#68 A 'Sin' Called Consumption 🎧

<p><em>This newsletter is really a weekly public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: </em><em>how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?</em></p><p><em>PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration courtesy the good folks at </em><em>Ad-Auris</em><em>. If you have any feedback, please send it to us. </em></p><p><strong>India Policy Watch #1: Consumption And The Fable Of Bees</strong></p><p><em>Insights on burning policy issues in India</em></p><p>— RSJ</p><p>‘The pandemic has shown us what is truly important in our lives.’</p><p>‘We learnt to go slow and consume only that we need during the lockdown. That’s one lesson we should follow beyond the pandemic.’</p><p>‘The earth is healing as the pandemic has forced us to slow down our lives and reduce our greed.’  </p><p>Every couple of weeks I come across a column that argues on similar lines as above since the pandemic began. I guess we have a great desire to search for a silver lining in the bleakest of scenarios. But this is exactly the kind of silver lining we should avoid. The idea we learn to reduce consumption so the earth can sustain our load doesn’t have any underlying logic. Worse, such reduction will harm the vulnerable and the poor the most. But, hey, good intentions are all that matter, right?</p><p>Any discussion on consumption as a vice takes me back to Mandeville and his work ‘The Fable of Bees’ which has a deserving claim of being among the most provocative and counter-intuitive texts of all time. Published in the early 18th century, it’s alternative title, <em>Private Vices, Public(k) Benefits</em> establishes its central thesis upfront. The book is in three parts. The first part is a poem, <em>The Grumbling Hive