BRING BACK RATIONING

There's a really interesting article from this weekend's Financial Times by Richard Tomkins which talks about ideas for the future of purchasing. It looks at how traditionally price altering prevented certain products being available to the masses, but now the problem is not the material possesions but dwindling natural resources and environmental issues, and offers a possible solution...

"How, I wonder, would people respond if the cost of motoring were pushed up to the point where only the very wealthy could afford to drive their cars and everyone else had to use public transport? Or if the cost of air travel were raised to the point where only the super-rich could afford to fly?"

"With just a little adjustment, it [rationing] could be updated to our more market-orientated times. We could each be given an annual quota of environmental credits, or e-credits, to spend as we wished on goods or services to which access was restricted on environmental grounds."

bring back rationing