We should all provide our bodies with food. This has to come first, but the goal is to have a sound mind in a sound body. We also ought to provide our mind with its food, that is, things that build intelligence and judgment; but the goal is to be in a state in which we can serve our fellow citizens, our community, our country, the church, and therefore the Lord. (True Christianity 406)
Consumption is the great moral problem of our time. I say this not because it is the most obviously evil, but because it is the most opaque. History texts claim, or they did when I was in eighth grade, that industrialization standardized both the process of production and the product itself, and that this so increased efficiency that it led to more; more was produced more cheaply, and more people made enough money to buy more. I don't doubt the truth of this narrative, but it does not examine how, by moving labor and production from small shops to factories, from communities to industrial districts, it obscured the material and human conditions requisite to making a given product. And in the years since the continuation and acceleration of this trend have rendered production so complex, distant, and hidden that we are now unlikely to know in any real sense where a single thing we own came from.
This opacity is problematic beyond the egregious labor conditions and environmental degradations it can allow. The fragmentation of the economy so effectively separates the consequences of any purchase from the act of purchasing that consumption appears to be amoral. Items simply appear on racks or in orderly rows on shelves. With everything but the end product hidden from view, it is impossible to evaluate the impact that buying something has on the community and country that produced it. So while I try to consider my family, friends, and neighbors, and can see how to serve them, it is near impossible to envision communities worlds away from my own, even though my daily choices have a profound effect on them. I don't deny that some of these effects may be good, and independent certifying agencies and other entities public and private attempt to provide an accounting. But they are a poor substitute for individual conscience informed by living with the consequences of choices, a mode of life that cannot be abstracted or certified.
The broader question of how much I should consume is both easier and harder. It is easier because the criteria for evaluation are less nebulous. Will a purchase nourish the body, soul, and mind, with the aim of serving fellow citizens, the community, country, church, and God? Eggs from the farm down the road: yes. Freeze Pops from the Price Chopper: probably not. It is harder, for me at least, because trying to apply this standard to my daily life implies such radical change, and because it is exhausting, in a society predicated on consumption, to hold every choice to such a rigorous standard; of the many things I want, precious few have service as their goal, and I am ashamed when I consider how many of the purchases I make do not stand up to this basic scrutiny.
The obvious critique would be that, while there may be instances of exploitation, economic activity is generally a good in that it produces more wealth for more people. Purchases, even frivolous ones, benefit the workers in the Freeze Pop factory and the supermarket I patronize. This may mitigate the harm, but it seems a poor substitute for a society in which all work is useful in the deepest sense, and the point remains that I have no way to verify the effects. I can take it on faith that the Freeze Pop factory is good, or at least not bad, but I cannot judge for myself. I do not consider it right to abdicate meaningful reflection on a choice based on a vague faith in the immense system of which that choice is a part.
I am not certain I would be happier living in a community that operated by principles more aligned with what I view as just, a community that would, by necessity, provide most of its own goods. I would have less than I do in every material way, though I do not think it would necessitate returning to the often terrible conditions of two centuries ago. And I believe I would be living in a more truly human manner. Just as I know my life is more deliberate, even saner, when I do not own a television, I suspect giving up or limiting any number of other conveniences that currently strike me as necessities - cars, the log splitter, the tractor for that matter - would yield a similar result. Even, or perhaps especially, the internet, which is a truly amazing tool for communicating and learning, would be better limited to a corner of my life. The more I consider, and as uncomfortable as the conclusions I reach make me, I believe that the mode of consumption that is the norm is an immense moral problem, for it defines in large part the impact I have on the world, even if I have a hard time seeing it.