Born to Shop

Does it ever strike you that, from the first moments of social awareness, we are conditioned by our culture to want to acquire 'things'? Toys, at first. Then better and better toys. Equipment, stereos, cars, boats, houses, kitchen applicances.
Our consumer-driven society pushes us into a frenzy to try to buy as much 'stuff' as humanly possible and cram it into our living space and our lives - then buy MORE living space so we can cram even MORE stuff in.

Gandhi once said, "There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not everyone's greed." And along with the accelerated consumption of goods is the accelerated consumption of the worlds resources that it takes to create them.

"In the US, wood and paper thrown away each year is enough to heat 5 million homes for 200 years." Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military & Social Expenditure (World Priorities Inc, 1991)

I just heard that the cell phone industry expects to sell over a billion cell phones this year. a Billion. Every year. There are only six billion people on the whole planet! And many of them don't need or cannot use cell phones.

Our economy is now set up such that it NEEDS frantic, frenzied rampant consumerism in order to survive. If people don't keep buying cars at the rate of one every 5 years, then the automotive industry starts to disintegrate. There are not enough sales to keep the dealerships in business. Without those sales, the car manufacturers begin shutting down plants. When the plants shut down, the people that work in them lose their jobs, and therefore their income, and therefore THEY stop spending money, and so the businesses and industries that sell to them all begin to suffer and fail. The economy is like an ecosystem and when the money stops flowing, the ecosystem fails and things fall apart.

So yes, goods needs to be manufactured and sold. And people need to consume them so that they will buy more and so the whole chain of production keeps active.
But does it have to be SO pervasive? Does it have to be the solitary focus in most of our lives? From the teenager that MUST have specific brand-names on their clothing, to the middle-aged guy who must have a $25,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, or a $70,000 sports car, or a boat, or the woman who MUST have a $500,000 house, and MUST fill it with all the best furniture and it MUST be all the latest 'style' or else it's all suddenly useless and must be immediately replaced.
I only watch TV for perhaps 30 minutes per day because it's on while I'm eating dinner and I can see the screen from the kitchen eating area.
But anyone who watches TV for even 15 minutes can see the blatant advertisements just SCREAMING at you to buy their stuff. Whatever it is they are selling. You need it. You need LOTS of it. And you need it now.

And if you don't have enough money to buy it, you must go into debt to buy it. This beast needs to be FED!!

Does it ever just seem a little too much to you, as it does to me?

I mean don't get me wrong, I have accumulated a decent pile of things myself over the years, but I am NOT a shopper. I am not out there trying to constantly buy new gadgets and toys, or new cars, or a new plasma TV or whatever. If something we need breaks, I replace it.

But looking around me, it seems that most people are corraled into a pen and whipped up into a feeding frenzy to go out and just CONSUME. Consume at all costs. Consume until all the money they have saved is gone. Then consume until all the money they can earn is gone. Then keep consuming until all the money they can borrow is gone.

The TV is the deliverer of the message most of the time. It sends the blatant screaming messages, but also the subtle persuasive messages too. It fires on all fronts. They use every marketing and psychological trick they that dream up to get you to go to a store right NOW and put your credit card down and buy something.

Our society could have been based upon knowledge. Or art. Or literature. Or music. Or sports. Or travel. Or storytelling. Or legends. Or religion even. (many are). Or about war and politics and land acquisition (most civilizations of history were focused on this) Or about education. Or history and tradition. Or dance. Or just about anything. We could have made it all about science. About the search for extraterrestrial life. About the elimination of disease. Or maybe our imaginations could have been caught up in something trivial and unproductive like crossword puzzles, or video games.

But instead, we chose to make it based upon accelerated commercial consumerism. It's not even about money directly. If it were just money itself, then it could be all about finance and investing and options, and the international stock markets, and currency exchanges, and THAT would be what TV was advertising and what all conversations were about, and what people would spend all their spare time doing.

But instead we are driven to buy stuff. More stuff than we need or can use, or can afford, or can even easily store in our living space. Some people even have to rent extra storage space to store the stuff they have but cannot use.

Is it a terrible, cheap shallow thing? Or is it harmless? Is it a good way to spend our time and energy, do you think? Is it constructive?

What do you think about this consumer's life we lead? Do you enjoy it? Is it fulfilling for you? Is there a better way? Is there some other central theme that you think would be better for our society than this?