Born to consume, live to contribute

"Ideal consumption maximize utility? Why not sacrificial contribution maximize utility?"

The demographer able to identify the 7billionth person is goin to be born in a village in India, i'm truly impressed on how precise he can be. However, the drastic exponential population growth overwhelmed me even more, in some sense it's a bit scary.

The ugly truth of population exponential growth had been posted by scientist I think as early as half century ago, but it didn't attract much attention from the public, guess the incentives from the economy has a masking effect on tht.

As a matter of fact, the main concern may not be whether the resources are sufficient or not, but whether it's used wisely and fairly. Obviously the consumption pattern diverse greatly especially among different economic status. In another word, the unreasonable consumption has result in wastage while other are greatly in lack. A case in point, an American food consumption rate can be as high as 12 times than Ethopian.

Why consumption rate tend to increase? Because we want to maximize our utility, to gain incentive or satisfaction, as the availability increased. That's what people says, you will never satisfy with the money you earn, you tend to spend RM2K when your salary is RM2.5K, you definitely will spend more than that if your salary had increased to RM250K.

And this relationship between availability of resources, consumption rate and utility satisfaction, truly act like an invisible hand which push mankind to a place where reverse is not possible.

Our desire to maximize material utility had boast up the material availability which designed to cater our desire. That's why in the market there won't be just plain water, but coke, rootbear, etc, even coke, the number of brands is increasing everyday. As more options are available to fulfill our desire, the more we will consume when we have the resources, and the circle go on and on in an increasing radius....

Isn't it beautiful if utility satisfaction is maximized by contribution instead of material consumption. Do you think finish up a hot, crunchy and tasty KFC set can really maximize your utility satisfaction? Or purchasing a hot, crunchy and tasty KFC set for a destitute pal who gonna die of starving? The world will perfect if people function on the basis of contribution instead of consumption, but I guess that is why we are called to be light and salt.

Economist are aware of the power of incentive driven economy, that they even name it "invisible hand", in another word it's so badly out of control.  Prof. Chan said, each economist know how bad the world can be if everyone function on incentive basis, but it was human sinful nature to be selfish, what to do....

Karl Marx effort in trying to shift consumption paradigm to contribution paradigm is something very bold. In his world, no one is function on the basis of individual incentive but a mutual incentive, common good. Just that, he forgot that such a perfect plan if executed by imperfect human being, it will no longer be perfect, and as every man is imperfect, this can't really work too.

A friend of mine told me, Karl Marx is great because he is trying to create heaven, just that without knowing the master of the Heaven. God created man with free will, a great power which is given to us because He loves us and He desire our loves too. We execute our free will to acknowledge our sense of responsibility and to respond to His great love. Hence, by taking away free will from someone, is like taking the greatest privilege of mankind, hence the people will suffer. 

With greater power come great responsibility, it's our free will to choose whether live to consume or contribute, but we ought to live with our decision. What is the core that decide our decision? Is our heart, how does your heart looks like will decide ur decision and therefore shape your life :>

All I wanna say is, to contribute gives higher utility. Look at Christ sacrificial contribution and you'll know it's true ><