Early in the age of affluence that followed World War II,an American retailing analyst named Victor Lebow proclaimed,

“Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life,that we convert the buying and

use of Eoods 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 increasing rate.”

Americans have responded to Lebow’s call,and much of the world has followed.Consumption has become a central pillar of life in industrial lands and is even embedded in social values.

Opinion surveys in the world’s two largest economies-Japan and the United States-show consumerist definitions of

success becoming ever more prevalent.

Overconsumption by the world’s fortunate is an environmental problem unmatched in severity by anything but perhaps

population growth.Their surging exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust or unalterably spoil forests,soils,water,air and climate.

Ironically,high consumption may be a mixed blessing in human terms,too.The time-honored values of integrity of

character,good work,friendship,family and community have often been sacrificed in the rush to riches.Thus many in the

industrial lands have a sense that their world,of plenty is somehow hollow-that,misled by a consumerist culture,they have

been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy what are essentially social,psychological and spiritual needs with material things.

Of course,the opposite of overconsumption-poverty-is no solution to either environmental or human problems.It is infinitely worse for people and bad for the natural world too.Dispossessed peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of

Latin American,and hungry nomads turn their herds out onto fragile African grassland,reducing it to desert.If environmental

destruction results when people have eithe

• A.human spiritual needs should match material affluence
• B.there is never an end to satisfying people’s material needs
• C.whether high consumption should be encouraged is still an issue
• D.how to keep consumption at a reasonable level remains a problem