Limitless Desires in a Limited World

We were made to be limited - yet we spend like there is no end...

Photo by Guillaume Bolduc on Unsplash

In keeping with our unrestrained consumptiveness, the commonly accepted basis of our present economy is the fantastical possibility of limitless growth, limitless wants, limitless wealth, limitless natural resources, limitless energy, and limitless debt. The idea of a limitless economy implies and requires a doctrine of general human limitless: All are entitled to pursue without limit whatever they conceive as desirable… — a licence that classifies the most exalted “Christian” capitalist with the lowliest pornographer. - Wendell Berry, Faustian Economics.¹ (Quote marks mine)

Constant growth. Build, build, build. Spend like there is no tomorrow. You are worth it. These are some of the cherished dogmas of our modern society. Some would even say these are the necessary dogmas of modern society if we are to continue to live the “good life”. But, if we listen, shouting in the wilderness is a cry of dissent imploring us to reconsider. And the one shouting through his pen and typewriter is Wendell Berry.

Berry is characteristically provocative in the quote above (and too extreme in his final sentence). But, whether or not we agree with Berry on the absolute evil of capitalism is beside the point. Berry is putting his finger on an issue which makes us bristle for we know it concerns and implicates us — and that issue is called limitlessness.

We can see limitlessness in the two figures of society that Berry provocatively uses. Whereas the greedy capitalist is consumed with having more and more (whatever the cost), the pornographer is consumed with seeing more and more (whatever the cost). Both of these warped desires are limitless, never reaching contentment, and must be fulfilled no matter the cost to a neighbour, friend, environment, or body. When we portray these desires like this in all their ugliness, it is evident that both desires are wrong at their very core — greed and lust fuelled by putting our “unlimited” selves with their unlimited desires at the centre of importance, at the centre of our own unlimited universe.

It is on this limitlessness to our desires that I want to focus. I argue we were made to be limited and this surely has implications for our spending and consumptive behaviour. In one sense our spending has to be limited, we simply do not have time to enjoy all that we buy, and do not have time to buy all that we want. This is as true for the extravagant billionaire as for those of us in the middle or lower classes. So in the words of the wisest man who ever lived, why do we spend if the brevity of life means we will simply leave it for another to enjoy? (Ecclesiastes 2:18). But more importantly, our consumption must be limited because the earth’s resources are limited. There is enough for everyone to live convivially in this abundant world, but not enough for everyone to meet their unlimited desires. This is seen clearly in that unequal patterns of consumption and resource distribution, together with greed and apathy, mean that while some are paralysed by choice at the supermarket aisle, others walk miles in the scorching sun in search of something to nourish their starving, bloated bellies.

We in the West forget that our earth is limited, that food and resources have to be worked hard for in mining, farming, and collecting, and that they can all too easily be exhausted or degraded. We fool ourselves into thinking there will always be enough while at the same time neglecting our mandate to steward the earth's resources well (Genesis 2:15). Moreover, we fool ourselves into thinking there is nothing wrong with how much we own and how much we spend, or the ease with which we throw away and buy again. This is no wonder when the strains and stresses of shopping have been reduced down to the click of a button, the result of which arrives at our door the next day (or hour). We unthinkingly consume and unthinkingly spend — and the growth economy is delighted. What is more, our delusion extends to thinking that all this can continue, that our consumeristic way of life will never fail, that business really can be as usual, that we can “keep on consuming, spending, wasting, and driving as before, at any cost to anything and everybody but ourselves.”²

This is a serious delusion. If our limitless lust for more is not abated we will leave a trail of destruction through degraded ecosystems, burnt-out workers pushed to the limits of human efficiency, endless masses of plastic waste clogging up our rivers and polluting our seas³, and more and more parents unable to feed their famished children. But, to our shame, this doesn’t seem to bother us. Instead, we fiercely defend our right to be as greedy and wasteful as we want in our “free” markets.⁴

There is, however, a sense in which the earth does have unlimited resources — those which are renewable. Managed sustainably and used convivially, resources such as soil, trees, and clean water exist in perpetuity, able to be used again and again by all generations. However, limitless consumption damages the capacity of these resources to renew themselves by degrading or even breaking the cycles of renewal. Soils take time to recover from harvest, trees take time to regrow, and reservoirs and lakes need time to replenish their levels. If we push these resources to the limit by allowing them no time to recover or if we take more than we need, there is every chance their availability will collapse. The Polynesians’ fate on Easter island serves as a stark reminder of this danger⁵.

We must, therefore, limit our consumption because we live in a world where limits have been designed into its very fabric — and indeed into the fabric of our own bodies. The earth’s ecosystems can only absorb so much waste, our soils can provide only a limited amount of food, our fields can hold only hold a limited number of cattle, our trees need time before they can regrow, and most starkly — we only live for a short and limited span.

When we work and consume within the boundaries of natural limits, ever mindful of our need to respect them, then we will live harmoniously with creation and neighbour — and all will prosper. Whereas when we limitlessly spend, it is ultimately the already rich and powerful who grow ever richer, gathering more of the earth's bounty to themselves, while rural communities and ecosystems collapse all around them, and the poor in distant lands starve and suffer most intensely the environmental impacts brought about by our limitless consumption⁶. Contrary to the dictates of the market we are not entitled to limitless consumption. The laws of thermodynamics contradict it⁷, and the law of ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ prohibits it.

Limitless growth is an illusion, it goes against the grain of creation and leaves destruction and ruin in its wake. We are limited. Let us embrace this — and spend accordingly.

1. Wendell Berry, Faustian Economics.

2. Wendell Berry, Faustian Economics.

3. Lebreton, L. et al., (2018) Evidence the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is Rapidly Accumulating Plastic. Scientific Reports. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w

4. Wendell Berry, Faustian Economics.

5. Gregory Hitch, Easter Island’s Collapse. https://www.environmentandsociety.org/tools/keywords/easter-islands-collapse

6. World Vision Topic Sheet, Poverty and the Environment. https://www.worldvision.org.nz/getmedia/26362f6f-eb18-47a7-a1dd-a6c33c38bfd7/topic-sheet-poverty_and_the_environment/

7. Paul Metz, Thermodynamics of economic growth. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4047