Consumerism

From Sustain

The tale of our sorry collapse into mindless consumerism is well documented. We are mostly aware of the dynamics of our society, but impotent to do anything about even our own impulses, never mind address structural failings. Sooner rather than later, our rampant consumption will re-introduce us to a world of scarcity. Unfortunately, the brand of scarcity we will encounter won’t respond to technological advance in the manner we have become accustomed to.

A hugely over-simplified story of consumerism, giving more purpose to active agents than is deserved, runs thus:

- We got better at making things;

- Those making the things became wealthier;

- After some time, it was looking as though we may soon have enough things;

- The wealthy realised that they needed new things to make to further increase their wealth and power;

- It was spotted that we are impressionable, status-conscious monkeys that could be manipulated to want more things;

- A self-sustaining cycle of ever-increasing consumption was instituted to ensure the wealthy stayed that way.

It is important to recognise that most in the West have enjoyed increased material wealth from this phenomenon. Unfortunately, we're starting to run out of stuff and our population is set to increase 50% in the next 40 odd years – we can't tread this path indefinitely.

Here it is: Consumerism_detail

The next section, closely linked, relates to our Growth fetish