More on delayed gratification

Rob Williams, a freelance journalist and former assistant to a Labour MP, echoes David Lammy’s call for delayed gratification (see 14 August 2008 post) in an article in the Guardian Comment is free blog today:

“if there is a common theme running through the last decade, indeed, the last 30 years, it is one of instant gratification for businesses, governments and for individuals. There has been a total unwillingness to plan, wait for something, to save or to look more than five minutes ahead.”

He hopes the credit crunch will bring delayed gratification back into fashion again:

“For a start deferred gratification (remember your sociology classes?) needs to become acceptable again. The right amount of money to have is actually not quite enough, so that you have to save for a treat, and even, shock, horror, go without another luxury to get what you want. If you really want that holiday, or car, then save up for it.”

His conclusion:

“plastic is no longer fantastic, and our flexible friends are now cracking the whip. Hopefully the lesson of the next couple of years will be ‘how I learned to stop worrying and love the downturn.’ “

It is amazing how creative New Labour and its supporters are when it comes to trying to get the rest of us to make do with less.

Sadly I expect this to be a common reaction to the economic downturn. If anything green trends are likely to be strengthened rather than weakened.