Chapter Ǵ: Why Subjectivism? ȁȂSuch measures and proposals underrate the value of freedom and flex-
ibility. Arbitrary measures burden some people lightly and others heav-
ily because different people’s lives afford different scopes of substituting
away from the restricted consumption and make advance scheduling of
activities difficult and unrestricted flexibility important in widely differ-
ing degrees. In unrestricted voluntary transactions, by contrast, people
can allow for such differences.
A narrowly technological outlook is often linked with puritanical mor-
alizing. (I remember my maternal grandmother, who used to bewail the
waste of using a teabag only once if it could be made to serve twice and
of using and washing a large plate if the food could be crammed onto a
small plate.) Recovery techniques left too much oil and gas in the ground,
natural gas on the continental shelf was flared, and the prevailing practice
in coal mining left half of a seam in the ground merely because it was
needed there as a supporting column or because getting it all out was too
expensive—so went one complaint (FreemanȀȈȆȃ, pp.ȁȂǿ–ȁȂȁ). Energy
has been wasted by “too little” insulation of buildings.
Yet so-called waste was probably sensible at the lower energy prices of
the past. Ļere can be such a thing as too much conservation; for exam-
ple, producing aluminum for storm windows installed under tax incentives
even consumes energy in other directions. Ample heat and air condition-
ing brought comfort, and fast driving saved valuable time. Not having to
concentrate on ferreting out ways to conserve energy saved mental capac-
ity for other purposes. Now, at today’s higher prices, a dollar spent on
energy no longer buys as much comfort or saves as much time or thought
as before; and people respond accordingly. Conceivably, of course, the
energy prices of the past, distorted downward by interventions, may have
led people to consume more energy than they would have done at free-
market prices; but if so, the specific distortions should have been identified
and addressed. Moralizing about ways of consuming less was off the track.
Such moralizing almost regards waste as something perpetrated only
with material resources, not with people’s time or comfort or peace of
mind. Ironically, this strand of materialism sometimes occurs among peo-
ple who announce Galbraithian scorn for the alleged materialism of the
affluent society. Another apparent strand sometimes found in the attitude
of such people is self-congratulation on heroic hard-headedness in recog-
nizing necessary austerities. (Speaking at a conference in Beverly Hills on
ȁȅAprilȀȈȆȄ, Senator Gaylord Nelson welcomed the challenge of helping
to create the new and simpler lifestyles of the future.)