Cultural Transformation

In his article "The Rise and Fall of Consumer Cultures" Erik Assodourian asserts that the consumer culture that has been developed is the primary factor to human degradation of the environment. He calls for a cultural transformation by which he means changing our current consumerist culture to one that does not maintain the ever expanding need for more and does not view this idea as "natural". Assodourian states that this transformation is a "shift to a cultural paradigm where the norms, symbols, and traditions encourage just enough consumption to satisfy human well being". He then continues to lay out a plan for cultural transformation with the themes of equity and ecological restoration. I believe is plan would be possible to implement and has many aspects that can already be seen today. The plan is highly ambitious and would take a long to start, let alone be successful, but it seems like the steps laid out in are concrete ideas. The step to switch private consumption to public consumption can already be seen in the example of public transporation, as Assodourian points out. I think that the step of necessary goods to be completely recyclable would be possible to implemented in America as well, as long as a market economy can still flourish from the production of these goods. Finally, the first step appears to be that hardest to implement. Discouraging consumption is completely contradictory to the way our culture is set up now. His examples of fast food would be a good that would be easier to discourage consumption, that already happens today. Other goods like using your car would be very hard to discourage, although people try to already. Assodourian raises some very interesting points in his article but there are some themes in in the appear to be leaning to close to socialism for many Americans. I believe if he plan was actually put into action it would help the environment but it could be very difficult to do some of the steps.