Csumming up takes time. Think for example of the one you have to spend to choose a book, get it and above all read it. This finding opens another path to sobriety. Achieving this does not necessarily amount to a restriction such as flying less.
Consuming takes time, sometimes a lot. This is obvious for the subscription to a gym or for taking meals. This time of use is, in addition, preceded by at least a few minutes to choose what we are going to buy. Sometimes even several hours of information research must be devoted to it. Without forgetting that to consume, you need money and therefore days of work to earn it.
American economist Gary Becker (1930-2014) [Prix Nobel d’économie en 1992] was the first to design and model this association by adding the cost of the good and the cost of time and showed that our satisfaction depends on this combination. No pleasure derived from buying a concert or theater ticket without attending. No satisfaction in tasting turnips or leeks without cooking and preparation.
Paperback or menu at McDonald’s
For Gary Becker, there is not labor economics on one side and domestic or leisure economics on the other. On the other hand, there are time-intensive goods (furniture to assemble or repair yourself, unprocessed food, etc.) and others that are not: for example, for the same price as a paperback or a menu at McDonald’s, you have to add the value of a consumption time of a few hours for one and fifteen minutes for the other.
There is also activity time that is not very intensive in the goods needed to be purchased: educating young children or caring for elderly parents, spending time with friends, working in an association, or more prosaically playing boules, belote, basketball or cornet à pistons. In short, to devote “authentic values” of life as John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) hoped for his grandchildren, finally rid, thanks to technical progress, of the material worries of accommodation, food, heating and clothing. A few hours of work per week was enough for everyone to satisfy their basic needs, everyone, he envisioned, could then indulge in the art of living.
This unbreakable link between time and consumption thus makes it possible to consider gaining sobriety in two ways. On the one hand by modifying our schedule towards activities of low consumption. On the other hand, by redirecting our consumption towards “time-intensive” goods, because that means less time remaining to consume.
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