In his article, “Redefining the Good Life in a Sustainable Society” Lester W. Milbarth argues, that living a good life does not imply more consumption and the pursuit of material goods. He criticises the world of today and the people living in it by illustrating that we have created a society where growth and consumption are considered to be the two most important aspects of living a happy and prosperous life. In his view, quality of life can be achieved by a sense of happiness, physical well being, completeness, hope, and confidence more than continuing to grow in material consumption. His argument states that we are destroying the biospheric system and our lives are being spent in a way that would destroy many of our resources and would lead us to starvation and death. He goes on to say, that even if we became more technologically efficient throu

gh inventions we would not want to live a life that is defined by material quantities.

Milbrath emphasises that we should have a life style that is “non zero-sum” ( because I have it, you cannot have it ) and should divert us from a life that involves demands for goods, consumption, and production. We ought to enjoy a balanced lifestyle by directing ourselves to “non zero-sum” commodities such as love, self-governance, art and music. Milbrath, in his article, feels that we ought to change our consumption behaviour otherwise we will lose our understanding and feelings of love and commitment to our society.

Leo Buscaglia, a well-known author and professor, speaks about love as opposed to material goods. He believes, “If some day our society turns away from trying to find fulfilment in material goods, we may, indeed, find much greater fulfilment in love. We should be actively learning from each other how best to love”. ( Buscaglia, p. 202 ) As mentioned above Milbrath includes love as a “non zero-sum” commodity and goes on to say that if we want to live a better life, more time for participation in social and political affairs for the betterment of society as a whole is necessary. Also, he explains that if we keep on exploiting the world’s resources then there will be a time when most of us will be deprived of primary needs.

This paper disagrees with the latter view in that, we need to distinguish quality of life away from consumption of material goods. The si

Some topics in this essay:
Leo Buscaglia, Mark Sagoff, Lester Milbarth, Simple Life, “non zero-sum”, simple life, quality life, love co-operation personal, “non zero-sum” commodities, co-operation personal involvement, living simple life, people starve, technological changes, co-operation personal, world people, personal involvement, love co-operation, material consumption,