Nanci Olesen aka MOMbo

Not too long ago, Nanci Olesen joined Minnesota Public Radio's news team. Well-known in the Twin Cities for her MOMbo broadcasts, which used to be on KFAI community radio and later turned into podcasts, she has taken up residence at what MPR is calling the "family desk." With MOMbo, her self-appointed job was to dig around for stories "from the underbelly of motherhood."

A couple of days ago, Olesen did a story highlighting a sociologist named Juliet Schor, who studies the rise in consumption in the U.S., particularly focusing on consumerism in families.

What Schor had to say sounded pretty interesting. In the interview, she talked about the rapid acceleration of acquisition of "stuff" by Americans. The amount of furniture we buy, for instance, has doubled -- attributable to the availability of cheap everything at places like Ikea. "Fashion" has moved beyond clothes to many other items that used to be considered durable goods. More things are disposable, which of course circles back around to non-sustainability.

In an essay in the Boston Review, Schor wrote, "Somebody needs to be for quality of life, not just quantity of stuff." Quality of life does not come from income alone, she wrote:

adequacy [of income] is relative -- defined by reference to the incomes of others. Without an analysis of consumer desire and need, and a different framework for understanding what is adequate, we are likely to find ourselves, twenty years from now, arguing that a median income of $100,000 -- rather than half that -- is adequate.

Because of the pervasive media images of the lifestyles of the upper class as norm, she said in the MPR interview, we are no longer trying to keep up with the Joneses -- we're trying to keep up with the Gateses. (This resonates with one of the points in a book I am currently reading, The Trap by Daniel Brook. He reports that 80 percent of young adults surveyed think they will be wealthy.)

Which takes me to another book I finished recently, Bill McKibben's Deep Economy. I plan to include some quotes from it and thoughts soon.

Anyway. Thanks, Nanci, for the interview with Juliet Schor. Glad to have you at MPR.