, is limited to the boundaries of our natural environment. When we reach our boundary, the constructs on which which we built our economy on will collapse.

Ultimately, a system dependent on growth cannot grow forever.

I do not believe we have yet reached that boundary, the end of consistent growth. Growth will be temporarily restored in the near future as we retrofit the current system to be increasingly efficient. I do believe, however, that we must address this issue before we hit the limit of our growth. We must rethink how the system works. This is vital for both our economic sustainability and our environmental sustainability. Some experts suggest that we “power down” our society. We need to slowly return our society to a general way of life that requires much less energy, muss less material consumption, and includes much more time with family and being more self-reliant.