trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

p.21, among others) to get goods out of use as quickly as possible either through rendering them obsoleteby manipulating consumer tastes or simply through poor quality. Demand for new kinds of propertieswould lead, based on the market mechanism, to the manufacturing of products to be durable,multifunctional and capable of serving multiple users. The purchasing of these kinds of products wouldbe investment in broad use without the requirement of ownership and conspicuousness thatcharacterises private investments.Change in the value basis of business. In technology we could thus expect that innovation will befocused on the development of common goods and, on the other hand, hope that innovations of use willbroaden the range of users of goods suitable for sharing through consumer or ‘user networks’. Processesof change of this kind would also ‘loosen’ the structure of business organisations; companies would haveto rethink their operation and revenue logic from a new perspective – with a consumer-based approachbut also taking the changing needs of consumers into account. Consumer behaviour would start toincreasingly guide production: marketing, as in persuading consumers to behave in a certain way, would losemomentum and producers would have to comply with a demand constructing itself in a whole new way.The short-term danger in the process of change as described above is a narrowing of the fundingbasis of the public economy. A compensatory communal effect can however be found in a novel,alternative use of the ‘surplus’ of purchasing power, no longer guided by egoistic motives. It is a learningprocess. Riihimäki surmises that members of consumer networks don’t know in advance what the ‘right’way to consume is: it is enough that they have reason to suspect the human sense of the prevailing wayof consumption. The network is an ‘outdoor laboratory’ well suited for testing these suspicions. “Theguidelines created on the basis of these tests could be called network therapy. The network is a platformand process of learning.” (Riihimäki, 2007). By building paths that ‘regenerate’ consciousness and byconceptualising ‘models of use’ that serve the ‘commonness’ of goods, we can create a basis for the kindof user-based theories and theory-based practices that, along the lines suggested by Riihimäki, could fallunder the collective term of critical praxis theory, to differ from the critical theory of the Frankfurt School.ReferencesBooks and scientific articlesAbbott, A., 2001. Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Ackerman, F., 1997. Consumed in Theory: Alternative Perspectives on the Economics of Consumption.Journal of Economic Issues, 31(3), pp.651-664.Anderson, C., 2009. Free: The Future of a Radical Price. New York: Hyperion.Baudrillard, J., 2004. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. Translated from French by C.Turner. London: Sage Publications Ltd.Bauman, Z., 2007. Consuming Life. Malden: Polity Press.Bloch, E., 1959. Das Prinzip Hoffnung. Gesamtausgaben, Band 5. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Bourdieu, P., 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated from French by R. Nice. Cambridge andNew York: Cambridge.Debord, G., 1967. La Société du Spectacle. Buchet-Chastel, Paris.Douthwaite, R., 1996. Short Circuit – Strengthening Local Economies for Security in an Unstable World.Dublin: The Lilliput Press. Available at: htp//www.feasta.org (last visited 6.6.2011)Galbraith, J.K., 1969 The Affluent Society. (2 nd ed rewised) Boston: Houghton Mifflin.183