The Old System
Victor Lebow an economist, retail analyst, and author in his 1955 paper "Price Competition in 1955" wrote a very pertinent account of modern consumerism in the Spring issue of “Journal of Retailing.” This has defined and moulded our society over the last five decades...
“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats- his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies.
These commodities and services must be offered to the consumer with a special urgency. We require not only “forced draft” consumption, but “expensive” consumption as well. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption. The home power tools and the whole “do-it-yourself” movement are excellent examples of “expensive” consumption.”
We have not only been led down the path of consumption, we have been manipulated into a society of “battery hen humans” whereby the governments, marketers, corporations and interest groups have been feeding us a steady diet of consumerism laced with deceit, false hopes and non sustainability. A. D. Martin
