Who wins in consumerism?

No one wins. It perverts the very idea of winning by defining it in terms of accumulation and advantage over others. In this game, even the ostensible winners lose because, dammit, we’re all in this together!

What is to be won is the long-term welfare of humanity, not the advantage of some over others.

Desire is a bottomless pit. It never gets filled by shoveling stuff into it. A system that’s founded on creating more desire only increases the sum total of discontent in the end.

It seems that by consumerism, you mean an artificial increase in demand for product. Marketers are the people who do most of this work to increase demand for whatever. In calling this demand artificial, one makes the assumption that people might not otherwise want the stuff.

I guess I don’t really believe that. Maybe in the specific, marketers can elevate demand, but in general, people want stuff that meets basic needs, and stuff that makes their lives easier and stuff that entertains them or makes their world more beautiful.

We want this stuff in the context of other people. We want this stuff because status matters—that is built into us via evolution—and stuff is a symbol of status. This is not to say there are no other symbols of status, just that stuff is one of those symbols. It is perhaps the easiest one to see.

Stuff is certainly stuff, but it is full of meaning for us in ways besides it’s overt utility. It shows our aesthetics. It shows things about what we like to do. It shows how we think. It shows what is important to us, and sometimes why it is important. It’s easier to see why something is important to someone when you see how they use it.

Consumerism, in this context, is helping people improve their status. This is something people want to do, whether or not there are marketers hanging around. Marketing, then, is a source of information about how to raise your status. It is about stuff, yes, but in large part it is about status and status enhancing stuff. That’s why there are so few commercials about how things actually work, and why this product works better than others. The Dyson Vacuum cleaner commercials are an example of what I mean.

If we think consumerism is merely about stuff, and not about status, then it is easy to shake a stick at it and complain about it and say it is only about accumulation and it is a waste. But if we try to use those arguments to slow the growth of consumerism, you will fail, because you are not addressing the real need people fill when they indulge in consumerism.

What is needed is another mechanism that people can “buy” into in order to raise their status. There are other models. Wampum. Potlatch. Those are two that come immediately to mind.

Unfortunately, stuff is not stuff. Stuff is status. Until we can find a way to change the meaning of stuff, we will forever be seeking it.

The people at the top win.

All that can be done is up to the individual, as always.

Like charity, consumerism begins at home.

Teaching our children that more ‘stuff’ is not the answer to lifes unhappy moments, that there is, ultimately, no real value in things. To be aware that while there is nothing wrong with wanting, to be able to determine a want over a ‘need.’

To make ourselves aware that it is the ACT of getting, not what is gotten that feels satisfying, and there are other ways to find enjoyment aside from the pursuit of product gluttony.

Bottom line, self awareness which is being able to tap into our subconscious programming and be discerning as to what it is we are REALLY seeking in the attainment of the insatiable drive for ‘more.’

Refusing to be a cog in the consumerism wheel and to be learn that the mantra of ‘less is more’ is a truism.

I have been to one shopping mall in the past 15 years, I could care less if I ever went to one ever again. I drive a 10 year old car, and will drive it til it blows up, spend very little on beauty products, prefer travel and experiences over stuff, and never, EVER, compare myself and what I have or don’t have to others.

I live simply, but very well, have everything I need, want for nothing and am content in my being. My spending choices are in this order.

Good food

Art and aesthetically enhancing my home which is my haven

Travel

Pets

Enough cash in the bank to work part time or not work at all for periods of time.

These are my spending priorities

@wundayatta

yep, as long as people continue to define themselves by what they have over who they are the consumerism wheel will keep spinning and the hamsters will keep getting caught in the spokes. lol

The big winners of course are the multinational corporations. The big losers are the common citizens in the developing countries from which the multinationals take the resources for the production of their products, meddle with human rights, e.g. even becoming complicit in political assassinations as far back as the 1913 murder of Mexican President Madero and his VP and the French Intervention of that same country in the 1860s and all colonisation in general. We all lose from an ecological standpoint. And just in case you thought peonage was only for the 3rd worlders, take a look at the effects of our system of debt-based consumerism and say hello to your fellow peons.

How much of your paycheck goes to debt maintenance? How much of your paycheck goes toward just the interest on that debt? Have you ever passed up a job you would have been happier doing because of looming monthly debt payments? Have you ever passed up a chance at a real life adventure such as cruising the Pacific or working as an aid worker in a foreign community because to go one or two months without a paycheck would put you permanently in arears? Welcome to modern slavery.

We should consume so we can live, rather than live so we can consume.

But even the CEOs of these companies that urge us to “buy, buy, buy” lose, inasmuch as they foist their ads on us so that they themselves can make the money to be even bigger consumers.

It’s an ouroboros of shame, really.

@aprilsimnel An ”..ouroboros of of shame..” nails the entire concept of consumerism.

Consumerism is how greed is ruining the deservedly good reputation of capitalism.

Many people, though, win with the results of consumerism, potentially. The push for consumer goods leads to exploitation, but also development.

In all honesty, the push that the market experienced because of it may have provided the benefits we have today that are due to globalization – most importantly, mass communication increases. So we may all win.

But, we’re seeing or have reached the point where consumerism stops being useful. People will continue to win with it, but we don’t know for how much longer. And unless we recognize the sheer force and influence consumerism has over us, we can’t really trumpet “personal responsibility.” I look forward to the day when we learn to live with less things, but of better quality.

The consumers as well as the manufacturers who are providing what it is that the consumers are consuming at a cost that both the manufacturer and consumer come to agreement on.

@thorninmud Thanks. How true.

@wundayatta Thought provoking answer. There is truth in that. Sustainable living might be tough to explain and sell, but the time approaches when it will do its own, very convincing marketing. You want to continue to survive? Seeking status in stuff leads to destruction and death. Seeking it in sustainability leads to continued life. Choose.

By the way, Wampum and “Potlatch”“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch are inspired examples. Wampum went the way of consumerism. In the end, it because stuff, and having more meant more status. Potlatch on the other hand was just the opposite. It was status through the redistribution of wealth. Elders and chiefs acquired it, then held feasts where they gave it to those who had none and thus gained status for themselves and for their tribe. Interestingly, both the Canadian and US Governments maintained a long ban on the custom, they found the idea so threatening.

@incendiary_dan If the ship goes down at sea, the people at the top go down with the ship. On the good ship Earth, there are no lifeboats.

@Coloma Great answer. I admire your lifestyle. One by one, as people adopt it, we will be a better planet and species.

@Espiritus_Corvus How true. And to answer your question, 0% of my paycheck is dedicated to debt service, and I plan to leep it that way. Granted it’s slavery, but slavery people willingly volunteer themselves into.

@flutherother GA. Very pithy way of putting it.

@aprilsimne Excellent point. There are no ultimate winners if we destroy our planet’s ability to sustain human life.

@iamthemob I guess you could call it a win if you manage to die happily before the end game. But if we stay the course of unsustainability, there are no long-term winners.

@12Oaks How so? Do you believe that the current level of exploitation of resources is sustainable and extensible to all 7 billion humans? Or is ending life on earth a win?

@ETpro – I agree – the problem with consumerism is that it front-loads the rewards and we are notoriously bad at gauging our lont-term needs against short-term ones – we’ll inevitably favor the short (and understandably so).

It becomes all the more difficult to make the responsible decisions when you have a culture that seems based on putting massive amounts of the cheap and plentiful right in front of you and says “Ooooh…see shiny? Buy now! Buy two because you may break one!”

Much of our consumer economy is now based on services instead of products, especially financial services. In addition to the environmental and spiritual degradation that results when we define our well-being and status in terms of how big a pile of luxuries we own, we now face the political threat that comes from extreme concentration of wealth in too few hands, especially in the hands of those that control the financial sector. A republican form of government cannot survive if the middle class disappears; it will degenerate into oligarchy or mob rule.

We can escape from consumerism by recognizing that not all services are equally valuable. We must invest massively in education, scientific research, the arts, healthcare, infrastructure, and other public goods. We must do so not only because these activities and projects are intrinsically valuable, but because it will suck up the excess wealth that is currently used to fund unnecessary wars and weapon systems, excessive consumption, and the corruption of our political process. (Campaign finance won’t work; the only way to get money out of politics is to redirect that money into something else.)

This won’t be easy. It turns conventional thinking on its head: we need higher taxes, not lower, and more entitlements, not less—most importantly the entitlement to post-secondary education.

Here’s a catch-phrase for opponents of consumerism to think about: “Austerity without poverty.”

@ETpro People on the top get first dibs on the lifeboats.

@incendiary_dan What, even the Captain?

@lloydbird Yep, and in the scenario of consumerism, their lifeboat is sheer material goods. Captains of industry aren’t exactly the type to go down with their ship.

@incendiary_dan “Captains of industry..” can usually levitate with ease.

@iamthemob Ha! “Buy two because you may break one.” How true given today’s drive for cost containment at any cost.

@incendiary_dan When it’s a planet that is sinking, there are no lifeboats. I agree, captains of industry aren;t know for going down with the ship. THey’re much more likely to go down with anything left in the employee pension fund. But again, Planet Earth isn’t a ship, and there are no alternative ports to strike out for.

@ETpro Yea, it’s not particularly sane. But still, a lifeboat isn’t a safe location, just a way to it. There are plenty of lifeboats, just nowhere to row it to.

CEOs of corporations.

@submariner Do you think the middle class will disappear?

Recommended reading:

Cohen, Lizbeth. A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America by Lizabeth Cohen (2003).

Cross, Gary. An All-Consuming Century (2000).

Phillips, Kevin. Wealth and Democracy (2000).

Reich, Robert. Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life (2008) and Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future (2010).

Veblen, Thorstein. Theory of the Leisure Class (1901).

Kevin Phillips was a speechwriter for Nixon and Reich was Clinton’s Sec’y of Labor. Their books are aimed at a general audience and are the easiest to read. The others are more scholarly. The Cohen book is the longest. I’ll also mention the work of Juliet Schor. I’ve heard her speak and read reviews of her work, which relates to this topic, but I haven’t read her books myself, so I haven’t listed them here.

@wundayatta, I’d say the middle class is contracting. If current trends do not change, then, yes, it will effectively disappear, and the country will be polarized between rich and poor.

@wundayatta It’s under very serious threat, and the Citizens United debacle of judicial activism will make the erosion accelerate. Here’s an interesting note on that. But we can do the same thing the people of Egypt did. We may have to at some point.

@submariner Thank you so much for the excellent reading list. I have added the books to my growing reading list.