The happiness a person gets when they acquire a new toy is one of the simplest and most easily-appreciable joy to be found. It’s perhaps understandable, then, that such an easy source of happiness would be so commonly abused.
The use of tools is one of the things that makes us human, and when we get a new tool we’re naturally excited about all the things we can use it for. Of course, it’s the utility of the object that makes us happy, rather than the mere presence of the object. Yet it’s natural for people to think that just buying the thing will make them happy, because the happiness first appears when they first buy it and think about what they’re going to do with it.
Consumerism as a way of life, as an “ism”, implies the pursuit of possessions for their own sake, rather than for what you would use them for. Consumerism means buying cars that stay in the driveway, clothes that stay in the closet, exercise equipment that gets no exercise, and countless other expensive forms of junk that are bought in order to gather dust.
Consumerism sits at the nexus of a whole range of social and ethical questions. Do people expect their stuff to make them happy because they’re afraid of being poor? Or is it because they’re afraid of real, substantive interaction with other people? Or does the pursuit of material wealth simply represent the easiest and shallowest form of happiness, the path of least resistance?
Another argument is that advertising plays a role in encouraging consumerism. [See the Advertising topic for more information!] Advertising was initially created as a way to inform the customer about the uses of the product, but advertisers rapidly discovered that a good ad could get people excited about the product. The goal of an ad was no longer to give information but to tell a story–a story where the product is the protagonist. A good story can have a profound influence on a person’s values and expectations about the world. For example, if you read a lot of war stories you might get the impression that war is the only meaningful human pursuit, that there’s nothing to do in peacetime. Similarly, if a person is exposed to a lot of ads, they might get the idea that buying stuff is the only meaningful human pursuit, and may act accordingly.
Whatever the motivation of consumerism, the costs are very serious. Not only is consumerism an unfulfilling lifestyle, it orients the whole economy to produce things that can be easily bought and disposed of. Consumerism means more demand for things that are showy and useless, and less demand for more meaningful products, like art and education. Consumerism means more jobs of making and selling and advertising. But if people stopped listening to the ads, then fewer people would become advertisers. Maybe they would become teachers and artists instead.
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
How do you feel about consumerism? What do you think motivates it?
What do you spend your money on?
Do you wish that we as a society produced more or less of the things you spend your money on?
What do you think motivates people to spend beyond their incomes?
Do you use all the things you buy? What do you think should be done with the things people buy but don’t use?
Have you ever given away something expensive that you bought but didn’t use to someone who wanted it but couldn’t afford it?
How do you feel about secondhand stores?
The consumption of goods and services is a necessary part of any economy, but obsession with consumption, over-consumption, and even the worship of consumption, are common problems in a society as wealthy as ours.