Ask yourself "Do I have the money to buy all the things I need?" If your answer is "no", it might be assumed you are dying of starvation, thirst, curable disease or exposure. If not, some people could argue that you are indeed living the good life. This is the overstated premise of the new book Affluenza by Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss that poses that we, as Australians, are greatly affected by a sense of imagined deprivation-a sense that is changing the way we work and live, and our relationships with both people and property. The authors show how this perceived lack is created and maintained, through the use and framing of language by such people as politicians and marketers.
Referring to what they call "the myth of the battler", the authors show how politicians manipulate the public conscious to further reinforce the illusion that we are being deprived. Exploring the downshifting trend reveals the practice is spread across all nationalities, ages and income brackets. Who downshifters are and why they do it is the essence of this chapter with charts and statistics to better illustrate the trend and the reasons behind it. Another book that illustrates this trend is The Big Shift by Bernard Salt.
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