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out of stock

                                                      “Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock”.

This curt announcement, written in neat letters, appeared on a building located in a blighted neighborhood in east London. It is the latest incursion into public space by the renowned graffiti artist, Bansky. Encountering the artwork neatly summarized in the blog you are reading greatly diminishes the impact of a chance encounter in real time and space. Nonetheless, it serves a compelling reference to an appalling and disheartening 99% statistic currently being bantered as the ‘Have-Nots’. However, it also ignores a crucial question –

 

                             What is the lifestyle this 99% ordered that is increasingly out of reach?

 

For a substantial percent of the 99 the lifestyle required by the native plants and animals with whom they share their habitat is probably not included. Instead, it may entail a playroom stocked with electronic toys and flat screen TV, fashion-driven wardrobe updates, a home dispensary of obsolete convenience devices, fuel cheap enough to be wasted, food abundant enough to be discarded.

 

Bansky’s pithy declaration is a compelling reminder that real ‘want’ is present amid the ‘plenty’, but it does not address the current definitions of desire and necessity that may exceed carry-capacities and its dire pragmatic implications

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