Consumerism: The Dazzling Dream

We have become dazzled by the dreams created by sophisticated marketing that sells consumerism. These dreams dazzle us and hide from us our true, innate dreams for connectedness, fulfilment, family, community and spirituality.

Consumerism is the action or practice of consuming. To consume is to destroy or expend by use, to spend wastefully. A consumer is one who or that which consumes. (Macquarie Dictionary 2000) Consumerism is a pattern of behaviour that helps to destroy the physical environment, our personal financial health, the common good of individuals, and human relationships and institutions. Consumerism has environmental, economic and social costs.

There is enough on earth for everybody's need, but not for everyone's greed. Mahatma Gandi.

When we engage in consumerism we are engaged in chronic purchasing of new goods and services, with little, or no, attention to whether we need them or not, or to their durability, product origin or the environmental consequences of manufacture and disposal. We don't look at the ecological footprint of the product nor do we consider it from a lifecycle analysis perspective. Consumerism fuels the destruction of the productive economy by supporting and encouraging the sale of the goods or services without examination by the purchaser of the quality, origin, environmental degradation or traditions of manufacture.

Consumerism is driven by manipulation. We are being manipulated but deny that manipulation, thinking we really need the goods and services we buy. We are probably all aware of the blatant manipulation of our children's desires by advertising and marketing companies, but we feel we are more 'mature' and are not influenced or manipulated in the same way. Consumers are puppets of the marketing industry.

Consumerism robs us of precious time. Time is exchanged for money to buy things that there usually is less and less time to enjoy. We spend our time working for 'things' and in the little time we have to relax, spend that time in front of the television where we watch mediocre filler programs inserted in between ever-more-spectacular commercials whose purpose is to create more desire for more things - that we have to work longer hours to purchase. By robbing us of time, consumerism has a deleterious effect on family life.

He who buys what he does not need steals from himself. Unknown Author.

Television does not exist to entertain us. It exists to sell to us. The job of people who program television is to capture the public's attention and hold it long enough to advertise a product.

Children were once an ignored demographic for advertisers, but today's children and teenagers have become the most marketed-to generation in history. They have spending power – their own disposable income is enormous. They have future clout as adult consumers – preprogramming their minds and attitudes pays off later. They influence their parents’ buying decisions – they use many tactics to badger or guilt-trip their parents into purchasing goods and services.

Children see one hour of commercials for every five hours of commercial television they watch. Our children are handed over to the advertising companies to be convinced they are hungry, bored, ugly and unpopular and they need to spend money to change this.

Parents are willing to succumb to their children's demands for consumer goods and services because of the trend to smaller family size, dual incomes, and postponing children until later in life meaning families have greater disposable incomes.

Branding is a concept that started in the mid 1980s. This resulted in corporations changing their focus from producing products to creating an image for brand names. By moving their manufacturing operations to countries with cheap labour and other production costs, these corporations freed up money to create their powerful marketing messages. Branding has led to some of the most wealthy and powerful multi-national corporations of all time.

Advertising companies aim to plant the seeds of brand recognition in very young children, because if successful, these seeds will grow into lifetime preferences, attitudes and purchasing decisions. It has been shown that babies as young as six months of age can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots.

Schools are no longer free from commercialism and consumerism. Many companies exploit schools funding restrictions to ensure they have a captive audience, with the apparent sponsorship of the state education authorities. Corporations will sponsor educational materials; provide contests and incentive programs with rewards from their company; sponsor school events; and supply schools with technology in exchange for high company visibility.