The
Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on how people consumed things.
Before the revolution, there was a scarcity of resources and products. But once
the manufacturing of products started on assembly lines during the revolution,
for the first time in human history, products were available in outstanding
quantities, at outstandingly low prices, being thus available to virtually
everyone. So began the era of mass consumption. The Industrial Revolution,
thus, created an unusual economic situation where the economy of a nation
depended on the consumption of resources by its populace. Hence, it is
essential for a nation’s economy in today’s economic situation for the
population to spend its savings to keep buying products. Thus, the concept of
consumerism was born.
Consumerism
is a social and economic order that encourages the purchase of goods and
services in ever-greater amounts. Thus, ideally for the economy of a nation,
its populace should spend its entire savings into buying things. Consumerism
actually encourages indiscriminate buying of goods which we will scarcely use.
It encourages consumption of expensive items by creating an aura of social
status around it. Consumerism is usually considered a part of media culture. The
consumerist ideology is strengthened by the endorsement of consumer products by
people whom the society idolizes, aka the celebrities. They are a crucial cog
in this wheel of deception that is consumerism. Emulating them is a core
component of consumerism. It is human nature to emulate those whom they feel
are superior to them. Consumers seek to emulate those who are above them in the
social hierarchy. The poor strive to emulate the wealthy and the wealthy seek
to imitate celebrities and other icons. This deception works as long as there
are celebrities who endorse products. In today’s world, there is no dearth of
celebrities who would do that in exchange for payment. The higher their
popularity, the more they get paid for an endorsement. Their endorsement is
evident of the desire of consumers to purchase products partly or solely to
emulate people in the higher social strata.
In
order for an entire population to become product-consuming machines, they must
first be encouraged to save money. And in order that they may save an ever-increasing
amount of money, they must first be encouraged to earn more and accumulate
wealth. This is second nature to human beings and hence is very easy. They just
need the right push and what better way to do this than to be constantly
bombarded with the lives of celebrities through the media. This is why
marketing is so effective. It creates a false aura around products when they
are endorsed by celebrities.
Businesses
target the wealthy consumers as they are the most susceptible and have the
monetary means to buy expensive products. The taste and lifestyle of these
upper class consumers trickle down to become the standard for consumers of all
strata of the society. Since the primary target of businesses are the wealthy,
the consumerist philosophy seeks to keep this strata of the society completely
occupied. Encouraging greed among the populace will work in their favour.
Recent statistics show us that they have been quite successful at that. Making
a lot of money became the dominant reason for attending college beginning in
the early 1990s. Prior to that, the dominant reasons were becoming an authority
in a field or helping others in difficulty. This is a direct consequence to the
rise of consumerism and materialism. As Madeliene Levine writes in ‘Challenging
the Culture of Affluence’ [2007]:
“This shift
in values is just one manifestation of a profound shift in American culture,
away from values of community, spirituality, and integrity, and toward
competition, materialism, and disconnection.”
Another
consequence of consumerism is the concept of visual distinction: people in the
higher strata of the society seek to distinguish themselves by the way they
dress. The celebrities, being at the top of the pyramid, set the trends in
today’s fashion-obsessed world. I fail to understand how the media describes
the rags they wear as ‘fashionable’. If tattered jeans are fashionable, then
you might as well say rag pickers are fashionistas too. As stated above, the
wealthy will imitate celebrities and the middle and lower classes will imitate
both the wealthy and the celebrities. The more they deceive themselves with
false pride, the better consumers they become for the industry. The adverts
play a big role in this. Sample the following piece from an unknown writer:
“People
become used to the intrusion of advertising into their consciousness in the
form of television or the massive bundle of advertising pulp that masquerades
as a Sunday newspaper and so they fail to protect themself, or worse, their
children from being seduced by it. Convinced that their self-worth is based on
$500 athletic shoes or designer clothing, children are already on the road to
spiritual dissatisfaction and resentment as well as a perception of diminished
self-worth. When they become adolescents they are probably not going to be
happy or productive even were they provided with an endless supply of things that
few parents could afford. An extreme example of this is when some, usually poor
adults, who could often better use the money for education, nutrition and
improved housing, demonstrate their self-worth and strength of character by
turning themselves into human billboards in plastic clothing advertising
millionaire's sports franchises. Their children may, to the detriment of
education, pin all hopes on an athletic "career", i.e. lots of money
for endorsing consumer items.”
This
is not a new phenomenon, as some would say. It has been around for some time. The
book ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions’ [1899] by the American economist and
sociologist Torsten Bunde Veblen (d. August 3, 1929) is a good social critique
on what he called ‘conspicuous consumption’. The term describes an irrational
form of economic behaviour. In the seventh chapter titled “Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture”,
Veblen writes:
“No
line of consumption affords a more apt illustration than expenditure on dress.
It is especially the rule of the conspicuous waste of goods that finds
expression in dress, although the other, related principles of pecuniary repute
are also exemplified in the same contrivances. Other methods of putting one's
pecuniary standing in evidence serve their end effectually, and other methods
are in vogue always and everywhere; but expenditure on dress has this advantage
over most other methods, that our apparel is always in evidence and affords an
indication of our pecuniary standing to all observers at the first glance. It
is also true that admitted expenditure for display is more obviously present,
and is, perhaps, more universally practiced in the matter of dress than in any
other line of consumption. No one finds difficulty in assenting to the
commonplace that the greater part of the expenditure incurred by all classes
for apparel is incurred for the sake of a respectable appearance rather than
for the protection of the person. And probably at no other point is the sense
of shabbiness so keenly felt as it is if we fall short of the standard set by
social usage in this matter of dress. It is true of dress in even a higher
degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very
considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in
order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; so
that it is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate, for
people to go ill clad in order to appear well dressed.”
To
gain more out of consumers, an intricate web has been woven around consumer
products. The principles of decency have been shaped to suit their needs. For
example, the common perception about inexpensive products today is that they
are defective in some way or they are not ‘worth it’. Veblen writes further:
“This
spiritual need of dress is not wholly, nor even chiefly, a naive propensity for
display of expenditure. The law of conspicuous waste guides consumption in
apparel, as in other things, chiefly at the second remove, by shaping the
canons of taste and decency. In the common run of cases the conscious motive of
the wearer or purchaser of conspicuously wasteful apparel is the need of
conforming to established usage, and of living up to the accredited standard of
taste and reputability. It is not only that one must be guided by the code of
proprieties in dress in order to avoid the mortification that comes of
unfavorable notice and comment, though that motive in itself counts for a great
deal; but besides that, the requirement of expensiveness is so ingrained into
our habits of thought in matters of dress that any other than expensive apparel
is instinctively odious to us. Without reflection or analysis, we feel that
what is inexpensive is unworthy. "A cheap coat makes a cheap man."
"Cheap and nasty" is recognized to hold true in dress with even less
mitigation than in other lines of consumption. On the ground both of taste and
of serviceability, an inexpensive article of apparel is held to be inferior,
under the maxim "cheap and nasty." We find things beautiful, as well
as serviceable, somewhat in proportion as they are costly. With few and
inconsequential exceptions, we all find a costly hand-wrought article of
apparel much preferable, in point of beauty and of serviceability, to a less
expensive imitation of it, however cleverly the spurious article may imitate
the costly original; and what offends our sensibilities in the spurious article
is not that it falls short in form or color, or, indeed, in visual effect in
any way. The offensive object may be so close an imitation as to defy any but
the closest scrutiny; and yet so soon as the counterfeit is detected, its
aesthetic value, and its commercial value as well, declines precipitately. Not
only that, but it may be asserted with but small risk of contradiction that the
aesthetic value of a detected counterfeit in dress declines somewhat in the
same proportion as the counterfeit is cheaper than its original. It loses caste
aesthetically because it falls to a lower pecuniary grade.”
A
natural extension of the visual distinction concept is the ever-shrinking
attire of women. The more skin you show, the more you look like today’s
celebrities (whose attire is vulgar at best!). A consequence of this is the use
of beauty products and surgical procedures to ‘enhance’ one’s bodily features.
This has grown to become a multi-billion dollar industry and has seen a rise
like never before in the last decade. Sample this from the Wall Street Journal:
“"Each
year an estimated 1.5 million Americans choose to have nose jobs, tummy tucks
or breast enlargements. Many of these people would be unable to afford these
vital surgical procedures if it were not for the public spirited efforts of
loan companies like Jayhawk Acceptance Corporation, a used car lender that has
turned to covering the booming demand for elective surgery. Lenders in this
field face an unusual challenge," explains the Wall Street Journal:
"A lender can take a used car but can hardly repossess a face lift."
Consequently lenders like Jayhawk have to charge a slightly higher interest
rate, up to 22.5% to be exact. Says Michael Smartt, Jayhawk CEO: "We're
capitalizing on America's vanity."”
One
reason for this is that women’s clothes have shrunk to the most amoral
standards. The more skin a woman shows, the more skin-care products and
surgical procedures she is going to need. An equation can be derived out of
this situation where the profits from such products are directly proportional
to the amount of skin women show. Some would say it is the right of women to
dress the way they please and many more would say it is an infringement of
human rights to question their choice of clothing. But I am broaching the
subject in the context of consumerism and I would not do justice to the
discussion if I do not bring it up.
It
is now an established principle that skin-care companies depend on women
showing off their bodies. This can only happen if the clothes they wear allow
greater amounts of skin to be shown. Ideally, they will have to shed some of
their clothes in order to show more. But this will mean a loss to the apparel
industry. What do they do? They come up with clothes which when worn show
enough to keep their skin-care counterparts happy. Going by the theme of “cheap
is nasty”, the cost of these new apparels is also sky-high. This way,
celebrities buy expensive designer clothes which barely cover them and also use
beauty products to cover up the rest of their skin. People who imitate them
also do the same thing. It is a win-win situation for both the industries! Please
correct me if it is any different from what is happening today.
A
result of this ever-increasing vanity is an increase in the number of
atrocities against women. When the topic of atrocities against women is taken
up, people immediately think about Muslim countries and the supposed atrocities
they commit against women. The oppression of Burkha-clad women by Taliban and
the restrictions put on them come quickly to one’s mind. I am not saying I
don’t condemn them, but what people fail to realize is that more number of
women face atrocities in the consumerist-dominated world. Let’s take a look at
the statistics of sexual assault in the United States, the global leader in
propagating the consumerist philosophy.
A
2006 report from the U.S. Department of Justice titled “The Sexual
Victimization of College Women” reports that 3.1% of undergraduates survived
rape or attempted rape during a 6-7 month academic year with an additional
10.1% surviving rape prior to college and an additional 10.9% surviving
attempted rape prior to college. With no overlap between these groups, these
percentages add to 24.1%, or a shocking ONE IN FOUR! If we perform a
statistical analysis, we can say that this is only one report and it may well
be far away from the actual numbers. Let me then include some other reports
which may give a better statistical figure.
Koss,
Gidycz & Wisniewski published a study in 1987 where they interviewed
approximately 6,000 college students on 32 college campuses nationwide. From
this study 15% of college women answered “yes” to questions about whether they
experienced something that met the definition of rape. An additional 12% of
women answered “yes” to questions about whether they experienced something that
met the definition of attempted rape. Thus, the total percentage of women who
experienced sexual assault amounts to 27%.
In
1995 the CDC replicated part of this study. They examined rape only, and did
not look at attempted rape. They found that 20% of approximately 5,000 women on
138 college campuses experienced rape during the course of their lifetime. Had
they also examined attempted rape, the figure would certainly have reached
about 28%.
If
we take the mean of all the afore-mentioned reports, we get a figure that is
close to 25% validating the One In Four figure. In a country which prides on
being the best or among the best in every field, if one in four college-going
women is sexually assaulted at least once in their lifetimes, something is most
definitely wrong. If you take the entire spectrum of women in the United
States, an estimated one in six women has been or will be sexually assaulted
during her life. This assertion was made by Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes
in their 1998 study "Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence
Against Women Survey" at the National Institute of Justice & Centers
for Disease Control & Prevention.
This
is the price the United States pays to keep its consumerist economy afloat. One
in six American mothers, sisters, daughters and wives are sexually assaulted at
least once in their life. If this is the case with the most aggressive
proponent of consumerism in the world, what will be the state of affairs of
nations that aspire to be like it? Surely the day won’t be far away when one in
six women in the world will be a victim of sexual assault. This is The Curse Of The Consumer Society that
people have to live with.
Or
do they? Astonishingly enough, there is a solution to this problem. But that
will be discussed as an extension of this discussion in the second part of this
article: The Dust Of Dreams Part 2.
