They should be responsible for defending the consequences of the alt’s material implementation—current economic models are too entrenched to critique away without a feasible blueprint for change.

The difficulty of following these critiques from American Legal Realists and these other heterodox authors to any normative conclusion, however, seems two-fold. On the one hand, to think outside of consumption seems in some ways to border on a theological aspiration, to be ushered into the responsibility of remaking society according to some almost other-worldly dimensions: an economic order that conceives progress beyond growth, a socio-political structure that allows for systemic change without reducing the possibilities of human freedom, the normative agenda to substantiate egalitarian relationships, a global order that preserves the victories of industrial capitalism while simultaneously transcending its costs (ecological, human, etc.). On the other hand, critiques of consumption-led governance seem both anachronistic and violent. They are anachronistic because they either too readily rely on the possibilities of the Enlightenment assumption that there is a clear set of ‘truths’ that once disseminated to the population will enact meaningful change (e.g., if particular industries or products are demonstrated to be unsustainable to the environment, populations will demand alternatives) or they overly invest in the possibility of some benevolent, universalizing spirit that is capable of trumping the politico-economic exigencies of personal well-being (e.g., individuals are naturally willing to collectively do the right thing for the greatest amount of people even at personal cost in a consistent manner). They are violent because in calling for systemic change, such reversals would almost undoubtedly entail significant and most likely intensely hostile opposition from entrenched actors who benefit from the current economic legal arrangements. A liberal mode of economic management (e.g., consumerism) is itself undoubtedly more coercive and violent than its advocates tend to admit (e.g., it is part of the very problems it claims to address), but where the fundamental point of disagreement arises is over the question whether the current trajectory is occasioning a level of lost opportunity costs that warrant the effort and violence most likely necessary to enact an alternative mode of political life. Furthermore, if we accept the proposition of the necessity of coercive change, it still begs the question to what extent its proponents within intellectual circles are really willing to fully participate and accept the potential costs of radical struggle – they may, to put it vulgarly, simply have too much comfort to lose. To what extent, in short, are current left-oriented calls within academia and policy circles merely reflecting the more general postmodern crisis of identity versus the partisan militant residing at any revolutionary core? In giving normative bite to any alternative model, as the American Legal Realist Robert Hale pointed out, it seems undoubtedly the case that any future system would only find new constraints and forms of violence to sustain its cohesiveness.

[T]he systems advocated by professed upholders of laissez-faire are in reality permeated with coercive restrictions of individual freedom, and with restrictions, moreover, out of conformity with any formula of “equal opportunity” or of “preserving the equal rights of others.” Some sort of coercive restriction of individuals, it is believed, is absolutely unavoidable, and cannot be made to conform to any Spenserian formula.161

If fundamental reform to consumer-centric governance is inherently violent – in that it will necessarily create only new winners and losers, and not without potentially violent conflict and disruption – the challenge is therefore not just a question of ethics or political will (e.g., the current distribution of resources is unjust/violent), but the feasibility of re-conceptualizing efficiency, both in terms of strategy and tactics: in other words, upon what standard might we measure progress (or stated differently, what are the lost opportunity costs of continuing on the current trajectory versus an alternative economic model), and how might this be actually accomplished.162 To set out on such a task is exactly the stakes of future progressive scholarship, and upon which we wish to close our study with a brief reflection.