Prior to 2025, we had a hopeless situation.
In healthier times, the financial system supported the economy. It provided loans and investment to businesses to give them a start or to allow them to expand. In 2008, it became clear for the first time that it was the economy that supports the financial system. Bankers literally drank champagne while protesters marched beneath their balconies. There was nothing citizens could do about the flip, and there was nothing politicians wanted to do about it.
That is unchanged in 2025, but what has changed is a growing belief that the future is going to be worse than the past. “Wait and see” is not going to work.
It is in such an environment that it finally becomes possible to mobilise enough of the population to bring about change. According to one researcher the number of committed activists needed is surprisingly small, about 3.5% of the population.
Every day, with every new outrage, more people lose faith in the status quo and become open to positive change. People who were willing to sacrifice the world in order to preserve their conveniences are going to lose their conveniences anyway. This realisation is the game-changer.
The way to think about your conveniences is this: they were ending anyway. They weren’t sustainable in a world with unbridled population growth, with climate instability, with greedflation, nor with trade wars. The period of hyper-consumerism is coming to an end for many reasons, and all that remains is whether we retain any human dignity or any civil liberties at the end of it. These are worth fighting for; the conveniences less so.
Sometimes a generation is called upon to make sacrifices to set the world aright. When that happened in 1940, the sacrifices required were great. In the spring of 2025, the task is much lighter: stop supporting the billionaires who are behind the outrages. Their power is their money, but is also their weakness. When their political behaviour causes profits to fall, share-holders reconsider their leadership.
This year, limit your purchases to necessities, and otherwise buy local. If you must eat out, go to a family-owned restaurant; avoid chain stores. Reduce your thermostat 2 degrees in winter and wear a sweater. You are in the Resistance now.
Never in the course of human events has so little been asked of so many.
Boycott Links
- Consumers are boycotting major retailers
- The 24 hour Economic Blackout
- The Latino Freeze
- European alternatives for popular services
Deconsumption Links
