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Consumerism is the American thought process that drives the American economy. In one way or another every American citizen participates in the consumer economy, but the consumer based economy has many faults that come along with it. The most prominent issue is that the earth cannot support the current economic output, and the world’s resources are quickly dwindling. Every person can alter their lives in small and large ways that can improve the planets outlook but for true improvement the human race must pull together to change the way we consume as humans.
The world as a whole depletes far too many resources for the earth to replenish at the rate the world consumes the resources. Americans in particular, consume more than any other nation on the planet by a fairly considerable margin. If the entire world consumed resources at the same rate as the average American, 4 earths worth of resources would be needed to maintain a sustainable economy. Currently humanity as a whole is one and a half earths worth of resources, so that means humanity would have to cut is consumption by 33% to return to a level where the earth could replace its resources as quickly as humanity depletes the resources. Earth Overshoot day is a day that we pass every year, and when that day arrives it means humans have used all the resources that the earth can produce every year. This day has been occurring earlier every year, meaning we are moving in the wrong direction in terms of sustainability. The severity of the resource crisis is quickly getting worse and the need to alter our mindset as a species is becoming more imperative.
As an American, I already tend to consume more than the average human, but as an American I feel I consume at a fairly average leve...
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...ts became instantly noticeable and detracting from their lives and by then it will most likely be too late to repair the damage we have caused. People do not like to change their life styles and even if the entire world knew of all the damage being done by the current consumer economy most people would not alter their actions in any noticeable way.
The world is trapped by our own consumer economy. We are destroying our own world through our waste of resources and irresponsible spending. Yet we continue to buy and ignore all of the warning signs around us. Humans do not want to change their lifestyles and even if they did want to, switching to near complete sustainability is so difficult many people cannot make the change. People want to be responsible, except when being responsible includes making tremendous sacrifices to prevent issues that will never affect them.
The chosen article is Two Cheers for Consumerism by James Twitchell. In this article he talks about consumerism, commercialism, and materialism. He argues the stand point of consumers and the role they live by every day. In other hands the critics, Academy, gives the consumers and overview description to their consumers.
As of today, many Americans will continue to bypass the greediness many industries like Disney promote. In fact, with the national debt, many shoppers will continue to simply lounge around in the shopping centers purchasing their wants. After all, individuals cannot resist the stores latest hottest trends and spatial designs. In other words, our society will continue to be hungry for material satisfaction. Consumerism has replaced society’s sense of desires for life’s necessities with insatiable search for commodities, because consumerism is based on purchasing new goods without the attention to its needs, advertisements will continue to expand resulting in materialism as a major life philosophy.
Through out the world, thousand of starving people look wherever they can for scraps of food or spare change. On the other hand, millionaires and billionaires can buy a private jet to fly anywhere on a whim while eating the finest of foods. In the middle, ordinary people work regular twelve-hour days in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. Each person can be in a different category. Most often you can tell which category an individual is in by looking at the things they own. Consumerism, or the push to buy goods and services, is not a new thing. It has been around since the very first sale or trade centuries ago. Although today, controversy has arisen about the rapidly growing rate of consumerism and how it affects the economy around the world. Is the current rate of consumerism a good or bad effect on the economy? Also, what are some ways to help people understand consumerism better? As I do research and explore, I hope to find the answers to these questions in order to understand the issue better myself.
America’s current standard of living is going to cause our demise. Consumerism is a problem throughout Americans culture since mass production began in the late nineteenth century. The obsession with consumerism has led to mindless wastes of resources, a diseased society and economic instability. Rick Wolff, a professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, states “economics of capitalism spread consumerism—now uncontrolled, ecologically harmful, and fiscally disastrous—throughout the United States”. Wolff’s viewpoint on consumerism aligns with mine. Believing that an economy based on promoting endless consumption is volatile and unsustainable. Consumerism can be analyzed and seen to be embedded by corporations and politicians.
‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley is a science-fiction book in which people live in a futuristic society and a place called the World State. In ‘Brave New World’, Aldous Huxley used the idea of consumerism to describe the behaviors and lives of the citizens of the World State. The practice of consumerism by the people of the World State fulfilled their satisfactory and happiness. However, it also blinded purity and truth among its people. Different classes and different genders of people practiced different acts of consumerism such as consuming soma, technology and bodies. They sought happiness from them and eventually these acts became a social norm. However, these practices of consumerism also had side effects. It blinded truth such as
Today, as we know it, we live in a consumer filled world. People buy things that they want and need. When they see something cool advertised on t.v., they get it. It is something that every human enjoys doing, getting something and being able to show it off. This is also how the economy works, the process by which consumers spend.
The massive amount of consumerism and materalistic ideology came from the decade of the 1980s and proved to be the time of wanting to have luxrious items throughout the daily routine of being an American citizen. The American culture of massive consumerism of the 1980s was influenced by the elements of the American Dream, the iconic pop stars and events, the deep recession troubling the lives of many, and the nationalistic pride that was shown through the actions of recreations and sports. Not only was the 1980s influenced by the culture of consumerism, but it impacted the future generations to only want to become a bigger and better version of the 1980s.
As demonstrated in Henry David Thoreau’s passage from Economy, Wendell Berry’s from Waste, and John Kenneth Galbraith’s passage from The Dependence Effect, America’s overly advancing society thrusts ideas like materialism and the “love of buying” into the interior of every American’s mind. Even the American Dream, a fundamental notion to our nation, now unites all people of all cultures under materialism and greed. The highly capitalist American society distorts values such as the “quest for freedom” into a search for cash and the frontiers no longer exist. America’s increased production yields the increased wants of consumers and as Galbraith states, “One man’s consumption becomes his neighbor’s wish (479).” With this reckoning, the more wants satisfied, the more new ones born. Berry, on the other hand, more out rightly attacks America’s capitalist economy and the wastes it has produced when saying “The truth is that we Americans, all of us, have become a kind of human trash, living our lives in the midst of ubiquitous damned mess of which we are at once the victims and the perpetrators (485).” America’s corporate capitalism and consumerism culture undermines our well-being in that we deplete Earth's limited resources, produce excess waste, and indulge excessively in unnecessary luxuries that ultimately result in our unhappiness and financial downfall, while trapping us in an endless cycle of dependency.
While humans are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental issues that are occurring in the world, most human systems are still unsustainable. Being sustainable in a society means that humans treat Earth like it has a limited supply of resources that need to be carefully managed in order to prevent damage to the world around us (Chiras, D. D., 2016). So, being unsustainable is the opposite; when humans treat the world like they are dominant over it, as well as believing that the Earth has an unlimited supply of resources that should be consumed by humans. Human beliefs and practices influence unsustainability, which can, and often do, correspond with the root cause of the problem.
During the Progressive Era, America experienced a shift from the production of capital goods, such as railroad equipment or steel, to consumer goods. As a way of subliminally enforcing the belief that mass consumption was a freedom, many companies began to name their products with the word “liberty” or “…used an image of the Statue of Liberty” (Foner 686). This devious method of advertising made consumers associate products with freedom, which sparked the belief that consumerism was associated with their rights and freedoms as an American citizen. Because of this, there was also a shift in political activism, urging the United States to indulge in the world of consumerism. Much like voting, the ability to take part in mass consumerism was beginning
Mankind simply has failed to do what he was entitled to do which was to be a steward of the earth. Man has developed a way of life that is completely not sustainable. The amount resources man uses completely depicts that future generations will not have any and there is a possibility that there might not be a generation after all if we continue to do so. Ishmael instantly became one of the most influential books on my mentality that I have ever read because it gave me a different outlook on the way that we live life. Society tells us that it right and just and there is nothing to worry about when we need to. It is time that we take on our roles to enforce sustainability. This generation is the only hope that we have because past generations have failed as well. We are one step closer to the end of it. I would recommend that anyone looking to practice to enforce sustainability read Ishmael because it is a must. We can either work to enforce sustainability or we have another option that firmly many do not agree with. We can believe in Elon Musk the greatest entrepreneur of our time. Elon firmly believes in sustainability, but damn knows for a fact that humans will never practice sustainable ways of life. Before the amount of resources run out, it is good time to go to Mars.
Webster's dictionary defines consumerism as "the economic theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is beneficial." today we are surrounded by a culture of things and possessions:a materialistic world.consumption of materialistic goods has encroached upon every sphere of our lives and we don't even realise it.at first products had a value of necessity in our lives.but now they are sign of choice, social status and identification.the more we advance technologically and socialy the more we need products to keep up with the times.but do people really need all the things they buy?consumerism today is all about people feeling the need to buy more and more material goods to attain some sort of satisfaction.
In conclusion, everything that we have learned this quarter has shown the truth about the current state of consumerism. That it is a state that has been created by a lie, and has grown with lies, and it is a state of existance that stomps on the human race each day with a huge iron toe boot. And I believe that this state will be changed into a perfect state of being, a state that will not view humans as expendable resources, but as living and breathing people.
“People recognise themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobiles, hi-fi sets, split level homes………social control is anchored in the new needs which the consumer society has produced." (Marcuse,1968:24)To what extent are we controlled by the consumer society we live in?
The single most important environmental issue today is over-consumerism, which leads to excess waste. We buy too much. We think we always need new and better stuff. Will we ever be satisfied? There will always be something better or cooler on the market. Because we live in a capitalistic consumer culture, we have absorbed things like: “Get it while the getting’s good,” “Offer ends soon, buy while it lasts,” “For great deals, come on down…Sunday Sunday Sunday!” We, kids from 1 to 92, have become saturated with commercials like: Obey your thirst. How much of our consumption is compulsive buying, merely obeying our momentary thirst? Do we actually need all that we buy? Could we survive efficiently, even happily, without making so many shopping center runs? Once after I made a Target run with mom, I noticed that most of the bulkiness within my plastic bags with red targets symbols on them was made up of the products’ packaging. I then thought about all the bags that were piled on the floor near us…all of the bags piled on the floors of many homes throughout America daily.