Consumerism: Causes and Impacts

“The Earth has enough to cater to everybody’s need, not everybody’s greed”- Thus said the Father of our nation Mahatma Gandhi long back.

These words are even more relevant in present day world. Consumerism has become the order of the day. The more and more developed we become, the more and more we tend to consume.

What exactly is “CONSUMERISM”?

 Consumerism can be defined as a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase commodity goods in ever greater amounts. In simple words, it’s the desire to have more than you actually need. It is a state of mind which compels one to increase one’s want. The secondary wants become the primary wants thus converting the luxuries into necessities. 

Causes of consumerism

 What are our wants? The three S Sustenance, Security and Shelter form our basic wants. But what constitute these is a million dollar question. All three are culturally defined and relative in nature. The question of bare survival is quite irrelevant. Anybody just barely surviving can never go beyond it. It is those who have crossed over this level come in the cultural context of the three S. Now the question is “how to satisfy these” and not “what constitutes these”. The term ‘mere survival’ now gets substituted by ‘decent survival’. Decent survival has a class character attached to it. A particular class of people defined their own ways of decent living. To be guided by this definition one need not actually belong to a particular class, he can be an aspirant or even a potential aspirant for that class. It is the rise of these aspirant groups which results in more and more people aspiring to possess more and more goods. Globalization, liberal economy and spread of visual mass media play very crucial role in the expansion of these groups. Not only more and more goods becomes available they also become desirable and gettable. A tendency develops whereby the more you get the more you want to get. Thus emerges a consumer society wholly and solely governed by the market.

Consumerism is economically manifested in the chronic purchasing of new goods and services, with little attention to their true need, durability, product origin or the environmental consequences of manufacture and disposal. Consumerism is driven by huge sums spent on advertising designed to create both a desire to follow trends, and the resultant personal self-reward system based on acquisition. Materialism is one of the end results of consumerism.

“When you want more than you have you think you need; and when you think more than you want  your thoughts begin to bleed” ~Eddie Vedder (Society)

Impact of consumerism

 Educators blame it for distracting young people's interest from learning.  Psychologists attribute mass loneliness and depression to unrealizable expectations of what commodities can deliver to consumers.  Physicians decry the diseases, stress, and exhaustion linked to excessive work driven by desire for excessive consumption.

Consumerism has got three main problems. Firstly as one tends to consume more; one tends to deprive many others. Secondly, too much of consumption leads to resource depreciation. Thirdly and more importantly as one tends to consume more, one also tends to waste more. These wastes produce environmental hazards which are a major problem the world is facing today.

We all yearn for a comfortable life, but in doing so we forget that our resources are finite.  Going by American standards, we would need 5 earths to meet the current desires of humanity, and as we all know, our desires have no bounds. Consumerism causes the wasteful use of energy and material far above and beyond that needed for everyday living at a comfortable level. Money is not the only way to measure the cost of an item. When one adds up all the raw materials and energy that go into the goods and services consumed over an individual's lifetime, the toll on the environment is staggering. When this cost is multiplied out over the lifespan of families, cities and countries, the proportions are incredible.

“Only when the last tree has been felled, the last river poisoned, and the last fish caught, shall we realize that we cannot eat money” ~Cree Indian proverb

Our consumption of goods obviously is a function of our culture. Only by producing and selling things and services does capitalism in its present form work, and the more that is produced and the more that is purchased the more we have progress and prosperity. The single most important measure of economic growth is, after all, the gross national product (GNP), the sum total of goods and services produced by a given society in a given year. It is a measure of the success of a consumer society, obviously, to consume.

However, the production, processing, and consumption, of commodities requires the extraction and use of natural resources (wood, ore, fossil fuels, and water); it requires the creation of factories and factory complexes whose operation creates toxic by-products, while the use of commodities themselves (e.g. automobiles) creates pollutants and waste. Yet of the three factors environmentalists often point to as responsible for environmental pollution — population, technology, and consumption — consumption seems to get the least attention. One reason, no doubt, is that it may be the most difficult to change; our consumption patterns are so much a part of our lives that to change them would require a massive cultural overhaul, not to mention severe economic dislocation. A drop in demand for products, as economists note, brings on economic recession or even depression, along with massive unemployment.

Financial resources better spent on Social Capital such as education, nutrition, housing etc. are spent on products of dubious value and little social return. A simple table spreads light on this:-

Global Priority                                         U.S.D spent annually (in billions)

Cosmetics in the United States                                   8

Ice cream in Europe                                                   11

Perfumes in Europe and the United States                12

Pet foods in Europe and the United States                17

Business entertainment in Japan                               35

Cigarettes in Europe                                                  50

Alcoholic drugs in Europe                                       105

Narcotics drugs in the world                                    400

Military spending in the world                                 780

And compare that to what was estimated as additional costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:

Global priority                               U.S.D (in billions)

Basic education for all                                  6

Water and sanitation for all                           9

Reproductive health for all women             12

Basic health and nutrition                            13

                Source: United Nations Human Development Report 1998, Chapter 1, p.37

Just imagine how better the world would be if we were able to think ahead of our short term material desires!

"You work in a job you hate, to buy stuff that you don't need, to impress people that you don't like." ~Fight Club

Another fact that needs to be highlighted is the great difference between the standard of living of the rich and the poor- “In 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption, the poorest 20% just 1.5%!”

As hinted above, within the current economic system of “perpetual growth”, we risk being locked into a mode of development that is:

• destructive, in the long run, to the environment
• a contributing factor to poverty around the world
• a contributing factor to hunger amongst such immense wealth
• and numerous other social and ecological problems

Happiness can't be purchased in the marketplace, no matter how much advertising tries to convince you of it. Market driven forces have usurped the role once assumed by family, home, common-sense and community. We have been programmed to believe that we should pursue more money to spend on more things offered in the marketplace, to be living mannequins for the material adornments of the hour, our worth determined by what we have or don't have, rather than what we are, what we do or what we know.

Getting away from consumerism

Having fewer things means enjoying what you have more and actually getting to use it, thereby raising its intrinsic value. The less clutter that one has in their surroundings, the fewer distractions there are from the essentials such as family, friends, food, nature and study. With less clutter, one needs a smaller space in which to live comfortably and thus needs to work less to pay rent to store things. If you haven't used something in the last year, how much likelihood is there that you ever will use it?

Go home, twirl around and spend a good amount of time looking at and appreciating all the things you already have. Do you really need another pair of jeans? Or a better toaster? Chances are, the answer is no. Remember, it's not having what you want- it's wanting what you've got.

“We have a greed, with which we have agreed; and you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all, you wont be free”~ Eddie Vedder (Society)

Be sure that you are the right kind of person for this lifestyle. Are you controlled by greed? If you love to keep up with your neighbours, the latest fashion or fads, this is probably not for you. However, if you don't care about what other people think and have a passion to reduce or reuse to maintain our planet, then you should have no problem. Congrats and best of luck :-)