Unlimited consumption produces misery, making rationing a workable solution rather than immiseration.

Evidence

MF: If that is true it’s very depressing. That’s not a reason to object to it in itself, I suppose. We need to hold onto a model of the future. That’s something I want to retain from Marxism, actually — is a kind of technocratic vision of the future. It doesn’t mean it has to be one that’s completely indifferent to the environment. I suppose that I am one of those people he would attack in the sense that what I would hope for is that there’s a managed solution to these things that would involve technology. As I sort of mention in the book about rationing — I don’t see a problem with a rationing of resources at some point. But I don’t see that as necessarily meaning that we would be immiserated. People are always bleating on about the Second World War, how great that was, about how great people felt during the time of rationing, and sort of how healthy people were as well. I think we’ve seen in a sense the results of the opposite of that — that having unlimited access to things doesn’t produce well-being or happiness. On the contrary, it produces a kind of generalised misery I think. I don’t have any problem with an idea of a rationing of resource at some point, which I think could be part of the solution here. But I do still believe civilisation is possible. I think the question is: How are things to be managed? Part of what I want to argue for is a defence of the concept of management as opposed to managerialism. It seems to me that the only solution to environmental catastrophe is a managed one or we’re already betting on the catastrophe already having happened, or already acting like the catastrophe already has happened. I find libidinally alienating these visions of a sort of return to organic societies, little villages. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2194

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the ‘On Sacrifice’ style analysis — rationing as a deliberate managed constraint, relevant to my interest in decorum and necessary limits versus unconstrained access.
• SEED: Distinction between management and managerialism could anchor an essay on municipal/state competence versus bureaucratic bad faith.
• XREF: connects to: Curbing excessive consumption is the environmental remedy failing most badly — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2985; Depression and anxiety are captured forms of discontent that rationing and austerity could release. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 164; Unlimited self-optimization becomes a new coercion producing depression and burnout (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Mental illness is captured discontent that points toward a constructive austerity. #corroborates (0.90) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 164
• Depression and anxiety are captured forms of discontent that rationing and austerity could release. #corroborates (0.87) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 164
• Austerity is structurally sadistic and anorexic fantasy miscalculating bodily limits #complicates (0.82) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1972
• Unlimited self-optimization becomes a new coercion producing depression and burnout #corroborates (0.78)
• Capitalism profits by manufacturing inherent dissatisfaction that can be sold to indefinitely #expands (0.76) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2250
• Curbing excessive consumption is the environmental remedy failing most badly #complicates (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2985