Consumerism is the practice and policies of protecting the consumer by

publicizing defective and unsafe products, misleading business practices, etc.

In 1899, a book on consumerism published by Thorstein Veblen, called The
Theory of the Leisure Class, examined the widespread values and economic
institutions emerging along with the widespread “leisure time” at the beginning
of the 20th century. In an economic sense, it is related to the
predominantly Keynesian idea that consumer spending is the key driver of the
economy and that encouraging consumers to spend is a major policy goal. It
is the theory that states people consuming goods and services in large
quantities will be better off. In it, Veblen “views the activities and spending
habits of this leisure class in terms of conspicuous and vicarious consumption
and waste. Both are related to the display of status and not to functionality or
usefulness.”

Benefits

 Economic growth: It drives economic growth. When people spend more on

goods/services produced in a never-ending cycle, the economy grows.
 Boosts innovation and creativity: Since consumers are actively looking for the
next-best products/services to buy, producers/manufacturers are under
constant pressure to innovate.

Cons

 Environmental degradation: Increasing demand for goods put extensive

pressure on natural resources such as water and raw materials. It also results
in excessive use of energy.
 Moral degradation: Increasing consumerism tends to shift away societies from
important values such as integrity. Instead, there is a strong focus on
materialism and competition.
 Higher debt levels: It also increases debt levels in society. The number of
people taking short term loans such as payday loans to buy luxury goods has
increased drastically.
 Mental health problems: It increases debt levels which in turn results in mental
health problems like stress and depression.

In economics, consumerism may refer to economic policies that emphasize

consumption. In an abstract sense, it is the consideration that the free choice
of consumers should strongly orient the choice by manufacturers of what is
produced and how, and therefore orient the economic organization of a
society. In this sense, consumerism expresses the idea not of “one man, one
voice”, but of “one pound, one voice”, which may or may not reflect the
contribution of people to society. However, consumerism has been widely
criticized for its economic, social, environmental, and psychological
consequences.
Consumerism
Consumerism is a term which is often misused and misunderstood. Several times it is wrongly
used to refer to consumer affluence, conspicuous consumption etc. The true meaning of
consumerism is quite different from these.

Consumerism is a collective endeavor of the consumers and social institutions to protect the
rights of the consumers.

It is a social force:
(i) to educate the consumers,

(ii) to pressurize the government to adopt necessary measures to protect the consumer interests
by guaranteeing their legitimate rights, and

(iii) to make the business more honest, efficient, responsive and responsible.

Utility of Consumerism:
Well-organized and dynamic consumerism may be expected to produce the following results:

(i) Producers and sellers will not take the consumer for grated. ‘When consumers are strong
enough to protect their rights, the business will be compelled to shun unfair trade practices.

(ii) Consumerism will provide feedback for the business. It will enable the producers understand
consumer needs and wants. This will assist in the more effective implementation of the marketing
concept or the societal marketing concept, depending upon the nature of consumerism.

(iii) Producers will be able to enlist the support of consumers to minimize the imperfections on the
distribution front. Several times the supply position is made worse by hoarding and black-
marketing by traders. Further, many sellers have a tendency to charge a price which is higher
than the actual by giving one or other reason. There is no reason why the consumer and
producer should not co-operate to get rid of the unscrupulous traders.

(iv) Consumerism will make the government more responsive to consumer interests, prompt it to
take necessary statutory measures, and make the required institutional arrangements to
safeguard rights.
Consumerism Assignment Speech Script

What is Consumerism and Living Small?

Consumerism. It’s the ideology that promotes us to spend our money to consume goods, in
the belief that it will keep our economy running smoothly and give jobs and income to many
people all around the globe. It makes us believe that living bigger and better is the most
desirable option. Though it has become clear that with people over consuming products due
to this order, that it is really killing our society instead of aiding it. So why have most people
not considered defying this consumerism and living smaller? Living smaller means applying
things such as only purchasing needs not wants, not disposing of something that can be fixed
and ignoring advertisements to your lifestyle. It has numerous benefits such as reduced
spending, less debt, less stress, better for the environment and no constant upgrading. The
truth is that the global consumerism issue is that people are not living small, and that we need
to switch to this minimal lifestyle to counteract the negative affects of consumerism.

How does this affect consumption among consumers?

When you buy into consumerism and live big, you are helping increase the consumption of
goods and services. However, living smaller means that the amount that you consume will
decrease and this may be more beneficial that the former

These wasted resources can have a significant negative impact on the both people and the
environment. When we start to purchase more what we want as well as what we need,
resources such food are being wasted instead of allowing people who have low or no incomes
to go hungry and starve. Moreover, the resources used to make these goods all come from
nature, so more trees have to be cut down and more fossil fuels are utilised, further damaging
the
Consumerism
Consumerism - what does it mean? Is it a positive or negative concept or can it be both?
What drove the development of the consumer society and how has our society changed as a
result of it?

Definition
Consumerism – how can we define it? If one consults a dictionary or encyclopedia there are
two aspects of consumerism.

The first is consumerism meaning a social and economic state that encourages more and more
buying of goods and services. It is often used negatively to refer to the overconsumption of
goods or to purchasing more for the satisfaction of owning than from a need.

The second is a movement to look after the consumers' interests and work towards making
sure that products and services are covered by regulations that guarantee the rights of the
consumer.

The first definition is the one we are interested in here. What drives us to go shopping for
more and more? Can we continue to consume at the rate we do today?

History
Consumerism - how and when did the urge for more material goods develop? There are
various theories, but it is a fact that consumption grew at the end of the 17th century, at the
time of the Industrial Revolution, which, as you have learned, first took place in Britain.
Society was changing with the emergence of a middle class who had the means to attain more
luxury items. Buying patterns changed as goods became more easily available, including
exotic goods from the colonies. Keeping up with new fashion trends stimulated consumption,
not only in clothing but also in ornamental goods. Mass production created more goods for
sale and cheaper prices and therefore goods were available and affordable by a wider range of
people in society.

After WWII
In the 20th century, the consumption of goods increased at a tremendous rate powered by
politics, media and culture.
After WWII marketing experts planned to stimulate the US economy. There was a lot of
money available from war income and new ways of spending it emerged: holidays, domestic
equipment, cars and housing.
In the late 1940s and early 50s, new products appeared: TVs, transistor radios, polaroid
 cameras, freezers, new fabrics, plastic goods such as Tupperware (1948). And computer
technology developed.

TV advertising fuelled the demand for goods. Advertisers convinced people to buy more and
more goods and services and the economy boomed.

Here is a quote from a Victor Lebow, a US economist, in 1955.

"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. The measure of social status, of acceptance, of
prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. [-----] The greater the pressures
upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend
to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats, his
home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies. [-----] We need things consumed,
burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing pace." (Victor Lebow,
1955 Journal of Retailing)
Was Lebow advocating consumerism or being ironic about it?

The amount spent on household goods and services globally, passed $20 trillion in 2000, four
times more than in 1960. (Worldwatch Institute)

Resources

Tasks about consumerism

 Consumerism - Tasks

Videos and Film

 The Story of Stuff - Introduction , Extraction , Production , Distribution

 The Story of Stuff - Consumption , Disposal

 Inequality for all (documentary film)

Economy

 The Fifties and the Sixties

 Multinational Corporations

 Global Marketing and Brand Building

 Protest

 Occupy Wall Street

 Two Raging Grannies

Environment

 Climate Change and Global Warming

 Wasting Our Future?

Project
Consumerism - Project
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and
services in ever-increasing amounts. With the industrial revolution, but particularly in the 20th
century, mass production led to overproduction—the supply of goods would grow beyond
consumer demand, and so manufacturers turned to planned obsolescence and advertising to
manipulate consumer spending.[1] In 1899, a book on consumerism published by Thorstein
Veblen, called The Theory of the Leisure Class, examined the widespread values and economic
institutions emerging along with the widespread "leisure time" in the beginning of the 20th
century.[2] In it, Veblen "views the activities and spending habits of this leisure class in terms of
conspicuous and vicarious consumption and waste. Both are related to the display of status and
not to functionality or usefulness."[3]
In economics, consumerism may refer to economic policies that emphasise consumption. In an
abstract sense, it is the consideration that the free choice of consumers should strongly orient the
choice by manufacturers of what is produced and how, and therefore orient the economic
organization of a society (compare producerism, especially in the British sense of the term).[4]
Consumerism has been widely criticized by both individuals who choose other ways of
participating in the economy (i.e. choosing simple living or slow living) but also by experts
evaluating the effects of modern capitalism on the world. Experts often highlight the connection
of consumerism with issues like the growth imperative and overconsumption which have larger
impacts on the environment, including direct effects like overexploitation of natural resources or
large amounts of waste from disposable goods, and larger effects like climate change. Similarly,
some research and criticism focuses on the sociological effects of consumerism, such as
reinforcement of class barriers and creation of inequalities.

Term[edit]
The term consumerism has several definitions.[5] These definitions may not be related to each
other and confusingly, they conflict with each other.

1. One sense of the term relates to efforts to support consumers' interests. [5] By the early
1970s it had become the accepted term for the field and began to be used in these
ways:[5]
1. Consumerism is the concept that consumers should be informed decision makers
in the marketplace.[5] In this sense consumerism is the study and practice of
matching consumers with trustworthy information, such as product
testing reports.
2. Consumerism is the concept that the marketplace itself is responsible for
ensuring social justice through fair economic practices.[5] Consumer
protection policies and laws compel manufacturers to make products safe.
3. Consumerism refers to the field of studying, regulating, or interacting with the
marketplace.[5] The consumer movement is the social movement which refers to
all actions and all entities within the marketplace which give consideration to the
consumer.
2. While the above definitions were becoming established, other people began using the
term consumerism to mean "high levels of consumption". [5] This definition has gained
popularity since the 1970s and began to be used in these ways:
1. Consumerism is the selfish and frivolous collecting of products, or economic
materialism. In this sense consumerism is negative and in opposition to positive
lifestyles of anti-consumerism and simple living.[5]
2. Consumerism is a force from the marketplace which destroys individuality and
harms society.[5] It is related to globalization and in protest against this some
people promote the "anti-globalization movement".[6]
In a 1955 speech, John Bugas (number two at the Ford Motor Company) coined the
term consumerism as a substitute for capitalism to better describe the American economy:[7]
The term consumerism would pin the tag where it actually belongs – on Mr. Consumer, the real
boss and beneficiary of the American system. It would pull the rug right out from under our
unfriendly critics who have blasted away so long and loud at capitalism. Somehow, I just can't
picture them shouting: "Down with the consumers!"[8]
Bugas's definition aligned with Austrian economics founder Carl Menger's vision (in his 1871
book Principles of Economics) of consumer sovereignty, whereby consumer preferences,
valuations, and choices control the economy entirely (a concept directly opposed to
the Marxian perception of the capitalist economy as a system of exploitation). [9]
Vance Packard worked to change the meaning of the term consumerism from a positive word
about consumer practices to a negative word meaning excessive materialism and waste. [10] The
ads for his 1960 book The Waste Makers prominently featured the word consumerism in a
negative way.[10]

History[edit]
Origins[edit]
The consumer society emerged in the late seventeenth century and intensified throughout the
eighteenth century.[11] While some[which?] claim that change was propelled by the growing middle-
class who embraced new ideas about luxury consumption and about the growing importance
of fashion as an arbiter for purchasing rather than necessity, many [quantify] critics argue that
consumerism was a political and economic necessity for the reproduction
of capitalist competition for markets and profits, while others[who?] point to the increasing political
strength of international working-class organizations during a rapid increase in technological
productivity and decline in necessary scarcity as a catalyst to develop a consumer culture based
on therapeutic entertainments, home-ownership and debt. The "middle-class" view argues that
this revolution encompassed the growth in construction of vast country estates specifically
designed[by whom?] to cater for comfort and the increased availability of luxury goods aimed at a
growing market. Such luxury goods included sugar, tobacco, tea and coffee; these were
increasingly grown on vast plantations (historically by slave labor) in the Caribbean as demand
steadily rose. In particular, sugar consumption in Britain[12] during the course of the 18th century
increased by a factor of 20.
Critics[which?] argue that colonialism did indeed help drive consumerism, but they would place the
emphasis on the supply rather than the demand as the motivating factor. An increasing mass of
exotic imports as well as domestic manufactures had to be consumed by the same number of
people who had been consuming far less than was becoming necessary. Historically, the notion
that high levels of consumption of consumer goods is the same thing as achieving success or
even freedom did not precede large-scale capitalist production and colonial imports. That idea
was produced[by whom?] later[when?], more or less strategically, in order to intensify consumption
domestically and to make resistant cultures more flexible to extend its reach. [13][14][page  needed][15][need quotation
to verify][16][need quotation to verify]

Culture of consumption[edit]

Bernard Mandeville's work Fable of the Bees, which justified conspicuous consumption

The pattern of intensified consumption became particularly visible [when?] in London where
the gentry and prosperous merchants took up residence and promoted a culture of luxury and
consumption that slowly extended across socio-economic boundaries. [citation needed]
Marketplaces expanded as shopping centres, such as the New Exchange, opened in 1609
by Robert Cecil in the Strand.[sentence fragment][citation needed]
Shops started to become important as places for Londoners to meet and socialise and became
popular destinations alongside the theatre. [citation needed]
From 1660, Restoration London also saw the growth of luxury buildings as advertisements for
social position, with speculative architects like Nicholas Barbon and Lionel Cranfield operating.
[citation needed]

Industries like glass making and silk manufacturing grew, and much pamphleteering of the time
justified the private vice for luxury goods as promoting the greater public good. [citation needed]
This then-scandalous line of thought caused great controversy with the publication of the
influential work Fable of the Bees in 1714, in which Bernard Mandeville argued that a country's
prosperity ultimately lay in the self-interest of the consumer. [17][page  needed]
Advertising plays a major role in fostering a consumerist society, [18] marketing goods through
various platforms in nearly all aspects of human life, and pushing the message that the
potential customer's personal life requires some product.[citation needed]
Consumerism is discussed in detail in the textbook [which?] Media in Everyday Life.[citation needed]
The authors[who?] write, "Consumerism is deeply integrated into the daily life and the visual culture
of the societies in which we live, often in ways that we do not even recognize" (Smulyan 266).
[citation needed]

She[who?] continues, "Thus even products that are sold as exemplifying tradition and heritage, such
as Quaker Oats cereal, are marketed through constantly changing advertising messages"
(Smulyan 266).[citation needed]
Advertising changes with the consumer in order to keep up with their [whose?] target, identifying
their[whose?] needs and their associations of brands and products before the viewer is consciously
aware.[citation needed]
Mediums through which individuals are exposed to ads change and grow continuously as
marketers try to get in touch with their audience and adapt to ways to keep audience attention.
[citation needed]

For example, billboards, invented around the time that the automobile became prevalent in
society, aimed to provide audiences with short details about a brand or a "catch phrase" that a
driver could spot, recognize, and remember (Smulyan 273). [citation needed]
In the 21st century there is an extreme focus on technology and the digitization of culture. [citation needed]
Much of the advertising takes place in cohesive campaigns through various mediums that make
ignoring companies' messages very difficult. [citation needed]
Aram Sinnreich writes[where?] about the relationship between online advertisers and publishers and
how it has been strengthened by the digitization of media, as consumers' data is always being
collected through their online activity (Sinnreich 3). [citation needed]
In this way consumers are targeted based on their searches and bombarded with information
about more goods and services that they may eventually "need", positioned as needs rather than
as wants.[citation needed]
Josiah Wedgwood's pottery, a status symbol of consumerism in the late 18th century

These trends[which?] accelerated in the 18th century as rising prosperity and social mobility
increased the number of people with disposable income for consumption. [citation needed]
Important shifts included the marketing of goods for individuals (as opposed to items for the
household), and the new status of goods as status symbols, related to changes in fashion and to
be desired for aesthetic appeal, as opposed to just their utility. [citation needed]
The pottery entrepreneur and inventor, Josiah Wedgwood, noticed the way that aristocratic
fashions, themselves subject to periodic changes in direction, slowly filtered down through
different classes of society.[citation needed]
He pioneered the use of marketing techniques to influence and manipulate the movement of
prevailing tastes and preferences to cause the aristocracy to accept his goods; it was only a
matter of time before the middle classes also rapidly bought up his goods. [citation needed]
Other producers of a wide range of other products followed his example, and the spread and
importance of consumption fashions became steadily more important. [19]

Mass production[edit]
Main article: Mass production

The Industrial Revolution dramatically increased the availability of consumer goods, although it

was still primarily focused on the capital goods sector and industrial infrastructure (i.e., mining,
steel, oil, transportation networks, communications networks, industrial cities, financial centers,
etc.).[20] The advent of the department store represented a paradigm shift in the experience of
shopping. Customers could now buy an astonishing variety of goods, all in one place, and
shopping became a popular leisure activity. While previously the norm had been the scarcity of
resources, the industrial era created an unprecedented economic situation. For the first time in
history, products were available in outstanding quantities, at outstandingly low prices, being thus
available to virtually everyone in the industrialized West.
By the turn of the 20th century, the average worker in Western Europe or the United States still
spent approximately 80–90% of their income on food and other necessities. What was needed to
propel consumerism, was a system of mass production and consumption, exemplified by Henry
Ford, an American car manufacturer. After observing the assembly lines in the meat packing
industry, Frederick Winslow Taylor brought his theory of scientific management to the
organization of the assembly line in other industries; this unleashed incredible productivity and
reduced the costs of commodities produced on assembly lines around the world. [21][need quotation to verify]
Black Friday shoppers, DC USA

Consumerism has long had intentional underpinnings, rather than just developing out of
capitalism. As an example, Earnest Elmo Calkins noted to fellow advertising executives in 1932
that "consumer engineering must see to it that we use up the kind of goods we now merely use",
while the domestic theorist Christine Frederick observed in 1929 that "the way to break the
vicious deadlock of a low standard of living is to spend freely, and even waste creatively". [22]
The older term and concept of "conspicuous consumption" originated at the turn of the 20th
century in the writings of sociologist and economist, Thorstein Veblen. The term describes an
apparently irrational and confounding form of economic behaviour. Veblen's scathing proposal
that this unnecessary consumption is a form of status display is made in darkly humorous
observations like the following:
It is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people
will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in
order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; so that it is by no
means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate, for people to go ill clad in order to
appear well dressed.[23]
The term "conspicuous consumption" spread to describe consumerism in the United States in the
1960s, but was soon linked to debates about media theory, culture jamming, and its
corollary productivism.
By 1920 most Americans had experimented with occasional installment buying. [24]
In the 21st century[edit]

McDonald's and KFC restaurants in China

Madeline Levine criticized what she saw as a large change in American culture – "a shift away
from values of community, spirituality, and integrity, and toward competition, materialism and
disconnection."[25]
Businesses have realized that wealthy consumers are the most attractive targets of marketing.
The upper class's tastes, lifestyles, and preferences trickle down to become the standard for all
consumers. The not-so-wealthy consumers can "purchase something new that will speak of their
place in the tradition of affluence". [26] A consumer can have the instant gratification of purchasing
an expensive item to improve social status.
Emulation is also a core component of 21st century consumerism. As a general trend, regular
consumers seek to emulate those who are above them in the social hierarchy. The poor strive to
imitate the wealthy and the wealthy imitate celebrities and other icons. The celebrity
endorsement of products can be seen as evidence of the desire of modern consumers to
purchase products partly or solely to emulate people of higher social status. This purchasing
behavior may co-exist in the mind of a consumer with an image of oneself as being an
individualist.
Cultural capital, the intangible social value of goods, is not solely generated by cultural pollution.
Subcultures also manipulate the value and prevalence of certain commodities through the
process of bricolage. Bricolage is the process by which mainstream products are adopted and
transformed by subcultures.[27] These items develop a function and meaning that differs from their
corporate producer's intent. In many cases, commodities that have undergone bricolage often
develop political meanings. For example, Doc Martens, originally marketed as workers boots,
gained popularity with the punk movement and AIDs activism groups and became symbols of an
individual's place in that social group. [28] When corporate America recognized the growing
popularity of Doc Martens they underwent another change in cultural meaning through counter-
bricolage. The widespread sale and marketing of Doc Martens brought the boots back into the
mainstream. While corporate America reaped the ever-growing profits of the increasingly
expensive boot and those modeled after its style, Doc Martens lost their original political
association. Mainstream consumers used Doc Martens and similar items to create an
"individualized" sense identity by appropriating statement items from subcultures they admired.
When consumerism is considered as a movement to improve rights and powers of buyers in
relation to sellers, there are certain traditional rights and powers of sellers and buyers. [29]
American Dream has long been associated with consumerism.[30][31] According to Sierra Club's
Dave Tilford, "With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world's
paper, a quarter of the world's oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19
percent of the copper."[32]
China is the world's fastest-growing consumer market. [31][33] According to biologist Paul R. Ehrlich,
"If everyone consumed resources at the US level, you will need another four or five Earths." [34]

Criticism[edit]
This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise
the article's neutral point of view of the
subject. Please integrate the section's contents into the article as
a whole, or rewrite the material. (July 2011)

Main articles: Anti-consumerism and Affluenza

Buy Nothing Day demonstration in San Francisco, November 2000.

Shop Until You Drop by Banksy, in London.

Since consumerism began, various individuals and groups have consciously sought an
alternative lifestyle. These movements range on a spectrum from moderate "simple living",
[35]
 "eco-conscious shopping",[36] and "localvore"/"buying local",[37] to Freeganism on the extreme
end. Building on these movements, the discipline of ecological economics addresses the macro-
economic, social and ecological implications of a primarily consumer-driven economy.
In many critical contexts, consumerism is used[by whom?] 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.[38] As stated by Gary Cross in his book "All Consuming Century: Why Consumerism
Won in Modern America", he states "consumerism succeeded where other ideologies failed
because it concretely expressed the cardinal political ideals of the century – liberty and
democracy – and with relatively little self-destructive behavior or personal humiliation." He
discusses how consumerism won in its forms of expression. However, many people are skeptical
of this over-romanticised outlook.
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 [39] in modern
society. Critics of consumerism point out that consumerist societies are more prone to damage
the environment, contribute to global warming and use resources at a higher rate than other
societies.[40] Dr. Jorge Majfud says that "Trying to reduce environmental pollution without reducing
consumerism is like combatting drug trafficking without reducing the drug addiction." [41]
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.[42]
Figures who arguably do not wholly buy into consumerism include Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,
[43]
 Pope Francis,[44] German historian Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), who said: "Life in America is
exclusively economic in structure and lacks depth" [45]), and French writer Georges
Duhamel (1884–1966), who held American materialism up as "a beacon of mediocrity that
threatened to eclipse French civilization". [45] Pope Francis also critiques consumerism in his book
"Laudato Si' On Care For Our Common Home." He critiques the harm consumerism does to the
environment and states, "The analysis of environmental problems cannot be separated from the
analysis of human, family, work-related and urban contexts, nor from how individuals relate to
themselves, which leads in turn to how they relate to others and to the environment." [46] Pope
Francis believes obsession with consumerism leads individuals further away from their humanity
and obscures the interrelated nature between humans and the environment. Francis
Fukuyama blames consumerism for moral compromises.[47]
Another critic is James Gustave Speth. He argues that the growth imperative represents the
main goal of capitalistic consumerism. In his book The Bridge at the Edge of the World he notes,
"Basically, the economic system does not work when it comes to protecting environmental
resources, and the political system does not work when it comes to correcting the economic
system".
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."[48] 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.[48] Not only that, but McCraken indicates that the ways in which consumer goods
and services are bought, created and used should be taken under consideration when studying
consumption.[49]
Furthermore, some theorists have concerns with the place commodity takes in the definition of
one's self. Media theorists Straut Ewen coined the term "commodity self" to describe an identity
built by the goods we consume.[50] For example, people often identify as PC or Mac users, or
define themselves as a Coke drinker rather than Pepsi. The ability to choose one product out of
an apparent mass of others allows a person to build a sense "unique" individuality, despite the
prevalence of Mac users or the nearly identical tastes of Coke and Pepsi. [50] By owning a product
from a certain brand, one's ownership becomes a vehicle of presenting an identity that is
associated with the attitude of the brand. The idea of individual choice is exploited by
corporations that claim to sell "uniqueness" and the building blocks of an identity. The invention
of the commodity self is a driving force of consumerist societies, preying upon the deep human
need to build a sense of self.
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.[51] Likewise, other ecological economists such as Herman Daly and Tim
Jackson recognize the inherent conflict between consumer-driven consumption and planet-wide
ecological degradation.

Consumerism as cultural ideology[edit]

In the 21st century's globalized economy, consumerism has become a noticeable part of the
culture.[52] Critics of the phenomenon not only criticized it against what is environmentally
sustainable, but also the spread of consumerism in cultural aspects. However, several scholars
have written about the intersection of consumer culture and the environment. Discussions of the
environmental implications of consumerist ideologies in work by economists Gustave
Speth[53] and Naomi Klein,[54] and consumer cultural historian Gary Cross.[55] Leslie Sklair proposes
the criticism through the idea of culture-ideology of consumerism in his works. He says that,
First, capitalism entered a qualitatively new globalizing phase in the 1950s. As the electronic
revolution got underway, significant changes began to occur in the productivity of capitalist
factories, systems of extraction and processing of raw materials, product design, marketing and
distribution of goods and services. […] Second, the technical and social relations that structured
the mass media all over the world made it very easy for new consumerist lifestyles to become the
dominant motif for these media, which became in time extraordinarily efficient vehicles for the
broadcasting of the culture-ideology of consumerism globally. [56]
As of today, people are exposed to mass consumerism and product placement in the media or
even in their daily lives. The line between information, entertainment, and promotion of products
has been blurred so people are more reformulated into consumerist behaviour. [57] Shopping
centers are a representative example of a place where people are explicitly exposed to an
environment that welcomes and encourages consumption. Goss says that the shopping center
designers "strive to present an alternative rationale for the shopping center's existence,
manipulate shoppers' behavior through the configuration of space, and consciously design a
symbolic landscape that provokes associative moods and dispositions in the shopper". [58] On the
prevalence of consumerism in daily life, Historian Gary Cross says that "The endless variation of
clothing, travel, and entertainment provided opportunity for practically everyone to find a personal
niche, no matter their race, age, gender or class."[59]
Arguably, the success of the consumerist cultural ideology can be witnessed all around the
world. People who rush to the mall to buy products and end up spending money with their credit
cards could become entrenched in the financial system of capitalist globalization.[57]