The Effects of Consumerism

Consumerism is becoming the hallmark of most world economies. In the

West, it is a common phenomenon, but now even developing countries in the
world are resorting to it.
Consumerism refers to the consumption of goods at a higher rate. The
economy is judged by the production and selling of goods. The gross national
product is the sum total of goods and services produced for a specific period at
a specific time. The more goods produced and consumed by society the higher
the growth rate of the economy. The prosperity of a nation is judged by the per
capita income of individuals residing in it. The economy is considered to be
doing well if the purchasing power of the people is high.
In consumer society, people replace their goods with newer ones. They
purchase goods, use them and throw them away. New goods when they
become old are replaced by newer ones. The question of repair does not arise
People have money to purchase goods in plenty. In case, they do not do so as
it leads to recession and depression and also results in unemployment.
What are the effects of the consumerism?
Consumerism is appreciated in Western economies since a persons standard
of living is valued by his or her material possessions. There are certain
positive effects such as:

Positive Consumerism Effects:

Primary positive consumerism effects are:

More industrial production.

A higher growth rate economy.

More goods and services available.

More advertising since goods manufactured have to be sold.

Increased production will result in more employment opportunities.

A variety of goods and services to choose from.

More comforts for a better living style.

There are always certain pitfalls to a given situation in a society. Material

prosperity may be there in consumerism but, it has its negative effects on the
people and society at large.
Negative Consumerism Effects:
Top negative consumerism effects are:

Craving for goods is high. The wants and desires of the people increase.
The better their income, the better their purchasing power. But in case,
they are not able to do so, then they feel dissatisfied.

One is in a rat race to earn more and is forced to cope up with stress and
other work related tensions.

Material wealth is the deciding factor about whether a society is highly

developed or not. Spiritual values are underplayed. This may not be

suitable to a person from the East, who generally is appreciative of

spiritual values.

Over-dependence on labor saving devices.

A car for each individual would mean gradual erosion of public

transport.

Crime rate also increases as wants to possess expensive gadgets

increase. Thefts become common and daylight robberies take place.

Personal relationships also get affected as people are busy trying to earn
more to maintain their standard of living.

Cheaper goods are imported from other goods affecting the growth of
locally based manufacturing industries.

Consumerism has also resulted in ecological imbalances. The natural

habitat is being destroyed to create more goods and build more buildings
affecting the weather. Global warming will eventually result in health
problems. Industrial pollution is affecting people in many ways.

People lifestyles have also changed in the sense they are more lavish,
full of material comforts rather than focusing on simplicity. The Eastern
spiritualism and philosophy has always laid emphasis on simplicity.
Gandhian principles and values favor a non-materialistic approach to life.
Even well known sages such as Jiddu Krishnamurthi have also eulogized
simplicity in ones lifestyles and thinking.

Consumerism is also depleting the natural resources of the respective

country.

Psychological health also can get affected if ones desires are not meant
such as depression. Jealousy and envy can lead to crime.

The United States is a consumer economy and is known for its material
growth and prosperity. But presently, the economy is reeling under the
pressure of recession. People who have lost their jobs are finding it difficult to
meet both their ends. In the East, India is also progressing towards
materialism, although this goes against its ancient philosophical approach
towards materialism, which favors a simple, non-materialistic life.

The problem with consumerism

Everyone knows that we live in a culture of consumerism. But few people
understand the full extent of the problems it causes or the effects that it has on
each of us.
This Life Squared booklet explores consumerism and its effects on us, and
suggests some ways in which we can reduce its impact on our lives, so that we
can live the lives we really want.
Introduction
Consumerism is one of the strongest forces affecting our lives in the modern
world. The term consumerism does not simply refer to immediate factors in
our daily lives such as the omnipresence of advertising, but anything
connected to the overarching idea in our modern society that in order to be
happier, better and more successful people we have to have more stuff.

In this booklet, we will explore the power of consumerism, how it manifests

itself in our lives and the effects it has on us.
Advertising
Every day, each of us is bombarded with around 1,600 commercial messages.
This sounds like a massive number, but when you think about a typical day in
your life it is quite possible. A typical day might feature the following
activities get up, read the paper (featuring advertisements), listen to the radio
(advertisements), catch the bus to work (advertisements on the bus and at the
roadside), arrive at work (advertisements on the internet), go home (same
advertisements as on the incoming journey), watch TV (advertisements) and
go to bed. Needless to say, this is exposure to a lot of advertisements!
Just take an example from one source in a randomly-selected weekday
edition of The Sun newspaper there are forty one advertisements, taking up
roughly twenty two pages of a sixty four page paper. Over one third of the
paper consists of advertisements! This does not include the full page
specifically devoted to classified ads, an entire section sponsored by a
company, the prominent product logos in the sports section or the other
product placements that are included in many of the articles themselves.
We are exposed to advertising through a range of different sources. Some of
them we may be aware of (like the examples listed above) but others may be
less easy to spot, such as product placement in films. For example, a James
Bond film might feature lead characters using mobile phones made by a
particular manufacturer who has paid a handsome sum to make them do this.
For this fee, manufacturers would expect a few close ups of the products logo
when the characters use it. One of the most famous cases of product
placement was the use of the American chocolate sweet Reeses Pieces in the
film ET in 1982. As a result of this placement, sales of the product increased
by sixty five per cent. Placement has now become so common that some
films are being criticised for becoming little more than vehicles for a range of
products. The 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies featured
placement for the following products - Visa card, Avis car rentals, BMW cars
and motorcycles, Smirnoff vodka, Heineken beer, Omega watches, Ericsson
mobile phones and L'Oreal make up. Its a wonder there was any time left for
a plot.

Despite occasional criticism however, product placement remains widespread

in films, TV programmes, magazines and other media. So, commercial
messages even affect how we are entertained.
But it goes further than this. In her seminal book on consumer culture No
Logo, Naomi Klein identified a range of underground tools that marketers use
to get us to do things - tools that we cannot hope to identify unless we are
insiders within the advertising industry. One example of such a tool is street
promoters people who will hype brands one-on-one on the street, in the
clubs and on-line. In other words, companies are attempting to recruit our
friends and peers to sell us things not simply influencing them to believe a
product is desirable and telling us about it, but by actually paying people to
use their status and relationships with others to flog their products to their
peers. This seems a rather cynical exploitation of human relationships and
trust.
This massive amount of advertising is now such a normal part of western
society that most of us do not seem to realise just how pervasive it is in our
lives. As you go through your day tomorrow, notice the number of adverts
you see and the sources from which they appear, and you will discover just
how much of your valuable time and brain space advertisers are forcing
themselves into. Surely we have better things to do during this period of
hijacked time?
It is not simply the irritant factor of advertising that is the problem however.
Although we may have stopped noticing just how much we are being
bombarded by advertising, it is still affecting our decisions, our worldviews
and our lives generally. We will consider just how much later in this booklet.
Consumerism beyond advertising
Advertising is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other influences in
modern society that promote the values of consumerism. To get a sense of
these influences, imagine yourself as the recipient of mental inputs, the
messages that enter your brain from the outside world. They could include the
opinions of your friends, images from TV news programmes, advertisements
on the internet and things you have learned from books or your education.
Some of the major sources of inputs can be illustrated as follows:

This is not an exhaustive list, but even if we only consider a selection of these
we can see that many of them promote and support consumerism.
For example, newspapers and magazines do not just contain pages of
advertisements but also stories about new gadgets, new clothes, property,
makeovers, travel and many other things, all suggesting that having them will
make life more fun and interesting, bring you greater freedom or bring some
other positive change to your life. They may not promote an item directly like
an advertisement but many will help to create desires and needs in the reader
some relating to specific products like cars or clothes and others relating to
particular ways of life that require further money and consumption.
Our modern obsession with celebrities also means that newspapers and
magazines publish stories about glamorous people we might aspire to copy,
and much of this aspiration is to consume the same things as they do from
designer clothes to private jets.
Overarching all of this is a tendency in the mass media (in the UK, at least) to
be unable or unwilling to question consumerism as an idea. When this lack of
critical thinking is accompanied by the promotion of consumerism that we
have just been describing, this amounts to implicit support for it. Moreover, in
their coverage of issues where consumerism could well be a major cause (e.g.
poverty, climate change etc.) the media appear to be unwilling to make this
link somehow consumerism is regarded as an untouchable component of
modern society. This applies to most mass media, whatever their political
leanings
and
whether
they
are
tabloid
or
quality.
So it is not just the advertising within newspapers and magazines (or indeed
other media from radio to the internet) that promotes consumerism, but also
much of their actual content. This content might not only consist of features
that directly create needs and desires in people but it might also include those
that deal with topics that are apparently unrelated to consumerism that
somehow still manage to give support to its vision of the world.
Leisure activity is another source of mental inputs. One example of a leisure
activity that supports consumerism is sport perhaps most notably football.
Even at its most basic level a kickabout in the park the game is touched by
consumerism. There is pressure on children (and indeed adults!) to have the
latest boots, kit and the latest version of the strip of their favourite team. And

clubs are well aware of the commercial value of peoples loyalty to their team
many launch a new kit each year, with both home and away variants,
along with numerous other items in their club shops. One of the most
mystifying aspects of this is when fans buy an updated version of a teams
strip that is no different from the previous one other than the fact that the
sponsor displayed on the front has changed. This surely shows the power of
consumerism people being prepared to spend 45 to advertise your company
for you!
At a higher level, football has become mired in consumerism and greed. Top
players can earn in excess of 100,000 per week, creating role models for
children that are not based on excelling at the sport they love but on earning as
much as possible and achieving a particular lifestyle. Football and
consumerism seem to have become intertwined, and the same thing is
happening in many other sports, including rugby, cricket and tennis.
A final example of a source of mental input is our family and peers, who can
influence us in subtle ways. Even sitting at home with ones family chatting
about holiday plans or in the pub with friends discussing someones new
mobile phone can create new needs or feelings of pressure. Mixing with
people who have consumerist lifestyles can therefore be a powerful influence
on us. It can often seem as if this is the only way to behave and that these are
the only aspirations to have. In short, it is another thing that helps the
consumerist philosophy to maintain its power in society.
The influence of other people on us can go way beyond friends and family
however. If we look around and see that everyone is living consumerist lives
with consumerist aspirations from our neighbours to film stars to politicians
it is likely that most of us will accept this as the only way of life that is
available, or if not the only one then the best.
These are just a few examples of the many mental inputs we receive, but in
almost any area of life we can find consumerism wrapping its tentacles around
us. Overall, this means that consumerism is the all-pervasive theme in our
culture - a way of life and a judgement about what the best life is. It seeps
into most parts of our lives, whether we are aware of it or not, and can
profoundly
affect
each
of
us.
The effects of consumerism

It might be argued that we should have the mental strength to resist the
influence of an advertisement or our friends, or that consumerism is nothing
more than a minor irritant in our everyday lives. But that would be to
underestimate its power.
Exposure to one advertisement can be powerful enough to influence someone.
Otherwise, why would Coca Cola alone spend $2 billion per year on
advertising? But when we are exposed to thousands of advertisements a day
(and have been from childhood), and consumerism is promoted in most of the
mental inputs we receive, this can trap us within a consumerist bubble and can
mould our entire worldviews our aspirations, views, lifestyles and many
other things. And this trap is very difficult to escape from. Indeed, such is its
power, we may not even realise we are caught in a trap. So, the real power of
consumerism comes from its cumulative effect - the fact that it has seeped into
every aspect of our lives, and that these elements of our culture continually
reinforce each other.
Some of the effects of consumerism on us are what one might expect from a
culture that promotes consumption. We slip into a cycle of wanting more
things whether it is the new iPod, another holiday abroad or simply a
particular type of food and the pursuit of these things takes up our time,
energy, stress and money (sometimes money we do not have one reason for
the spiralling debt of Britons today). We also constantly compare ourselves
with other people (both real and fictitious), wanting to be like them or in their
position. This leads us into a state of constant dissatisfaction we are never
happy with what we have and are always on edge. And this is just what the
logic of consumerism wants, as it makes us more active consumers on a
continuous basis. So, consumerism not only affects our behaviour (we spend
more time on consumerist activities) but also our thinking (our aspirations,
attitudes and worldviews).
Other effects are perhaps less immediately obvious but equally important. For
example, consumerism can affect our worldviews and confuse us - especially
when we start feeling that our lives are not providing us with what we need to
be happy. From the Western perspective, we might have all the elements that
constitute a good quality of life job, car, house and other material
possessions. But we might nevertheless feel somehow dissatisfied and empty,
feeling that the pursuit of more possessions and the pressure of having to earn

more money or sink into further debt to pay for this lifestyle is bringing more
costs than benefits to our lives.
This situation can be extremely difficult to escape from, as there are very few
dissenting voices on consumerism in modern society the mainstream idea of
what it is to be ethical still does not incorporate the idea of escaping the
consumerist trap. Any individual struggling with their consumerist lifestyle is
therefore unlikely to receive understanding, guidance or support from
mainstream society or their friends if they too are immersed within this
mainstream society.
There may well be millions of people who feel this sense of dissatisfaction in
their lives but are not able to identify its cause or escape from it. Although
consumerism is not the only reason why one might feel dissatisfied or
stressed, evidence is building among psychologists that holding a strongly
materialist values orientation is, all else being equal, detrimental to
psychological well-being.
What is wrong with consumerism?
There is not necessarily anything morally wrong in buying and selling things,
nor even in promoting them (in an honest way and to a certain extent). But
the extreme form of consumerism that now dominates the Western world has a
number of unpleasant and even potentially dangerous characteristics.

It is intrusive
This is as good a reason as any to dislike it! Advertising, selling and product
placement is simply an annoying imposition on ones peace and personal
space. Advertising is everywhere, and spoils many experiences and pleasant
views. It is like having a stranger following you and shouting at you for
several hours a day.
It is manipulative
Both advertising and consumerism itself try to manipulate us into adopting a
particular view of how we should live rather than letting us decide for
ourselves.

One might argue that advertisements are simply there to make people aware of
the products available to them and serve no purpose other than this. But this is
not always the case. Many advertisements and other communications in our
consumer society go way beyond this function and attempt to manipulate
people into making particular decisions.
Modern advertising is not just about telling people that a product exists i.e.
responding to an existing want or need someone may have. It is now about
creating wants and needs that we might not have had before seeing the
advertisement. In other words, it creates false desires and needs in us by
manipulating us. The advertisers ultimate purpose in creating these needs is
always to make people want their product.
But how dare anyone manipulate us into having these wants and needs?
If I really wanted to do something - say, purchase a particular product - I
would decide for myself that I needed it and then make my own mind up
about which product to buy once I had seen what products were available. If
however someone tries to persuade me that I need a particular product when I
do not and then attempts to create (false) feelings of dissatisfaction in me if I
do not have it, this is an aggressive attempt to exercise power over me. This
mental aggression is just as unpleasant as physical aggression, because its
effect can be equally, if not more, harmful.
At the end of his book Authenticity, David Boyle notes that he asked himself
whether the book (about moving away from a society dominated by
marketing, spin and fakes) was just for middle-aged people. He concluded
maybe it is, but I actually think a yearning for the real is shared by people far
younger than me, because they dont like to be taken for a ride.

It does not meet our needs

Some people may believe that consumerism meets all their desires in life. But
for an increasing number of people it does not. It creates impossible
aspirations quite simply, the principles it is based on make it a logical
impossibility that it will make us happy. If the idea of consumerism is to
continually create new needs in people and make them consume more, this
will result in us constantly chasing after a carrot on a stick. Although we
might reach it sometimes (e.g. by buying a particular product), a new carrot

(i.e. need) will then appear. A lack of fulfilment is therefore built into the
whole idea of consumerism. This is not surprising if the system is not aimed
at meeting human needs and interests, but at generating profit, then it will only
be a matter of extreme luck that it ends up doing the former.
The second point follows on from this: consumerism cannot provide many of
the things that are important to us. This view is supported by recent studies in
the relatively new discipline of human well-being which is gaining
increasing interest from politicians and others. It can broadly be described as
the study of what makes human beings happy and fulfilled, and the desire to
base political and social systems on promoting these things.
Research in this area is showing that consumerism is inconsistent with human
well-being. The New Economics Foundation is a think tank at the heart of
this topic and in a discussion paper setting out the political territory of the
topic they note that:
The areas in which greater [financial] investment will yield continued
improvements in well-being lie beyond the reach of markets
In other words, economic markets and consumption can fulfil some of our
basic needs including areas such as food and shelter - but there are other
important things they simply cannot provide. The papers author, Richard
Reeves, describes these things as non-market goods. As he notes:
There is little wrong with Faberge or Furbys. It is what [they are] failing to
give us: companionship, time for reflection, spirituality, security, intellectual
development and joy in our children
The problem is that consumerism often claims that it can provide us with these
things. Firstly, advertisers link their products to real human needs. An
example of this cited by Reeves is an advertising campaign for Doritos tortilla
chips that linked the product to the idea of friends and companionship.
Secondly, advertisements will suggest (or at least, strongly imply) that the
product can help to fulfil these real human needs. In the Doritos example, the
advertisement seems to suggest that buying their tortilla chips is one way to
boost companionship, styling them friendchips. So, consumerism pretends
to be able to meet our real needs but it can not. This process of misleading
people about critically important human needs represents one of the saddest
aspects
of
consumerisms
manipulative
power.

It has been encouraging recently to see the Government and political parties
beginning to develop policies to promote human well-being. Their efforts will
never be successful, however, if they seek to achieve them within an economic
system that continues to allow (in fact, encourage) the present culture of
consumerism. The same could be said for attempts to address key global
issues such as climate change and poverty. This is firstly because the culture
of consumerism conflicts with the aims of human well-being (both globally
and individually e.g. poverty reduction and sustainable living) and also
because it is so strong and all-encompassing that it makes it extremely
difficult for people to see the inconsistencies within it or easily pursue
alternatives.
It restricts our choices and lives
Even if consumerism did meet our needs it would not be an acceptable
philosophy on which to base our societies because we need to be able to
choose the lives we want to lead and it prevents us from doing this.
In its broadest sense, consumerism can be seen as a particular view of the
good life a view that says life is better when you have more market goods
(products, services and activities). It was not originally set up as a specific
philosophy or with any particular aim in mind in fact, it may not have been
set up at all but may simply have developed as a result of a range of factors,
including the desire for growth that is implicit within our global economic
system, the need to get economies and societies back on track after the Second
World War, the technological developments of the last sixty years and the
spread of new forms of communication.
But regardless of its origins, it does now represent a particular view of how we
should live. There are, however, many other ways we could live (e.g. simple
living or a focus on time and people rather than possessions), some of which
people may feel are more appropriate for them.
There will always be some cultural system that forms the basis of society. This
will always feature a particular view of the good life. We need a system that
sees choice as a key aspect of the good life. Not the idea of consumer choice
that is so often presented to us in the modern world but a system that enables
people to have real choices about the lives they want to lead, gives them the

skills they need to make these choices and encourages them to pursue the lives
they really want.
Consumerism is completely inappropriate for this role, as it is a system that
actually restricts our ability to see the choices available to us in life, make
choices or put them into action. It only promotes its own view of the good
life attempting to make people become better consumers - rather than
helping people to see the full range of options open to them and helping them
to decide for themselves what they want. It pretends that it offers people
choices and freedom beyond its own view of the good life. You know the sort
of thing advertisements saying Youre you. Be you. You can be what you
want and other such nonsense. But all that this is doing is encouraging you to
feel free within the consumerist parameters they are setting for you. And that
is not real freedom.
A key reason why it restricts people so effectively is that it has become a
massively powerful force, with an influence across most areas of society and
our individual lives. And as it is the basic culture of our society, very few
people are going to be able to see beyond it.
It therefore becomes very difficult to question or escape from the consumerist
worldview, even if one feels strongly that something is wrong with ones life
within it. This is particularly difficult when consumerism claims to be able to
meet all our needs, because it leads to self-doubt and confusion about our
identity, happiness and life direction which is painful to experience and which,
for many people, is never resolved.
It affects our worldviews and characters
Consumerism does not just restrict our choices. It is also a significant
influence on our perspectives on the world. For example, if we are spending
much of our time and energy seeking the next product or activity to consume
then we have less time and enthusiasm to learn about the world or broaden our
horizons. Also, consumerism is unlikely to prompt us (or make it easy for us)
to question important things such as the availability of the resources that
maintain our lifestyles, the capacity of the planet to hold the waste we
generate or the vulnerability of the centralized, import-reliant food supply
systems we currently use.

Also, consumerism plays a role in moulding our characters perhaps in ways

we would rather it did not. For example, if the whole aim of consumerism is
to get us to acquire more, then it might well lead to excessive self interest in
the people affected by it. If it includes the pursuit of interests other than
human (or value-driven) ones then it seems likely that those following this
path will have less time for, or interest in, other people.
It is unsustainable
We live on a planet with a rapidly growing population (6.7 billion people and
counting) and a finite set of natural resources for this population to consume.
Weve moved from using around half the planets biocapacity in 1961 to over
1.25 times it in 2003. We are already living way beyond the planets limits.
Given this worrying situation, it seems obvious that we cant continue with the
ever-increasing levels of consumption demanded by consumerism without
major consequences. In fact, what we urgently need is precisely the opposite
of consumerism namely, a philosophy that urges us to reduce our levels of
consumption.
What can we do about it?
Changes we can make to society
As we have seen, consumerism is an idea that is woven into the fabric of our
modern society. It is intricately linked with the particular economic
philosophy that has dominated the West in recent decades that of neoliberal
capitalism. To move away from a culture of consumerism, we will therefore
need to challenge the philosophy and values of this current economic system.
Essentially, we need a cultural shift in our society and its values. Perhaps the
current financial crisis gives us the ideal opportunity to think about the
direction in which were heading as a society, and to consider new ideas like
this.
One of the key tenets of neoliberal economic philosophy has been the need to
seek constant economic growth, as this will provide us with the best lives. As
consumerism builds ever greater demand for goods and services, it is easy to
see how it plays an important role in driving this economic growth.
This neoliberal economic philosophy is not working. And its not surprising
when you think about the faulty assumptions that it is based on. It is based on

the view that human beings are rational calculating machines seeking to
maximise our share of available goods. All of the systems and institutions that
we go through in life and the communications we receive in day-to-day life
serve to promote lives that uphold this view - so it profoundly affects and
moulds our world views. This makes many of us miserable, for a number of
reasons we have already covered:
It is based on a restricted and incorrect view of what makes us happy.
We arent simply consumers who want to maximise our share of goods
we are also human beings who need love, relationships, cooperation,
nature and, above all, the ability to choose the lives we want. This view
therefore leads to a system that fails to give us what we need and forces
many people to live lives they might not otherwise choose. It also puts
pressure on us to behave in particular ways or be particular people that
may not be 'us' and may therefore cause us stress and anxiety;
This system actively prevents us from making our own choices about
how we want to live our lives, as it only promotes this one restricted
view of what a good life consists of (for example, buying more stuff)
and doesnt give us any opportunities to consider alternative views or
ways of living. Many people therefore end up believing that this is the
only way to live, in the absence of any alternatives. We end up trapped
in this way of thinking and unable to make real choices about how we
want to live.
Our current choice of economic system is not only bad for our well-being. It is
also one of the central influences exacerbating key global problems such as
the environment (including climate change and the unsustainable use of
natural resources) and social justice (including poverty and human rights
abuses). Our own well-being and global problems are therefore two sides of
the same coin. We urgently need a new system that will put these things right
too.
We need to move towards a society that has a much broader and nuanced view
of what gives people well-being and happiness, and use the economic system
simply as one of the means we employ to achieve this end, rather than as an
end in itself. We need to do all this within parameters of sustainability and
social justice. This type of approach to society is often referred to as new
economics.

This is a system that sees real choice as a key aspect of the good life. It
enables people to have real choices about the lives they want to lead, gives
them the skills they need to make those choices, and encourages them to
pursue the lives they really want.
So how might a system of new economics look? It would seek to promote
human happiness and well-being by equipping us with the basic material and
non-material resources we need in order to live the lives we want. It would
include a basic level of material goods such as food, drink, shelter and money,
plus nonmaterial goods such as the life skills we need to be truly selfdetermined and live happily.
The new system would also promote particular conditions that are felt to be
conducive to human flourishing, such as stronger local communities, greater
equality, education to promote well-being and the opportunity for children to
grow without being exposed to influences (such as advertising) that they are
not yet equipped to deal with. Measures on the latter point might include a
ban on all forms of advertising to children under sixteen and regulation to
ensure that advertisements are labelled to show that they are attempting to
communicate a message for a specific purpose. There would also be
regulation to ensure that we live within the resources of the planet and within
some boundaries of social justice.
For a more detailed discussion of what a better future might look like, read
Richard Docwras book Modern Life as good as it gets.
Changes
we
can
make
to
our
own
lives
These changes in society will not happen overnight. There are however some
immediate steps we can each take in our own lives to release ourselves from
the grip of consumerism, and to start living the lives we really want.
Exercise intellectual independence - be aware of how consumerism
touches your life and when people or organisations are trying to
manipulate you. Try to defend yourself from unwanted external
pressures. One effective way to do this is to simply ignore advertising
dont let it affect you or take up any of your time or brain space.
Avoidance is one strategy, but it is also important to build up the
intellectual independence to deal with consumerism. When you receive
any message, whether it is in a social conversation, at work, in a
newspaper, or on television, consider the source it came from and

whether it might have a particular agenda. Decide whether you can trust
it and whether you should make any allowances for it in your
interpretation of the message. You can then choose whether the
message is to be digested or ignored. You can apply this questioning
approach beyond specific messages such as advertisements to challenge
even broader cultural or social beliefs such as the importance of striving
for greater material wealth.
Consume less, live more - take some time to stand back from your life,
away from influences like consumerism, and think about what really
matters to you in life and how you want to live. Then, try to live the life
you want, not the one that others would like you to lead. For many of
us, a life of consumerism and constantly striving to gain further material
wealth is not the one we would choose upon honest reflection. Many of
us will find that reducing our levels of consumption, caring less about
materialism and refocusing our attention and time towards things that
really matter to us will eliminate a lot of problems in our lives and give
us a great deal more satisfaction, whilst also leading to a more
sustainable and fair future for all.
For more ideas on how to thrive in the face of consumerism, have a look at
some of the other resources we offer at Life Squared visitwww.lifesquared.org.uk.

Final points
In this booklet, we have not been suggesting that everyone who tries to sell
things to others is deliberately manipulating them for evil ends. Nor are we
suggesting that consumerism was invented by someone with malign intent it is simply a cultural phenomenon that has emerged over time and that
happens to have a powerful influence in our societies and individual lives. We
are all born into it and raised with it, therefore it is difficult to blame those
who are delivering what the norms of the system say is desirable.
There are however many people who are escaping the hold of consumerism or
are questioning the effect it has on our lives. And we suggest that the modern

form of consumerism has gone way too far and is taking our lives, hopes and
happiness with it.