What Charlie Peters can learn from Jerry Brown; the small-is-beautiful economy.

• Author: Levine, Arthur

Arthur Levine, an editor of The Washington Monthly from 1974 to 1975, is an associate editor of U.S. News & World Report.

Last year, America woke up with a hangover. Our profligate ways were coming back to haunt uson several fronts-including the environment, ethics, and the economy-and we didn't like it one bit. Cries for a less materialistic way of life, having long been voiced by The Washington Monthly and other Cassandras, were suddenly being echoed by larger publications: Newsweek, for instance, told us that "The 80s Are Over" and that "Greed Goes Out of Style." Time warned about our "Endangered Earth." The new sensitivity was indeed heartening, but it didn't cut to the heart of the issue: the nation's traditional approach to economic growth can't work anymore-we produce and consume too much that is harmful and unnecessary, and we ought to be considering alternatives to the "more is better" philosophy that undergirds our economy and our lives. We could make the needed changes without dooming ourselves to a bleak, primitive life of bean sprouts and self-denial.

It's not a new message, but it's one we finally ought to start listening to. Since the mid-1960s, a group of mavericks has been warning us about The Limits to Growth and urging us to realize that Small is Beautiful. For the most part, they've been dismissed as cranks and doomsayers. The most sensible of them aren't opposed to a vibrant economy, but they want to make sure that any growth we do experience is ecologically sound and humane.

The Monthly has, at times, talked eloquently about the perils of materialism. Unfortunately, the magazine's admirable values are not likely to be achieved within the vision of economic growth shared, in one form or another, by neoliberals and virtually every other influential voice.

If we're to be less materialistic, to give but one example, it means that we'll buy fewer products and there will be less revenue for business. The hard question that neoliberals and others haven't asked is: Can we have more time for families and volunteerism, less materialism, and still have high economic growth? I don't think so.

It's therefore worth understanding some of the wrong-headed assumptions that prompt us to support the growth economy -no matter what the consequences in our lives. First, economists tend to measure economic health by one indicator, the Gross National Product. But it's simply too vague to be of much use. If I get in a car accident and wreck...