Abstract
The idea that the over-arching goal of capitalist economies needs to be changed and that achieving ever-higher levels of consumption of products and services is a vacuous goal has been with us from the onset of industrialization. It often has taken the form of comparing the attractive life of the much poorer, pre-industrial artisan to that of the drudgeries of the more endowed industrial assembly-line worker.
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Etzioni, A. (2004). Voluntary Simplicity: Characterization, Select Psychological Implications, and Societal Consequences. In: Hodgson, B. (eds) The Invisible Hand and the Common Good. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-10347-0_17
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