Fewer, Richer, Greener

23Dematerialization: Where Did My Record Collection Go?

So how does the idea that economic growth helps the environment actually work? It’s quite a claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Let’s delve a little deeper, into the idea of economizing, which is doing more with less—not doing less, which some people advocate, but doing more while using less. Less labor, less energy, fewer natural resources, and less pollution.

All creatures, even primitive single-celled organisms, economize: they do the best they can with resources that are costly and difficult to acquire. But human beings have found a new way to economize, which is to dematerialize—to substitute experiences, which in some sense are made out of nothing, for possessions. We also use technology to replace large and heavy things with small and light ones that provide the same or greater utility.

Almost a century ago, in his book, Nine Chains to the Moon, the visionary inventor Buckminster Fuller called this process ephemeralization.¹ Since Latin is often clearer than Greek, we’ll call it dematerialization. It’s part of the larger theme of greater efficiency in the use of resources.

The World’s Largest Vinyl Mine

In the 1960s and 1970s, just about every music fan amassed an impressive record collection, often weighing hundreds of pounds and taking up the better part of a room. In an advertisement, Warner Brothers joked about this fantastically prolific use of plastic, saying that Warner made ...