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Consumerism – Our Insatiable Thirst

Ben | 17.12.2003 10:35 | Liverpool

One of the hugest issues that will dominate your cityscape, if not your lifestyle and play a major role in your survival is consumerism. Britain’s society, along with most others in the western world is run, circulated and based upon the buying and selling of products. At some point or another, everyone will assist in the making of them; it is a factor that surrounds us and that limits us to the confines of western society.

Sometimes, there is never a given thought as to where food products come from; it is as if they appear magically onto our dinner plates. The nature of our society is that goods appear without question, transported from exotic lands or factories and consumed in exchange for a small amount of money. This transaction is often unquestionable; it seems simple enough, right? There is no harm in spending, everybody does it and everybody needs it.

“After having your breakfast - you have relied on half the world.” - Martin Luther King.

The consequences are very rarely seen, but they are coming into view. The tonnes of wood, the trenches carved out of hillsides and forests, the sweatshops, the factories, our polluted skylines, oceans, streets and homes. The effect is drawing closer to us and it is only a matter of time before our insatiable thirst for consumer goods, foods and lifestyles puts a noose around our necks.
At this stage it is not apparent, the production line is healthy and consumer confidence is growing. You’ll notice that in the UK consumer figures are only published in terms of percentages, an overall tally or estimate is difficult to amount but a rough estimate is at about 400 billion pounds a year, which is more than the annual US military budget. The vast, unimaginable scale at which the planet is being robbed of all resources at a quickening and dangerous pace is the rate that consumerism has reached. The millions of people producing goods under conditions that amount to slavery has doubled since last year, the rainforest depletes at a rate of 80 acres per minute, day and night, (since you first started reading the top of this article) and only 20% of the worlds population are consuming over 80% of the earth's natural resources.

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.” - Edward Abbey
Incredible psychological pressure is put on you from advertisements. The bombardment is daily and thorough; no one walks past a billboard without absorbing its message.
Brainwashing you into believing you need products that are actually irrelevant to your life is an art form that has started the largest propaganda campaign in history.
248 Billion Dollars is projected to be spent on advertising worldwide in 2004. That figure could cure world debt overnight. Instead it is used to convince you into buying more products. The need for which is almost entirely fictitious. Why people in our society buy several items of clothing that serve the same purpose or insist on continually loading their cars with petrol stained with the blood of Iraqi women and children escapes me. The relevance is there in the news, just as the adverts are - glossy, cool or homely, the image will win you over, even if it costs lives.

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.” – Brad Pitt

Yet all this should not be your focus.

The concern is you as a consumer and what choices you have. What can you do against such a massive problem that affects everything? The guilt you feel when buying a mars bar just isn’t enough. Nor is contributing to charities or organisations that claim to solve the problem by throwing small amounts of money at it. There is no simple answer but when you look at the question in its totality, granted, it is difficult to imagine not buying food in a plastic wrapper or even contemplate not living in a home with hot water or electricity. It’s a matter of lifestyle and whether you, as an individual, can exist without being a consumer.

Deciding whether or not you want to remain a consumer is a tough, often leading to the inevitable question – “what alternative do I have?”
It is really impossible to know, there are billions of people on this planet who are born into poverty and have no hope of joining the “consumerist elite” but yet still manage to survive. It is easy in this country to find alternatives to food and clothes and shelter, there is no shortage of it and it’s a decision more than a necessity as to whether you want to pay for it.

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.” – Mohandas K. Gandhi

Start to filter the things you don’t need out of your life, the products that you know you can live without are worthless, decipher what the hidden agenda behind advertisements are trying to say and start thinking about what real alternatives you have in your life.