Consumerism  

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This structure, built for the Great Exhibition of 1851, symbolizes the rise of consumer culture and the start of industrial design.

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Consumerism is a term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchasing material possessions and consumption. It is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen.

In economics, consumerism can also refer to economic policies that place an emphasis on consumption, and, in an abstract sense, the belief that the free choice of consumers should dictate the economic structure of a society (cf. Producerism, especially in the British sense of the term).

Criticism

Anti-consumerism, Affluenza

Overview

Since consumerism began, various individuals and groups have consciously sought an alternative lifestyle. These movements range on a spectrum from moderate "simple living", "eco-conscious shopping", and "localvore"/"buying local", to Freeganism on the extreme end. Building on these movements, ecological economics is a discipline which addresses the macro-economic, social and ecological implications of a primarily consumer-driven economy.

In many critical contexts, consumerism is used to describe the tendency of people to identify strongly with products or services they consume, especially those with commercial brand names and perceived status-symbolism appeal, e.g. a luxury car, designer clothing, or expensive jewelry. Consumerism can take extreme forms such that consumers sacrifice significant time and income not only to purchase but also to actively support a certain firm or brand.

Opponents of consumerism argue that many luxuries and unnecessary consumer products may act as a social mechanism allowing people to identify like-minded individuals through the display of similar products, again utilizing aspects of status-symbolism to judge socioeconomic status and social stratification. Some people believe relationships with a product or brand name are substitutes for healthy human relationships lacking in societies, and along with consumerism, create a cultural hegemony, and are part of a general process of social control Dr. Jorge Majfud says that "Trying to reduce environmental pollution without reducing consumerism is like combatting drug trafficking without reducing the drug addiction."

In 1955, economist Victor Lebow stated:

"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate".

Critics of consumerism include Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, German historian Oswald Spengler (who said, "Life in America is exclusively economic in structure and lacks depth"), and French writer Georges Duhamel, who held "American materialism up as a beacon of mediocrity that threatened to eclipse French civilization".

In an opinion segment of New Scientist magazine published in August 2009, reporter Andy Coghlan cited William Rees of the University of British Columbia and epidemiologist Warren Hern of the University of Colorado at Boulder, saying that human beings, despite considering themselves civilized thinkers, are "subconsciously still driven by an impulse for survival, domination and expansion... an impulse which now finds expression in the idea that inexorable economic growth is the answer to everything, and, given time, will redress all the world's existing inequalities." According to figures presented by Rees at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America, human society is in a "global overshoot", consuming 30% more material than is sustainable from the world's resources. Rees went on to state that at present, 85 countries are exceeding their domestic "bio-capacities", and compensate for their lack of local material by depleting the stocks of other countries, which have a material surplus due to their lower consumption.

Not all anti-consumerists oppose consumption in itself, but they argue against increasing the consumption of resources beyond what is environmentally sustainable. Jonathan Porritt writes that consumers are often unaware of the negative environmental impacts of producing many modern goods and services, and that the extensive advertising industry only serves to reinforce increasing consumption. Likewise, other ecological economists such as Herman Daly and Tim Jackson recognize the inherent conflict between consumer-driven consumption and planet-wide ecological degradation.

See also

-ism

• Affluenza
• Anthropological theories of value
• Anti-consumerism
• Bourgeois personality
• Commercialism
• Commodity fetishism
• Conspicuous consumption
• Consumer activism
• Consumption (economics)
• Economic materialism
• Frugality
• Geoffrey Miller (evolutionary psychologist)
• Horace Kallen philosopher
• Hypermobility (travel)
• Greed
• Homo consumericus
• "Keeping up with the Joneses"
• Moonlight clan
• Philosophy of futility
• Planned obsolescence
• Post-materialism (economics)
• Steady state economy
• The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers
• The Century of the Self, a documentary by filmmaker Adam Curtis released in 2002
• Simple living