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Bigger than expected crowds turned out on "Black Friday," the traditional kickoff day for holiday shopping, and the day Adbusters had hoped would send a message of austerity to the the merchants of the US and Canada.

Instead the consumers sent a message to Adbusters--get out of my way. I am headed for the mall!

The Buy Nothing Day was inspired by the group's fear of a world wide ecological collapse unless consumers changed their ways.

Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation said:

“Our headlong plunge into ecological collapse requires a profound shift in the way we see things. Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great, but they are band-aid solutions if we don’t address the core problem: we have to consume less. This is the message of Buy Nothing Day.”

Lasn believes that consumers should start a permanent lifestyle change by resolving to consume less and produce less waste. With six billion people on the planet she thinks that it is up to the most affluent, the top 20 per cent that consumes 80 per cent of the world's resources, to set an example of austerity for the rest of the world.

While no doubt a nice idea the people at Adbusters are typical of many idealists, long on good intentions but short on good thinking. With the world's economic well being riding on consumption a sudden and ill thought out cutback in consumption, without massive social and economic changes in place beforehand, would crush the world economy like an eggshell and send the world spiraling off into global depression causing war, famine, pestilence, and death, basically the four horsemen of the Apocalypse on steroids.

This sort of program, albeit unintentional, has been tried before--they called it the Great Depression.

One obvious solution to the problems caused by the consumption habits of six billion people is to not have six billion people in the first place. Over population, and the exploitation of foreign workers, is a more serious threat to the ecology than excessive consumption. It is also far easier to fix than asking people to change their consuming habits.

First World campaigns for the empowerment of women in Third World countries, combined with high tariffs on goods made using exploited workers, will help reduce the population while assuring a better standard of living for the world's poorer nations. At the same time this will reduce excessive consumption in the First World countries by stemming the flood of cheap consumer goods that fuels over consumption.

As the massive crowds queuing up for bargains has demonstrated pious sentiments are no match for cheap consumer goods. As shopper Moragot Bodhavamik put it:

"I mean, a $20 printer. It's not going to get any cheaper than that."

Indeed and it is that sort of thinking that has doomed well meaning but unworkable anti-consumption campaigns. To be effective, change must be rooted in human nature and asking people to give up their wants and desires for nebulous and idealistic goals, is simply asking too much.