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Recession? Bring it on!
In the name of ‘saving the planet’, many in the chattering classes are praying for an economic slump.

...Although well-to-do commentators are the first to complain when inflation increases hit their mortgage rates and school fees, they don’t mind when they hit low-paid workers. In fact, many seem to hope that the economic slowdown will hit low-paid workers quite hard. A few years ago, for instance, when McDonald’s announced branch closures and subsequent redundancies, trendy, organic, celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall expressed delight that this might spell the end for McDonald’s, and presumably also for its gormless employees and awful customers (2).

Superficially at least, today’s ‘bring on the recession’ champions use environmentalist rhetoric to disguise their deep-seated disdain for the masses. In the US, economics writer Fion MacCloud recently penned an article demonstrating ‘Ten Ways Recession Can Help the Environment’ (3). MacCloud argued that economic recession would mean fewer people buying fewer mobile phones and fewer cars, and fewer people flying abroad on holiday – and therefore, enforced poverty should be welcomed. From this standpoint, perhaps we should champion complete economic collapse? After all, famine and disease would mean there are fewer and fewer people… and thus would reduce humanity’s CO2 emissions further.

Indeed, the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), which wants a world with fewer people, also believes that economic recession might be a very good thing. As spiked revealed in February this year, a spokesperson for the OPT believes that a recession will be positive since ‘if we keep on growing we’re doomed’ (see I agree with Ethan: bring on the recession!, by Brendan O’Neill).

Other environmentalists believe the coming recession has an ‘upside’ because it will force people to undertake more labour-intensive activities on a day-to-day basis. On the PlanetSave blog, one writer positively welcomes the recession because of ‘all the news stories about moms who now make their own laundry detergent and grow their own vegetables’ (4). How these developments can be considered positive is anyone’s guess. During the Western economic slump of the 1930s, and for much of the lifespan of the Soviet Union, such self-sufficiency was considered an embarrassing symbol of an inefficient and degenerate society. Now, in an historical period when a global division of labour is increasing productivity, rarely a week goes by without some broadsheet alluding to the ‘benefits’ of time-wasting self-sufficiency. ...