The Gospel of Consumption

[freemotion]

Aaaaannnnndddd..... those plug-in smelly thingies are amazingly toxic, and will contribute to health problems, now or eventually. So more jobs are created, within our failing healthcare system.

It is all about supply and demand. As long as people buy, companies will produce. When people stop buying, the company either produces something else or goes out of business. Some of the store closings we are seeing have to do with the company not staying current with today's rapidly changing way of conducting business, that is, having a strong online presence.

Even massage therapists are expected to have a website, as customers want to be able to research them in advance, and when people recommend us, they tend to want to e-mail a link, not hand out a business card. At least in my more urban area. Yet we cannot offer any massage therapy services online! People even want to be able to buy gift certificates online at 11 PM on Dec 24 from us. This happened VERY rapidly.

Remember Polaroid? Stubbornly resisting the move towards digital?

eta: and good riddance to some of those stores! Sorry about the job loss, but....ss is important. No job is a sure thing, gone are the days of the gold watch.

 

[Beekissed]

On the flip side, people would not NEED nearly as much in the way of jobs, and some new jobs would come into existance too (selling more food locally, and making/repairing things locally come to mind), if people did not feel compelled to spend so darn much money buying stuff.

I'm sorry, I don't buy the argument that we "have" to keep buying or the world will end. It didn't used to be that way, and I don't see that basic math has changed (although I will admit that a larger population is a legitimate 'twist'). It would be an unpleasant changeover, but then many things are unpleasant that are not necessarily *bad*. CHildbirth comes to mind but of course there are lotsa other examples too.

It's just a treadmill. We could get off. It's just that, at the moment, we (as a society I mean) choose not to.

Pat

I would have to agree with Pat on this one. To imply that consumerism is good because it employs people who would otherwise not have a job, somehow doesn't explain that the more we consume, the worse the economy and the higher the unemployment rate.

Making more things to create jobs for people who use their wages to buy more things is a ludicrous concept. It is like the argument for outsourcing to third world countries so they can have "better" lives with better health care, more food, better schools, etc. This may help those countries for awhile....just like it did ours. But would it stop at just "better"? Or would it escalate into our current situation?

More doesn't always mean better and bringing all countries up to America's standard of living would only create more countries who consume fossil fuels at an exponential rate, cannot build homes fast enough to contain the population spread, who throw away so much manufactured plastics and chemicals that we have to ship it to the same countries we are helping, who are eating substandard foods manufactured as quickly and cheaply as they can possibly be put on the market.....for why? So the once impoverished and hungry population can be obese, unhealthy, in-debt American clones and run out of resources in their own countries? Out of the frying pan.....

 

[FarmerChick]

3rd world countries want your jobs!

They want our lifestyle whether it be good or bad.

They are going to get our lifestyle one way or another.....and while we have it "great" here, who are we to say, no, don't have things and live easier like us? We have it and they have every right to it also.

for good reasons or bad.

you can't just deny people better living thru working---or "their" concept of better living.

(I ain't wrapping this up in the whole.....if we have jobs, if we buy more, consumerism things...just talking in general about people have ALOT less than us want some of it now. Do they care they are eating up more fuel? No, why should they cause all the cars we have are consuming 10,000 times what they might---and we aren't giving them up either.)

 

[enjoy the ride]

To use every bit of your labor to accumulate trivial things is an addiction- one that takes over and destroys much of what I consider good about life.
But not having "things'- I would hate to be without a truck- it allows me to go to the feed store and get hay, bedding and grain, not to mention gates, fencing and medicins foor the animals. If I did not have a truck, I would have to have stuff delivered at $75 per delivery.
If I did not have a fridge, I would have to do without fresh fruit and greens in the winter.
If I did not have a computer, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing right now.
But if I lived in a city, I wouldn't need those things but other things instead.
I still say that a person who is selling what you "need" will charge as much as is needed for him to earn his livelihood. That means if he needs $100 per week to support his family, the people who buy from him will be charged, in excess of the cost to him of the product, that much. If he sells two widgets at $50 apiece or 10 widgets at $10 apiece, that is what you will pay to have him in the business of providing widgets. Otherwise, he will not do it.

Now if people decide they do not need a widget, but you do need a widget, you will bare the whole cost of his livelihood. Similarly, if he can sell one widget to you, and 9 $10 thing-a-me-bobs to everyone else, he will probably sitll be there to sell you your widget at about $10.
So as you wear out your widgets, and it needs to be replaced, you are better off if lots of people consume widgets or at least thing-a-me-bobs as it keeps widgets more affordable.

All this is constantly in a flux, demand for widgets and thing-a-me-bobs going up and down and Mr. Seller is constantly scrambling to hit the profitable balance.
Now if everyone gives stops buying widgets all at once, Mr Seller will probably unload his remaining ones as a low price just so he isn't stuck with them. You get a great deal. Deflation.
But sooner or later, your widget goes belly up and you go looking for a replacement. No one has one but maybe Mr. Seller will get you one if he can find one still being made. But it will mean you take the widget he can find with no real bargaining as to price or kind. Less choice, more cost. Not too good for you. Stagflation.

Mr Seller rattles his contact to start making widgets again because the demand is up- they can see a market and need to earn their livelihood too, so they will tool up, find workers and start making widgets but those widgets now cost more as starting up costs the contact and he still needs his livelihood too. Inflation.

I still think the bottom line is you can spend your days labor to earn just enough food, clothes and shelter to get by or you can spend your days labor for a lot more. It will cost the same. All you can spend, whether for a little or a lot. It costs as much as you can do one way or the other.

 

[curly_kate]

I've been thinking a lot about the 'olden days,' esp. because I just reread the Little House books. Everything they did was for a definite purpose: food on the table, clothes on their backs, roof over their heads. They would save if they could. But their income wasn't drained by the myriad 'things' that seem so integral to life now. While I think there are some 'things' that I would be unhappy to lose, I try to keep my stuff to a minimum. To me, it's just more clutter. But there are so many people (some of whom are in my family) who are compelled to buy mindless crap. It takes up space, and doesn't make them happy like they hoped. There are a lot of hollow people on this earth who have piles of stuff around them, but nothing inside. :/

 

[FarmerChick]

yea olden days sound great but they were a super hard life.

they didn't buy stuff cause "stuff" wasn't truly available like now.

their day consisted of surviving. you worked the garden or didn't eat cause your grocery store sure wasn't on the corner! You worked and sold extra to pay property tax or you had no where to live.

Don't be fooled about olden times. They were severe. We love the idea of olden days cause "we have things and can use them when needed"---they had nothing but a wing and a prayer! Many died needless, etc. etc. etc.


BUT there has to be that balance. This world lost balance.

From old days when life was hard and not many man made products, to a life of everything at your fingertips literally. Where is the balance? I don't know.....

 

[freemotion]

What if everyone determined which areas of their lives they could conserve resources and scale back, and which areas they really enjoyed the conveniences....everyone's would be different, and some balance might exist.

Eating locally is an example, to reduce one's carbon footprint. Not practical for most people, but if everyone tried to conscientously purchase some items locally and grow some items, it would make a difference. I still want citrus fruit and wheat and some tropical spices like cinnamon. But since I have become more aware of the impact, I eat more locally (sometimes in my own yard) produced foods. Or simply processing wheat into flour in my own kitchen takes many miles off that wheat.

I use less plastic, but some is needed....or wanted to make life run more smoothly. So where can I reduce it? Simply making it a practice to store leftovers in jars instead of ziplocs, and packing lunches and snacks in reusable containers instead of disposable. I have a filtering sports water bottle that I bring to the airport now so I don't have to purchase water in a plastic bottle, but my bottle is plastic. I can get it through security empty and fill it at the water fountain.

Yup, it is a balance, living with modern conveniences like the washer and dryer (had to buy one when I became a massage therapist, all those flannel sheets!) and don't you dare take my Vitamix or my food processors away! Or electricity or hot water that comes out of a faucet in the house! Or toilets that flush and nice soft toilet paper!

I loved Laura Ingalls Wilders books, but no, would not want to HAVE to live that way completely! But we ss-ers are more prepared to make do than the average person out there. That is worth something.

 

[Beekissed]

I think people are imagining trying to live their present life~and like they did back then. I would venture to say, if we had to live like then, it is likely that we would not be going to a daily job, nor driving a vehicle down to a store or using electric at all. We would be doing the daily chores to sustain life just like they did then.

Of course, if we had to go to work or school far away, that kind of life would be highly inconvenient. But imagine if schools were still within walking distance, we were growing all our food and harvesting from the wild as well. Women weren't going to work and men worked each day in the fields or woods to make crops or collect firewood. Women worked each day to make food, make clothing, make a home. Water would be hauled in as needed and the washing involved a day's work~but you would have that day, because you didn't have to be anywhere like work or soccer games or watching TV. Work would be a family thing and neighbors would, out of necessity, help one another with getting in crops and hay. Sunday would once again be a special day when people would get together on a day of rest.

No one likes to think of giving up modern conveniences, but I think this is because they fit into our daily lives and routines. But what if our daily lives and routines no longer existed and it was all about survival? Our days would be slower, our minds would be uncluttered with a million stimuli from the world and things, and life would be at its most basic.

I guess this just makes me think, that with the advent of convenient living, something was taken from us. With every convenience there was a price. Now we love our conveniences but are weary of the price. Yes, people died back then....but our nation was not overcrowded. Yes, we have better medicines now, but more illness than ever....but we live longer....but no one wants to take care of us when we are old~nor do they have the time.

Its all a trade off, really, and the what ifs of would we live like the olden days is moot~we can never live like the olden days now, as the world has changed and encroached and our minds have changed with it. No going back.....ever.

Trying to live SS is a knee-jerk reaction to being weary of paying the price for our conveniences, but we will never be free of them now.

 

[freemotion]

sigh......

 

[enjoy the ride]

May people think about the romance of living in a pre-mechanized world. Like long carriage rides, and home grown entertainment and long flowing gowns and hair dressed by a maid, courtly manners..................

Me- being the perverse little creature I am, I know that I would have been the scullary maid or laudress and would have worked myself to toothless old age by 50. And the idea of wearing a corset- owwwww. Freezing in winter and roasting in summer. Sharing a house with mice, no hot showers ...............

My idea of the perfect time