living in a consumer society essay

The effects of living in a consumer society

Our society and economy are built on consuming goods. Production, distribution, and consumption make a never-ending circle, creating a consumer society. But what does consumer society mean?

What is a consumer society?

By definition, a consumer society (consumerism) is a society that cannot rise above the circle as mentioned earlier. It has ethical, sociological, economical, and anthropological meanings too.

According to a popular interpretation, living in consumerism gives us one purpose only: to create goods and services that people can own. The more you own, the more valuable you are. This approach leads to the withering of human relationships and personal values (such as love, acceptance, respect, openness, affection, empathy, and consideration).

Consumer society is related to capitalism. Mass production led to increasing salaries, and the expanded market made it possible to purchase goods… actually, more than needed. Previous luxury goods quickly become available, transforming the lifestyle of people, and the operation of a company. Companies now need to produce not only necessary goods but also luxury products.

The advantages and disadvantages of a consumer-based society

The goal is to make the upper levels of the Maslow pyramid achievable for the people. A consumer-based society provides multiple options to do so. With marketing and advertising, companies can keep society motivated to buy more and more products, or subscribe to their services.

However, living in a consumer-based society is not necessarily bad.

It is easy to live in a consumer society

First of all, not everyone over-consumes goods. Some people make conscious decisions and do not buy unnecessary things. Fortunately, the movement of conscious decisions is getting stronger every day.

But consumer society has one big advantage for sure: it is easy to purchase goods, which makes our lives easier and more comfortable.

The ‘dark side’: the growing ecological footprint…

Based on a sociological theory, living in a consumer society will not make people happier, despite having all the things they need.

By an economical approach, it is not sustainable to grow all the time, making it inevitable to have an economic crisis from time to time.

The biggest disadvantage is that by over-consuming, we harm our environment. Our ecological footprint is growing. Year by year, we consume more and more goods, thus overwhelming our environment.

Unfortunately, as we interfere with the circle of nature, we cause huge environmental pollution. We are the reason for 99% of environmental damage.

The root of the problem is that industries are using non-renewable resources for production. With renewable resources, we could avoid catastrophes. Also, factories should focus more on R+D to minimize the use of pollutant chemical compounds and create products with eco-friendly solutions.

The ecological footprint contains the use of:

• Built-up land,
• Carbon-needs.

Conclusion about consumerism

• Our society and economy are built on consuming goods. Consumerism means that the more you own, the more valuable you are.
• Companies must focus on creating values and establishing environmentally friendly production lines.
• We need to change our lifestyle and consume just as much as we need. Read more about minimalism .

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Why do we buy what we buy?

A sociologist on why people buy too many things.

by Emily Stewart

What’s at the root of modern American consumerism? It might not just be competition among the brands trying to sell us things, but also competition among ourselves.

An easy story to tell is that marketers and advertisers have perfected tactics to convince us to purchase things, some we need, some we don’t. And it’s an important part of the country’s capitalistic, growth-centered economy: The more people spend, the logic goes, the better it is for everybody. (Never mind that they’re sometimes spending money they don’t have, or the implications of all this production and trash for the planet.) People, naturally, want things.

But American consumerism is also built on societal factors that are often overlooked. We have a social impetus to “keep up with the Joneses,” whoever our own version of the Joneses is. And in an increasingly unequal society, the Joneses at the very top are doing a lot of the consuming, while the people at the bottom struggle to keep up or, ultimately, are left fighting for scraps.

I recently spoke with Juliet Schor, a sociologist at Boston College, about the history of modern American consumerism — what it’s rooted in, how it’s evolved, and how different groups of people have experienced it. Schor, who is the author of books on consumerism, wealth, and spending, has a bit of a unique view on the matter. She tends to focus on the roles of work, inequality, and social pressures in determining what people buy and when. In her view, marketers have less to do with what we want than, say, our neighbors, coworkers, or the people we follow on social media.

Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.

When I think of the beginning of what I perceive as modern American consumerism, I tend to go back to the 1950s and post-World War II, people moving to the suburbs in the cookie-cutter homes. But is that the right place to start?

Scholars differ on how to date consumerism. I would say we need to go back a bit earlier to the 1920s, which is when you get the development of mass production, which is what makes mass consumption possible. This perspective differentiates the 20th century from the earlier period, in which you have shopping and you have consumer fads. But what changes beginning in the 1920s is that the production technologies make it possible to produce things cheaply enough that eventually you can get a majority of the population consuming them.

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In addition to the things that are happening in factories, the automobile is the leading industry where you move from stationary production to a moving assembly line and big declines in costs. You also have the beginnings of the modern advertising industry and the beginnings of consumer credit.

Then it stalls out, of course, because of the Depression and the war. What happens in the 1950s is the model gets picked up again, this time with major participation by the federal government to spur housing, road building, the auto industry, education, and income. We get into durable goods and household appliances. As we know, that’s really confined to white people post-war.

I imagine it’s changed across the decades, but why do we buy things, often more than we need?

Scholars have different answers to this question. Economists just assume that goods and services provide well-being, and people want to maximize their well-being. Psychologists root it in universal dimensions of human nature, which some of them tie back to evolutionary dynamics. I don’t think either of those are particularly convincing.

The key impetus for contemporary consumer society has been the growth of inequality, the existence of unequal social structures, and the role that consumption came to play in establishing people’s position in that unequal hierarchy. For many people, it’s about consuming to their social position, and trying to keep up with their social position.

The Joneses at the very top are doing a lot of the consuming, while the people at the bottom struggle to keep up

It’s not necessarily experienced by people in that way — it’s experienced more as identity or natural desire. But I think our social and cultural context naturalizes that desire for us.

If you think about the particular things people want, it mostly has to do with being the kind of person that they think they are because there’s a consumption style connected with that. The role of what are called reference groups — the people we compare ourselves to, the people we identify with — is really key in that. It’s why, for example, I’ve found that people who have reference groups that are wealthier than they are tend to save less and spend more, and people who keep more modest reference groups, even as they gain in income and wealth, tend to save more.

Increases in inequality trigger what I’ve called “ competitive consumption ,” [the idea that we spend because we’re comparing ourselves with our peers and what they’re spending]. It can be hard to keep up, particularly if standards are escalating rapidly, as we’ve seen.

I want to dig into this idea of competitive consumption. How are we competing with each other to consume?

We have a society which is structured so that social esteem or value is connected to what we can consume. And so the inability to consume affects the kind of social value that we have. Money displayed in terms of consumer goods just becomes a measure of worth, and that’s really important to people.

How do we pick our “reference groups” if it’s not necessarily by wealth?

We don’t know too much about it. The argument that I made in [my book] The Overspent American was that in the postwar period, we had residentially-based reference groups. So it was really your neighborhood. People moved to the suburbs, and they interacted with people in the suburbs. Those were reference groups of people of similar economic standing because housing is the biggest thing that people buy, and houses tend to cost the same amount roughly within a neighborhood. Family and friends and social networks have always been really important.

Then the next big thing that happens is that you get more and more married women going into the workforce. That really changes reference groups, because they go from a flat social structure in the suburbs to a hierarchy in the workplace, particularly if you’re talking about better-remunerated work and white-collar work. People interact with people above and below them in the hierarchy. So people were exposed to the lifestyles of the people above them in the informal socialization that goes on in the workplace.

Then there is the impact of media, and increasingly now, social media. It’s the friends that you don’t actually know, the Friends on TV.

“Everybody they know is getting a house, and then they think, ‘Okay, am I just going to be a renter?’”

The reference groups change under different socioeconomic dynamics, but it mostly has to do with who you’re in contact with — what you’re seeing in front of you, so your neighbors, your coworkers, what you’re seeing on TV, in movies, on social media.

I think the key point here that differentiates this approach from that of many people who think about consumption is that it is not saying that it’s primarily driven by advertising. It’s not a process of creating desire where it didn’t exist. Critics of advertising say it’s just making people want stuff they don’t need and doesn’t have value to them. And you have to think, “Okay, why do they keep doing that? Why do they keep falling for the advertisements?” Many of the things that people desperately want are not particularly advertised. My approach is rooted in really deep social logic.

It can be very rational and compelling for people to do something that in the end doesn’t necessarily make them all that better off but that failing to do requires really a major effort and going against the social grain in a very big way.

People aren’t buying a house because they saw a commercial for it.

Exactly. It’s because their sibling got one and their best friend got one. Everybody they know is getting a house, and then they think, “Okay, am I just going to be a renter?”

How has the role of women evolved in consumerism? Women are often driving what to buy, right?

Men still dominate in certain kinds of purchases, and particularly the big ones. Women were responsible for everyday purchasing: food and apparel and things like that. There’s that old binary that “men produce, women consume,” which comes out of the differences in roles we have in our economy to a certain extent.

It’s fascinating, though, because I did some work trying to estimate models of differences between men and women and various kinds of consumption, and I never found any gender differences. But if you are looking at data from marketers, you see a disproportionate amount of spending done by women.

What about Black Americans? You alluded to this earlier, but they were at least left out of the ’50s version of consumerism.

The literature on Black Americans’ consumption is not large. If you look at it as a whole, you get a couple of things.

The biggest takeaway is that Black consumers are not that different from white consumers. Now, they do spend on different things, but it’s not like there are two types of consumers, whites and Blacks, and they have different orientations and dynamics. You have differences that are occasioned by some of the dynamics of structural racism — for example, the lower rates of Black homeownership. You’ve got some particular things that you see in part due to the high urban population. Urban dwellers spend more on shoes because they walk a lot more.

You have dynamics among Black consumers that are driven in part by racism. So, for example, sartorial choices in which middle-class and upper-middle-class Black people will have to spend more on their wardrobes in order to avoid being stigmatized in retail settings, the so-called “shopping while Black phenomenon.” Cassi Pittman Claytor, a sociologist at Case Reserve Western University, wrote a wonderful dissertation [ now a book ] on middle-class and upper-class Black people in New York City, and one chapter is on the shopping while Black question. Some of the consumption choices are driven by the attempts to manage racism and stigma in the workplace and outside of it.

Another important phenomenon around the racial discourse in consumption goes back to the period of enslavement of Black Americans in which consumption was a prohibited activity. You see the linkages from the period of enslavement where you’ve got white moralistic discourses against consumption [by] African Americans. A lot of this is in the context of poverty and poor Black people, and the illegitimacy of their consumption choices. And that’s still present today. It’s a really pernicious line of discourse back to enslavement and the ways in which whites attempted to control consumption [by] enslaved people.

What about anti-consumerism? How has that evolved, the people who try to reject consumerism?

There’s a long history of consumer rejectors. You have it in the 19th century as well, and often these were religious groups or sects of people who went into intentional communities, like the Shakers.

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To me what’s interesting about anti-consumerist movements of the current period is that there’s a certain kind of mainstreaming going on of them. They’re growing. My work is focused on the connections between work choices and consumer choices. So with downshifters, these are people who made decisions to work less and consume less, and it was often the decisions around work that were driving them. Many of them were not people who wanted to consume less in and of itself, but they wanted to take control of their time. And they were willing to make that trade-off.

You do have this minimalist movement now where the stuff is first, though it has a whole story around not getting tied to a burnout job. It’s connected with financial independence and this big “FIRE” movement — financial independence, retire early — and that’s really mainstream. It has much less of a countercultural aspect of it.

You’ve got people coming from the ecological side of things, like buy-nothing groups, and some of these are really big now. They have an ethic of anti-consumerism.

What we’re not sure about is how much participating in one of these actually reduces people’s consumption of new items. But people who participate in buy-nothing groups, most of them don’t buy nothing.

Has the conversation around consumerism and the environment picked up? Should we be talking about consumerism more in the context of saving the planet?

I think we should, and there are two parts to it. One is consuming differently, and the other is not consuming as much. So, volume and composition. To meet climate targets, we need to do both.

There are also issues of inequality of consumption. Look at the inequalities of income and wealth, which have led to these really gross disparities — the excess consumption of people at the top and the deprivation of huge numbers of people both domestically and abroad. It’s not just the bottom, it’s a big swath of the population that doesn’t have enough. So the distribution of consumption is really key, and a lot of the discourse around climate ignored that for a long time. The Green New Deal really put it at the center — it doesn’t lead with a critique of consumerism by any means, but it’s about meeting people’s needs and equity. It has a lot of implications about how we live.

“From 1991 to 2007, the number of pieces of apparel people were buying went from 34 to 67. That number hasn’t budged in 10 years.”

The climate situation does compel us to look differently. In Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth , a book I wrote which is now 10 years old, one of the things I looked at was the volume of consumption of consumer goods over the decade before the crash [ahead of the Great Recession]. There was a massive speedup in what I call the cycle of acquisition and discard, just the volume of things people were buying. The fast fashion model that we saw in apparel happened in all sorts of other items, too.

The crash led to a hangover in which you haven’t seen that acceleration again, but it was just a period that showed how dysfunctional the consumer system has become.

Did the Great Recession change how we’re behaving and what we’re buying?

It really slowed down that cycle of acquisition and discard. From 1991 to 2007, the number of pieces of apparel people were buying, on average, went from 34 pieces of new apparel a year to 67. That number hasn’t really budged in the last 10 years.

We haven’t had a massive discontinuity in how the consumption system is operating, but people had less money. And that’s part of the rejecter dynamic — when it’s more difficult for people to participate in that system, either because of its growing cost or their own incomes stagnating, they are likelier to reject it.

It will be interesting to see whether there are any wider impacts of Covid and the fact that people lived with not much more than basic necessities for a while. My own view is that the work patterns are really key in driving consumption. The standard economic view is that it’s the consumer decisions and desires that drive work patterns, and I don’t think that’s the way it works. I think that work patterns actually end up driving consumption.

People make decisions about work, and the hours of work and the incomes associated with them are fixed with the decision. In general, if I decide to take my job as a professor, it has a salary that goes with it, and then that’s what drives my consumption decisions because it drives my income.

If I can’t work this hard anymore, I’m going to go part-time and my income gets cut in half, then I have to adjust my consumption. And that’s not to say it doesn’t go in the other direction — if I want to buy a house, I am going to work some more. But this is my analysis of how the work and spending sides fit together, which is that the work side is a little more dominant.

So we are entering a moment where lots of people have been sitting at home for a year and a half, and as you said, there’s a lot of pent-up demand. Plenty of people I know are ready to spend. Is it odd that we’re responding to the end of a crisis by spending money?

We’re just talking about the people who have it. One of the things about the pandemic is that it made the inequalities in income and spending power more visible to many Americans.

You had so many people who just were struggling through the pandemic to meet basic needs. If you think of that as a working-class phenomenon, you also had this middle-class phenomenon of people whose salaries continued. They were stuck in their houses, so the money was coming into their bank accounts every month and they didn’t have much to spend it on at all. There are people with considerable disposable income right now. We’re going to see a burst of spending now, and we’ll see how long it lasts.

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Consumption and Consumer Society

• First Online: 08 September 2023

Cite this chapter

• Dilip S. Mutum   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9857-1164 5 &
• Ezlika M. Ghazali   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7824-4433 6  

Part of the book series: CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance ((CSEG))

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This chapter explores the intricate relationships between consumption, consumer society, and marketing's substantial role in economic development. It delves into the premise of consumer sovereignty, where consumers influence various aspects such as public policy, social welfare, and environmental health through their buying patterns. The critical question posed is the definition of a sovereign consumer and how this notion leads to consumer empowerment. As consumer influence expands, businesses must reshape their interactions with customers, acknowledging that many still remain vulnerable due to particular constraints and marketing practices. Consequently, the chapter emphasizes the necessity to craft strategies that promote consumer empowerment while mitigating their vulnerabilities in the marketplace.

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Mutum, D.S., Ghazali, E.M. (2023). Consumption and Consumer Society. In: Consumers, Society and Marketing. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39359-4_1

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Introduction

Effects of consumerism on the society, effects on consumerism on the environment, effects of consumerism on health, role of politicians and the media in promoting consumption, controlling consumerism.

Consumerism refers to the process by which individuals acquire new goods and services without making some important considerations. Some of these considerations that the consumers do not mind are their need for the product and the durability of the product. They also do not mind the effects of the manufacture and disposal of the product to the environment. Companies spend huge sums of money to advertise their products so as to create a desire for the product by the consumers. The advertisements convince the consumers that the products are very important and that it is very beneficial for them to acquire the products. Those who acquire the products are convinced that they have made an achievement. Consumerism leads to materialism where consumers are preoccupied with the acquisition of material objects, comforts and considerations and have no concern on the spiritual, intellectual, and cultural values. Consumerism has many effects on the society. The common trends of buying adequate supply of life’s necessities, community life, a stable family and healthy relationships changes to a situation where individuals have a great desire for new things and the money to buy them with little or no concern on the utility of the new products. The individuals and organizations that benefit from consumerism encourage individuals to discard old products either because they are not durable or because their fashion is old and outdated. Consumerism is the principle cause of many negative issues in the environment. It leads to pollution and depletion of natural resources. Consumerism has many effects on the health of consumers. The attitudes of the public to food and food supplements affect their health in a great way. Consumerism leads to the society demanding health services instead of accepting what is already available. Politicians and the media play great roles in promoting consumption. Consumerism has many effects on the society, environment, and the health of consumers and politicians and the media play a major role in promoting consumption.

Society is one of the fields that have heavily been affected by consumerism. Consumerism causes individuals to spend money on issues that are not necessary. Individuals tend to spend much money in buying goods of dubious value and little social return instead of spending the money in social capital such as education, housing, nutrition and others (Shukla 2). The consumer pays more money for the new products whose prices are higher so as to perceive the consumers that they are very important. Many individuals acquire the products on credit which is very expensive. When one purchases a new product like an automobile, he or she spends extra money in registration, insurance, repair, maintenance, and others. The increased demand for new products have increased competition among manufacturers and new products are emerging every day. The consumers on the other hand continue spending more money in buying the new products that are in fashion. Eventually, the rooms available in many homes are inadequate to hold all the products that the owners of the homes buy. New purchases lead to orphaned and unwanted things in many homes. This leads to wastage of good land can be used for farming. Warehouses are built in the land to store the extra products that the consumers do not use in their homes. As a result of consumerism, much money and other resources are wasted.

Consumerism affects the interaction between individuals in a society. The quest for more money to acquire material things preoccupies individuals to the extent that they have no time for other individuals in the society (Shukla 4). Spiritual values are underplayed where individuals no longer attend churches and to not see the importance of attending the money. Community gatherings have also been neglected for individuals go out to look for money to help them acquire material things. People have no time for their neighbors and do not even mind knowing their names because taking interest in them wastes time that could be used to acquire more money. Parents have no time for their children and end up employing baby sitters to cater for the children. Day care and rest homes have been charged with the responsibility of providing wisdom and tradition to the young children. Parents to the children are engaged in activities that can help them earn more money. The quality of products that individuals possess determines their class. They interact with those who belong to their class. This leads to discrimination of the less fortunate and those who cannot afford expensive products. As a result, personal relationships are affected and interactions reduce because everyone in the society is busy looking for money.

Consumerism has affected the lifestyles of people in society. People no longer focus on simplicity but concentrates on life that is more lavish and full of material comforts (Shukla 6). Individuals have come to believe that their lives will only be possible if they attain some products that they have not yet acquired so far. Instead of living in a healthy balanced society, individuals are turning themselves into human consumer goods. Many people are engaged in issues such as weight training, cosmetic surgery, breast reduction, diet centers, permanent eye make-up, collagen injections and others. Individuals spend a lot of money in trying to become what they are not.

Consumerism leads to an increase in crime rates. Today, a developed society is known by the material wealth of the individuals in it. This poses many dangers on the lives of many people. It leads to consumerism which in turn increases people’s desires and wants for goods. The people not only want to possess goods but expensive goods. Many cannot afford these expensive goods and they end up planning on how to illegally acquire them from the ones who have them. Theft cases and daytime robberies increase. Envy and jealousy are also likely to lead to crime (Shukla 9). Consumerism leads to a new form of business where criminals steal expensive products and sell them at lower costs to other people. This happens so that they can quest their thirst for money that can help them acquire other goods and services. As a result of consumerism, many individuals have purchased personal cars which they use in their activities. This has led to the erosion of public transport meaning that the individuals who earned their living in the department have lost their jobs. Such individuals may turn into criminal activities if they lack some other means of meeting their needs. In general, consumerism leads to criminal activities.

Consumerism has led to an increase in consumer demand leading to pollution of the environment (Chilongo 2). The first form pollution is the pollution of the water and the skies. Most of the products that consumers purchase are wrapped. Many companies wrap their products using plastic bags. When an individual buys a commodity that is wrapped with a plastic paper, he or she does mind the method of disposal that he or she uses but just thinks about the product itself. The plastic bags are thrown anywhere and they gat washed into the water ways. Animals that live in the waters may get caught up in the plastic bags and suffocate. The plastic bags in wrapping products take a very long period of time to decay. Disposing them into the environment affects the plants. Consumerism has led to the acquisition of many automobiles by individuals. A large percentage of individuals in the United States own personal vehicles. This is very dangerous to the environment. The automobiles use fuel that is a major cause of pollution. When the fuel burns, poisonous gas such as carbon monoxide is released into the environment. The gas is very harmful to the health of a human being and may even lead to death if taken in large quantities.

Consumerism causes depletion in the natural resources of a country (Chilongo 3). An increased use of automobile means an increased demand for fuel. The fuel that the machines use is extracted from the earth. The mines can run out of fuel leading to an economic downturn in the specific country. An increase in food consumption also affects the environment in that the amount of land needed to produce the foods is quite large and the land available may not meet the needs of the consumers. Farmers are at times forced to farm continuously without giving the land any breaks. The land deteriorates and the production keeps on reducing because it gets exhausted. The amount of water needed to farm and feed livestock so as to meet the needs of the consumers is a lot. Excessive use of water for farming and livestock may lead to a reduction of water supply in some places especially those individuals that live in the lower parts of sources of water. Digging of bore holes to increase the amount of water available for farming leads to drying of rivers that are major sources of supply. Natural resources keep on depleting as a result of consumerism.

Consumerism has negative effects on the ecology. So as to produce more goods and services that meet the demand of the consumers, natural habitat is being destroyed (Chilongo 3). The habitat is not being replaced but keeps on deteriorating. This affects the environment in general. The natural habitat is also destroyed when some space is needed for people to construct some buildings. This reduces the amount of land available for farming and also is a destruction of the natural environment. The industries that are being constructed to produce more goods not only consume space but emit gases that pollute the environment. Consumerism is a major cause of global warming.

Consumerism is a major cause of health problems to many individuals. As stated before, consumerism increases individuals’ desires and needs. Some individuals do not have the capacity to meet these needs regardless of their efforts. Some people work under great tensions but cannot meet their desires. This leads to situations of stress that eventually lead to depression (Mayell 4). The individuals who have enough money to meet their needs end up consuming fatty foods and in excess. They consume every type of food that is shown to have value and healthy. Such people get obsessed for accumulation of sugars in their bodies. In a bid to maintain good shapes and figures, people spend much money on injections, surgery, and others. These may cause cancer which leads to death. The more the goods produced to meet the demands of the customers, the more the emissions that are made in the industries. Consumption of these harmful emissions from industries and others by automobiles also affects the health of individuals. Consumerism affects the health of many in a negative way.

The media and politicians play a role in promoting consumption. The media promotes consumerism in its process of advertising for products. Many organizations spend much money to advertise their products in the media. This is done in newspapers, radios, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and many others. The media persuades the audience that the product is very effective and meets all the needs of the consumers (Micheletti, Follesdal and Stolle 45). The media gives the name of the product and shows the audience how the product or service could benefit the audience. This way, the media convinces potential customers to go for the specific brand. The media shows the audience that the product or service meets their demands. It also creates a picture in the minds of the consumer that this is the best brand compared to all other brands in the market. When the media convinces customers that a brand is of great value, potential customers will go for it regardless of whether they need it or not. They just want to possess new products that are of great value. Those who do not have money to purchase the product will start working hard so as to purchase it. The media also creates envy on the consumer which increases the demand for the product. This way, many individuals buy many goods and services that are not necessary in their lives. Politicians on the other hand promote consumption in that their views concerning a product are believed to be true by the consumers (Micheletti, Follesdal and Stolle 213). If a politician allows a product to be sold in his or her state or uses the product, the consumers will believe that the product is of high quality. They also would like to be associated with it. Many will go out looking for it even if they have other products which can address the issue that it will come to address.

Consumerism has become very common and something needs to be done so as to control it. The first important is educating individuals on the effects of consumerism on the environment and the society in general. Informing individuals on the dangers on consuming everything that they view being advertised would help them avoid buying them. Consumers should also be informed of the effects of buying new machines when they already have enough. It is dangerous to the environment. They should be encouraged to spend their money in a way that could benefit society rather than destroy it. Spending the money in social capital such as education would benefit the entire society. Consumers should be informed to avoid buying new products especially if they are not necessary in their lives. They should be informed that the picture of the products that the media portrays is not always the truth. Organizations make advertisements so as to increase their competitive advantage and revenue. When one really needs something, they should borrow or buy a used one so that the ones that are already in there can be utilized. The only new products that should be include hygiene products, utilitarian services, medicines, art supplies, and others. This way consumerism can be controlled.

Consumerism has many effects on the society, environment, and the health of consumers and politicians and the media play a major role in promoting consumption. This is because consumers buy the products just because they are new and not because they really need them. Individuals concentrate on acquiring new products and the money to acquire them. Beneficiaries of consumerism encourage individuals to discard old products and acquire new ones so as to keep up with fashion. Consumerism has many effects on society. Individuals spend much money buying goods that have dubious value and have little social return. It affects interpersonal relationships and interaction between individuals in the society because everybody concentrates in acquiring money. It changes lifestyles and leads to increased crime rates. Consumerism affects the environment in that it leads to increased use of machines and goods that pollute the environment. It also leads to depletion of natural resources and ecological imbalances. Consumerism affects the health of individuals negatively whereby it causes them to develop complications. The media promotes consumerism through advertisement where it persuades the consumers to purchase a product or service because it is of great benefit to them. Politicians promote consumerism by their views. Consumers need to be educated on the effects of consumerism in order to control it. They should also be encouraged to avoid new things where possible.

Chilongo, Menezes. The Effects of Consumerism on the Environment. 2010. Web.

Mayell, Hillary. As Consumerism Spreads, Earth Suffers, Study Says. 2004. Web.

Micheletti, Michele, Follesdal, Andreas and Stolle, Dietlind. Politics, Products, and Markets: Exploring Political Consumerism Past and present . New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2004. Print.

Shukla, Amitabh. The Effects of Consumerism. 2009. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2021, December 18). Consumerism-Effects on Society and Environment. https://ivypanda.com/essays/consumerism-effects-on-society-and-environment/

"Consumerism-Effects on Society and Environment." IvyPanda , 18 Dec. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/consumerism-effects-on-society-and-environment/.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Consumerism-Effects on Society and Environment." December 18, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/consumerism-effects-on-society-and-environment/.

Many people say that we now live in 'consumer societies' where money and possessions are given too much importance. Others believe that consumer culture has played a vital role in improving our lives. Discuss both views and give your opinion.

Some believe that the phenomenon of the extinction of flora and fauna can be considered a global ecological urge, while the majority highlight other environmental troubles. In my opinion, humanity needs to pay more attention to all kinds of pollution. On the one hand, nowadays, scientists have noticed a significant decrease in the population of […] Read More Band 5+

Some believe that the modern world can be described in the words of ‘consumer societies, where a lot of things depend on your financial status, while others give a positive evaluation of consumer culture. In my opinion, the estimation of this phenomenon should take into account all the benefits that it brings. On the one […] Read More Band 6+

In recent decades, consumer society has become an integral part of people’s lives. There are those who say that money and possessions are given too much significance; however, others believe that they play an important role in enhancing their lives. In this essay, I will examine both sides of the argument and provide my overall […] Read More Band 5+

Consuming life approaches is fostered by people, who are living in wealthy countries. Therefore is commonly believed that this type of life is essential and assets are more valuable than personality. On the other hand, opponents argue that a smaller amount of money, clothes, and furniture can contribute to increasing of life quality. In my […] Read More Band 5+

Plans & Pricing

Consumerism: An Economic Critique

Consumerism, a hallmark of American life, may not be as beneficial as we all think.

Modern macroeconomists disagree about a lot of things, but one thing they almost universally agree on is that ever-increasing consumption is both necessary for society and good for our quality of life.  In a 1995 paper , Juliet Schor writes about the possibility of a different sort of economics.

Schor starts by looking at a time when constantly accelerating consumption was more controversial. In 1899, economist Thorstein Veblen published The Theory of the Leisure Class, the book that gave us the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” Veblen questioned the desirability of consumerism. Meanwhile, Schor writes, other economists and businessmen of Veblen’s day thought demand for consumer goods was crucial to the economy, but worried it wouldn’t keep rising. The prevailing wisdom was that, if wages were high enough to cover essential necessities, workers would only be marginally interested in luxury goods; given the option, they would opt to work less rather than overextend themselves for more money.

But in the 1920s, as mass production revved up, economists increasingly came to see material desire as unlimited. Meanwhile, manufacturers and advertisers actively worked to stoke consumer demand. By the post-WWII era, economists almost universally saw the relationship between consumption and happiness as “unproblematic and uninteresting,” Schor writes.

The discipline became about individual choices: the assumption was that each person could shift their work and consumption to line up with their wants and needs. If people work long hours and buy lots of stuff, they are simply following their preferences. In this view, scholars who question consumerism are elitists who don’t trust individuals to make their own choices.

Schor argues that this view misses some important market failures. First, as anyone who’s ever had a job knows, most of us have little choice about how many hours we work. Since World War II, employers have not offered workers a chance to reduce their hours as productivity grows. Instead, the employer promises higher pay.

Schor also writes that market systems are unable to address environmental questions. Future generations and people in poorer nations who suffer the most from environmental damage, would likely prefer wealthy nations to consume less, but there’s no market mechanism for having their voices heard.

Lastly, Schor notes, there’s a prisoners’ dilemma problem found in the conspicuous consumption that Veblen noticed. Research has found that people’s absolute level of consumption may be correlated to how well they stack up against their neighbors rather than its role in shaping individual happiness. That means each individual has an incentive to work more and spend more, even if it would ultimately be better for everyone to collectively make a decision to work less and spend less.

Schor argues for a new kind of analysis: looking at the costs of consumption in terms of the environment and our quality of life.  She also suggests legislative reforms to address the market failures she outlines, including the choice to negotiate working hours and increasing the market costs of environmental damage through taxes and other methods.

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Many people say that we now live in 'consumer societies' where money and possessions are given too much importance. Others believe that consumer culture has played a vital role in improving our lives. Discuss both views and give your opinion.

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15 Consumerism Pros and Cons

Capitalism is a recent discovery in the history of human societies. Beginning in the 16th century in Europe, consumerism developed as a way to improve living conditions, secure food resources, and support job growth during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. By the 18th century, it was a practice that expanded into several different industries, including fashion and luxury goods.

At the core of consumerism is an active competition for revenues. Businesses must provide the best possible product or service to consumers. If they are not the best, then the customer will go to a competitor. That trend forces companies to look at the specific reasons why people purchase items, allowing them to create goods or services which meet specific needs.

Now the rise of consumerism is impacting the developing world as the developed countries mature. You’ll find new advertisements for goods or services around the globe. Debt levels rise as people buy items they want. Innovative products continue to call for a purchase.

These are the consumerism pros and cons to evaluate today.

List of the Pros of Consumerism

1. Consumerism stimulates economic growth. When goods or services are demanded in a society, then businesses must work harder to produce those items. It creates a never-ending cycle of buying and selling which allows the economy to grow. Increased production levels lead to more jobs. Additional employment leads to better wages in local communities. Higher wages lead to more spending. As the cycle continues to grow, the standard of living continually rises. That process creates more home, food, and job security for the average family.

2. It also boosts creativity and innovation. Businesses must continue to offer new goods or services to encourage ongoing sales. The only way to provide opportunities like this is to invest in research and development products. Consumers are always looking for the next product which solves their pain points better, cheaper, or both. That desire for something better places a lot of pressure on companies to continue producing better items. Then the cycle of economic growth continues.

3. Cost reductions are encouraged because of consumerism. When a society focuses on consumerism, the goal is to create the best value promise possible for the consumer. To define value, companies must recognize the pain points of their targeted demographics. Then they must be innovative with their production techniques to keep manufacturing costs as low as possible. This combination keeps prices down, which then allows a consumer to purchase items without being overly indebted to the process.

4. It weeds out the poor performers naturally. Companies are forced to stay innovative when managing consumerism. There is no other way to be competitive. Anyone can enter the market with relatively few barriers to entry. The consumers will then have the final say as to who gets to stay and who leaves, based on their purchasing preferences. Although that causes some companies to go out of business, which means fewer jobs the best and the brightest almost always stick around.

5. Consumerism encourages freelancing, entrepreneurialism, and self-employment. People are encouraged to take risks in a society which encourages consumerism. You’ll find more freelancers working on their own, securing contracts to work from home, in this type of society compared to others. Entrepreneurs who run “lean and mean” organizations have an opportunity to strike it big. Self-employment becomes an option because individuals provide high-quality services at prices much lower than the average competitor.

It is in these areas where real economic growth occurs.

• 99.9% of all businesses in the United States are classified as a small business.
• There are 8 million minority-owned small businesses currently operating in the U.S. right now.
• 58.9 million people in the United States are currently employed because of the structure of consumerism.
• Over 20 million people are employed by agencies with 20 employees or fewer.

6. It creates safer goods for consumers. When consumerism is the element driving society, then purchasers become familiar with their rights and responsibilities. They seek protection from faulty products or inadequate goods by holding companies to higher standards. If those standards are not met, then the purchaser follows a process to be made whole – often through the court system.

These standards may even include how the business treats their customers. If two companies sell a similar item at the same price, it is the customer service which will sway the value proposition.

7. Consumers are given more choices in this society. You can find more choices today than ever before in several product categories. New beverage flavors from Coca-Cola and Pepsi are introduced more often than ever before. You can find new potato chip flavors, mooncake flavors, and much more. Consumers even have the option to choose which celebrities they prefer to support by purchasing items that they choose to endorse. That is how consumerism improves the economy. You get what you want if you’re willing to pay for it.

List of the Cons of Consumerism

1. The economy takes precedence over the environment. When a society focuses on consumerism, the environment is usually the first element to see degradation occur. When consumers focus an increased demand for goods or services, the natural resources in the area come under pressure. Raw materials, water, and food products may experience scarcity. Because the best price possible is also encouraged, shortcuts happen too, such as using harmful chemicals to encourage a better price point. By the time all is said and done, consumerism does harm than good from the perspective of the environment.

2. It changes the moral fabric of society. Consumerism focuses on the personal ability to secure the best-possible goods or services when required. There are no ethics involved in this transaction. If you could achieve the lowest price when solving the most pain points, then you’re the best. No consideration is given on how you got there.

Families experience this shift in the moral fabric too. They feel a “need” to purchase goods or services that are not required, as if shopping were an addiction. These purchases occur to facilitate an equality in a society where everyone has access to the same products or services as everyone else.

3. Consumerism encourages debt. People take out short-term loans to meet the needs of consumerism more often than they do under different spending structures. Credit card purchases are frequent, especially during special events, holidays, or new product launches. For Black Friday 2018, consumers in the United States spent over $717 billion on items for the holidays, a 4.3% increase from the year before. Over $1,000 per person was spent for the first time. Compare that to 2005, when $496 billion was spent with an average of $734 per person.

The United States is often viewed as the world’s leader in consumerism. You’ll find the average American has 3 or 4 credit cards in their possession and are carrying a rotating debt of more than $16,000. When the net worth of a household is less than $5,000, their average credit card debt is just under $4,000.

4. It leads to health problems. When people encounter debt that will not go away, higher stress levels are sure to follow. Constant exposure to stress leads to ongoing health problems, ranging from insomnia to depression and other mental health issues. The only way to be successful when your focus is on consumerism is to work harder, earn more, borrow more, and spend more time doing these things. You have less time for relationships, hobbies, or time to yourself.

5. Consumerism does not provide fulfillment. Research consistently shows that people do not receive long-lasting fulfillment when their primary focus is on the materialism which occurs through consumerism. By the time someone starts earning $200,000 per year, the benefits of earning a higher salary disappear. People who make the most money tend to score the highest on a scale of negative emotions, reaching more than 50% by the time $360,000 is reached.

6. It can be used as a political tool. During the 1950s, Americans were lauded for their approach to consumerism. Some messages were so strong that people were told they weren’t patriotic if they chose to save money instead of spending it. During that decade, the U.S. economy grew by 37%. Families had 30% more spending power in 1959 compared to 1950 figures. Unemployment during the decade dropped to 4.5% at one point.

Despite all those advantages, 1 in 4 people still lived in poverty despite all the spending. It was one of the highest rates of poverty ever seen in the country outside of the Great Depression and wartime efforts, yet because of all the spending and the politics involved, it is often remembered as the best decade in U.S. history.

7. Consumerism conflicts with various spiritual beliefs. Jesus told the rich young ruler that all he had to do to enter heaven was to give away all that he had. Islamic law prohibits earning interest or paying it. Buddhism looks at hard work and steady efforts as a path toward prosperity and progress. Judaism believes in completing God’s creation while being smart stewards of money. Societies which are overly religious tend to avoid consumerism. Families who follow spiritual practices are often cast aside when living in consumerist lands. It is difficult to love money and God at the same time, and consumerism teaches that money should come first.

8. The poor are always left behind by consumerism. If you don’t have the money to pursue a choice, then you’re left with no choice. You purchase what you can afford to meet your needs. There is a negative stigma in consumerist societies involving people who ask for help. Even if you’ve been cast aside through no fault of your own, when you don’t purchase, then you’re not participating. You are cut-off from the very fabric of society until you can provide yourself once again. That creates a cycle which is difficult to break. You can’t participate because you’re not employed or poor, but you can’t get a job because you’re not engaged with society.

These consumerism pros and cons are not intended to be a judgment on the state of any society, individual perspective, or personal belief. They are a look at the facts. When the priority of society is to accumulate items, it does create jobs, but debt is also created. The positive cycles of economic growth are complemented by negative cycles of indebtedness. That is why many households are choosing to avoid consumerism when they can, with many feeling their lives are better because of it.

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Ielts essay # 592 - nowadays we are living in a throw-away society, ielts writing task 2/ ielts essay:, nowadays, we are living in a throw-away society that is driven by excessive consumerism, waste and single use of products., what are the reasons behind this development what could be done to address the problems associated with a throw-away society.

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Many people say that we now live in 'consumer societies' where money and possessions are given too much importance. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

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Use cohesive linking words accurately and appropriately

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To score effectively on your IELTS exam, you should make an effort to implement short concise sentences coupled with linking words.

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