Organizing my thoughts on wealth vs sustainability
I have been thinking about waste and sustainability, and have some ideas that I want to explore. My thesis is that wealth leads to waste: as you get wealthier, it becomes more time-efficient to throw away and replace things rather than waste time repairing them. You would rather spend money than waste time, since the latter is a scarce resource - you'll never get more time.
Ultimately, unequal income distribution is what enables waste: you are in effect paying money to buy time (labor) from someone in China or India whose time is worth considerably less.
I've looked at income (wealth), but waste is generated by the *relative* discrepancy between wealth and cost. If something is priced artificially low, it will be wasted. I would argue that fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources are priced artificially low. The reason for this is that these resources are forecast to be exhausted past the lifetime of people alive today, and hence, are effectively inexhaustible. However, waiting for prices to shoot up just as the oil and water really run out is not a good option!
Trying to reduce waste by in effect reducing wealth, through taxation, has problems. A big one is this: any consumption tax (sales tax, fuel tax) is by its nature a regressive tax - it will have a greater impact on poorer people than wealthier people. (If you have a Mercedes Benz, you don't care that your fuel bill is $200/month higher. If you're poor, that cost could be crippling.) Naturally, if everyone has the same income levels, taxes are no longer progressive or regressive - they have the same impact on everyone.
I would be interested in analyzing the relationship between income distribution and waste production, and how to generate price signals that will lead to more sustainable behavior. It will also be interesting to explore other means of driving sustainable practices, through cultural or technological means.