Consumerism is Killing Us (AKA the Consumerism to Extinction Pipeline)

PART ONE: THE BIRTH OF A CONSUMER SOCIETY

The idea that humans are consumers is not a new one. We have always consumed in one way or another whether we look back at ancient civilizations and their hoarding of resources for the sake of survival or examine current trends of social media over-consumption of beauty products and clothes from Shein. But when did material possession begin to define one’s worth? When did the temporary enjoyment and comforts of meaningless items start to outweigh our species’ survival?

Previously in human history, capital was found in land ownership as it provided the resources necessary to eat, live, and sleep. Numerous countries based an entire class system on the ability to own land; the rich lords owned and profited off of the land while the poor classes paid to live on land that wasn’t their own. But this concept was not to last. 

Listening to the ever-present human instinct to expand and settle, 16th century England set their sights on the uncolonized land of North America (among other patches of land that already had people - but that is unrelated to this essay). Undeterred by the ‘The Lost Colony’ of Roanoke and the failed attempt at Newfoundland, England established its first successful North American colony, Jamestown, in 1607.

The downfall of this original colony was swift, with colonists encountering starvation, disease, and attacks from the Native population. After the first winter, only 38 out of the original 100 colonists were left and they were not left with much. With no viable goods for survivable or, more ‘importantly’, profit, it did not take long for chaos to erupt. However, once the cultivation and exportation of tobacco became the “...colonies’ first profitable venture by the end of 1614," the Virginia Company set forth a series of reforms to attract settlers to the colony [1]. The most notable reform was the role of the governor of Virginia (Sir George Yeardley) and the House of Burgesses. Now, instead of martial law modeling that of Dark Ages England, the American colony had a legislative body selected by the colonists – English Common Law. This would soon become the model of self-government within all of the American colonies. 

This taste of democracy would no doubt lead to the eventual separation of North America’s colonies and their creator, England. For once, the people had a say in political happenings, they no longer felt this strong connection with the English monarchy. Of course, we all know how this story ends. Challenged by this newfound political freedom of the colonies, England tried their hardest to keep the colonists under their control. It was a meaningless task, once the colonists got a taste of freedom outside of monarchy, there was no going back. 

Even before the American Revolution, America was seen as the land of opportunity – the land of ‘new’. New freedoms, new resources, and new experiences were all to be found there; but the democracy that was to evolve after the removal of British influence would set a new precedence entirely.  

We see a real shift towards democracy as we now know it after the War of 1812, but what this war was fought over is not where its true importance lies. Instead, the political infighting between the first American political factions – the Republicans and the Federalists – is what would trigger the shift in the American political demographic. Unknown at the time, the constant opposition to the War of 1812 by the Federalists’ would be their downfall. Now seen as ‘un-patriotic’ after the American victory, we see a quick dissolution of the party which made way for Thomas Jefferson’s rise to the presidency. Spurred by the ‘Era of Good Feelings’ that followed a second triumph over the powerful nation of Britain, we see yet another step away from English influence in Jefferson’s notion of America as a nation of free farmers. This was taken even further in the presidency of the ‘hero of the common man’ Andrew Jackson. This new ‘era of the common man’ brought forth a practice unheard of up until this point – property-free voting rights. 

For the first time, voting became widespread (for the white man, at least) as property requirements were dropped from voting requirements. Now, any white man could vote.

But what do voting rights have to do with consumerism?

PART TWO: CONSUMING AS A MEANS OF SALVATION AND MONEY AS THE ULTIMATE MEASURE OF VALUE

“It speaks to us…only of ourselves, our pleasures, our life. It does not say ‘Pray, obey, sacrifice thyself, respect the King, fear thy master’ It whispers, ‘Amuse thyself, take care of yourself.’” 

– William Leach in Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (1993)

Following the evolution of democracy in the early 1800s, older means of economic and political freedom previously found in land ownership and control over work were replaced with the idea that comfort and prosperity were the centerpiece of American society.

It is important to mention that this change resulting from a shift in voting rights only affected the white, male population of early America. It comes as no surprise that women and people of color would place value on material possessions as it was all they had. However, there was still an increase in the value attributed to these tangible possessions as a direct result of a cultural shift brought on by this development in democracy. 

This change in democracy brought the ‘democratization of desire’ as in equal rights to “desire the same good and to [potentially] enter the same world of comfort and luxury,” as those of a higher economic status. Now, the ‘Land of Comfort’ was becoming the ‘Land of Desire’.”

However, this idea is also rooted in the religious culture of early colonists. 

“Many protestant settlers even thought that the millennial promise – the Second Coming of Christ – was destined to be fulfilled [in America] and that the New Jerusalem would bring not only salvation and spiritual bliss but also temporal blessings and the end to poverty. By the early 1900s this myth was being transformed, urbanized and commercialized, increasingly severed from its religious aims and focusing ever more on personal satisfaction and even on such new pleasure palaces as department stores, theaters, restaurants… these institutions still carried much of the former mythic message – the message that said Americans can be renewed and remade… [but] this new era heralded the pursuit of goods as the means to all ‘good’ and personal salvation.” 

– William Leach, 1993

The popularization of consumerism as a means of salvation took the religious dread out of desire. No longer did the acceptance of desire intermingle with the acceptance of mortality and the passage of time. Instead, the dread was taken “out of desire and replaced with a happy face that would never grow old.”[2]

Similar to the consumer revolution and the consequential industrial revolution of 18th century England, this new rise in consumerism as the means of salvation led to an increase in industry in America during the late 19th century. The land of desire was becoming more and more industrialized, there was less wealth to be found in land and more to be found in “capital or in the money required to produce new goods.”[2] This wealth was owned by a small minority but, at the same time, increasing numbers of Americans became dependent on owners of capital for their wages and well-being as they lost control over their own work and resources. 

Previously, people would produce what they consumed or bartered for what they could not make; but, by the time of the Industrial Revolution, many started to rely on manufactured goods. Now, we see a new anxiety brought on by desire take hold – the influence of money. With the decrease in land ownership and the control over work for the general population, more and more Americans were compelled to rely on monetary income for their security and well-being, rather than making their own goods or bartering as they had previously. Thus, Americans had become dependent on “goods made by unknown hands.”[3] From this point on, “[monetary] values would constitute for many people the base measure for all other values,” even when deciding what is worthwhile [2].

“Increasingly, the worth of everything – even beauty, friendship, religion, and moral life– was being  determined by what it could bring to the market.”[2]

PART THREE: CONSUMER CHAOS

“Business had learned as never before the importance of the ultimate consumer. Unless he could be persuaded to buy and buy lavishly, the whole stream of six-cylinder cars, super heterodynes, cigarettes, rouge compacts and electric ice boxes would be dammed up at its outlets.” 

– Frederick Lewis Allen in Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (1931)

The end of World War I marked a release from the perils of wartime famine and the reduction of resources and, as such, a return to consumerism for the American population. U.S. production grew by a factor of 12 from 1860 to 1920, despite the population only increasing by a factor of three for the same time period – an indication of the “additional wealth that was theoretically available.” This economic growth had “succeeded in providing basic security to the great majority of [the] entire population.”[4]

Despite the expected increase in consumerism following the period of wartime economics during World War I, this exponential increase in industrial production was now outpacing the observed American rate of consumption. Corporations needed to do something to convince the population that needed to buy more. Now, corporations are persuading the American people in the new skill of consumption – one that would fit the ever increasing rate of production. Instead of only marketing to those of higher classes, the tactic was to target the average work, for which material possessions had rarely been attainable. 

To do this, the idea of progress had to take on the new meaning of “endless replacements of old need with new, old products with new.”[5]  To buy meant to be of high-standard and, in true human fashion of imitating those we perceive as above us, we begin to see those of lower classes consuming as they never had before. They were steered away from thrifting and encouraged to value material possession over free-time. Time spent enjoying time with family and in nature was replaced with time working in factories to afford the newest item those in high socioeconomic class were enjoying. 

History repeats itself, so it is no surprise that the end of wartime deprivation brought on by World War II resulted in a renewed zeal of corporations and advertisers tempting the American population with the promises of being able to buy comfort and happiness through material means. However, corporations had a new advantage – the radio and, soon, the television. “Radio gave interested corporations… unprecedented access to the inner sanctums of the public mind.” The television managed to take this a step further, “exploiting image and symbol far more adeptly than print and radio had been able to do.”[5]

The name of the game was to make the luxuries of the upper classes a necessity of all classes. Now, with unlimited marketing access to the American population, corporations furthered their ability to capitalize on the human need to climb the social ladder.

“Though it is status that is being sold, it is endless material objects that are being consumed.”

– Vance Packard in The Waste Makers (1960)

PART FOUR: HOW AMERICA BECAME THE LAND OF REPLACEMENT

"/ do love having new clothes . . . but old clothes are beastly. . . .We always throw away old clothes. Ending is better than mending . . .ending is better than mending . . . ending is better. . . ."

– Soft voice of sleep teacher indoctrinating the young while they sleep in Aldous (Huxley's Brave New World.) 

By this point, consumerism in America had grown out of hand as a result of the consumer binge following World War II, but it was too late to stop it. Society had grown used to being sold to and being encouraged to buy, introducing control over economic activity and spending would only result in backlash. 

But how do you keep consumerism necessary?

You know how your parents or grandparents always say that “old things were made to last” as they hold onto their washer and dryer from the 60s? Turns out, they’re not wrong. As immense effort was being poured into persuading people to buy, buy, buy things they did not need, manufacturers began what became known as “planned obsolescence”. This was the intentional design of inferior products, made to wear out quickly. This was to match the American need to constantly replace what they already had with the newest model, these products weren’t designed to last long. They were designed to “become obsolete in the mind of the consumer, even sooner than the components used to make them will fail.”[6]

"Once in my life I would like to own something outright before it's broken! I'm always in a race with the junkyard! I just finish paying for the car and it's on its last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddam maniac. They time those things. They time them so when you've finally paid for them, they're used up."

—Lament of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. 

This idea of planned obsolescence is not exclusive to the current generation, it started decades ago. You would hear the voice of a television announcer chanting "You use it once and throw it away. . . . You use it once and throw it away," when promoting the sale of a new deodorant pad. You would see a TV commercial showing a happy housewife dropping a metal soda can in the trash, “No fussing with returns!”

We had now developed our own take on the sleep teachers of Huxley’s Brave New World with insistent commercials promoting this new concept of “use once then throwaway!” Childrens’ toys break easily, teaching them early “that everything in this world is replaceable.”[5]

Every year the newest, hottest item comes out the everyone must buy, only to be told a year later that something else is even newer even better. 

“We make good products, we induce people to buy them, and then next year we deliberately introduce something that will make those products old fashioned, out of date, obsolete. . . . It isn't organized waste. It's a sound contribution to the American economy."

– Brooks Stevens, Industrial Designer 

PART FIVE: CONSUMERISM IS KILLING US

This new Land of Replacement started a trend of ‘throwing away’ that would last; but can you ever truly throw something away? 

“What we don’t consider, is that the idea of ‘throwing away’ is a myth. There is no ‘away’. Unless the item can be reused by someone else, or recycled, then it’s heading to a landfill site where it will sit for good.”

– Tabitha Whiting in How We Created a Throwaway Society (2019)

Like Tabitha says, there is no ‘away’. There is only finding a way to reuse something or tossing it into one of the innumerable landfills that make their home in our land and oceans. Landfills which increase in waste every year.

Since the rise of “throwaway” culture in the 60s, waste generation rates in America have increased every year reaching as high as 2.1 billion tons globally in 2023 [7]. 

The majority of this waste ends up in landfills with a similar trend being seen in the tons of waste in landfills every year since 1960 [8].

You may think, “What does it matter? Doesn’t all of that trash break down eventually?” and to some extent you may be right. What is important to consider, however, is what is released in this process of breaking down our trash. We constantly hear about the implications of carbon emissions from our vehicles or from factories, but rarely do we take into consideration the emissions that directly result from the break down of food and manmade material. 

Landfill gas is the product of waste breakdown and is composed of roughly 50% methane gas and 50% carbon dioxide with trace amount of other organic compounds. Landfill gas is almost entirely composed of well known greenhouse gases, but what are greenhouse gases? Greenhouse gases are gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect – which is actually a very natural process. Earth’s atmosphere is composed of  78.08 percent nitrogen, 20.95 percent oxygen, and 0.93 percent argon as well as trace greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. These gases are what trap warmth in Earth’s lower atmosphere – this is the greenhouse effect! It is what makes life possible on Earth; but what happens when you increase these gases above the natural level? 

Increasing the amount of greenhouse gases increases the amount of heat that can become trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. Knowing this, it is no wonder that as we see concentrations of carbon dioxide and Methane increase in the atmosphere, we also see an increase in temperature [9]. 

So, what? How does this actually impact us? For the longest time, this effect was called ‘Global Warming’ which implied to the average person that it was simply going to make Earth warmer but this has wide-reaching consequences. 

As temperatures rise, widespread shifts occur in the global weather patterns making natural disasters like droughts, hurricanes, and floods more intense and unpredictable. Warming on a global scale is melting the polar ice caps as the Arctic heats up twice as fast as anywhere else on Earth [10]. 

The melting of ice caps in conjunction with the expansion of water as it increases in temperature has lead to increasing sea levels [11]. Level that will continue to increase if we don’t change our ways. 

These rising sea levels not only threaten the infrastructure of coastal cities but also increase the risk of floods and could make already dangerous hurricanes even more so. 

Not only are coastal cities being threatened by human-driven climate change, but inland communities are at risk as well. Since 1983, the National Interagency Fire Center has documented an average of 70,000 wildfires per year with the extent of area burned increasing since the 1980s [12]. While there is no obvious trend in the number of wildfires, the extent burned indicates that the fires have only grown in strength over the years. The cause of this may be climate change as temperatures increases and droughts become more severe. 

CONCLUSION

I am not saying consumerism is your fault. It is not the average populations fault that we are sold to at every available opportunity. Media and corporations have made it their goal to convince you that you are not enough without more wealth and more material possessions. However, it is our responsibility to change. Only we are in control of what we do on a daily basis, only we are in control of what non-necessities we spend our money on. Stop letting these people on Instagram and TikTok use you as a means to an end. Stop letting corporations take advantage of you at every turn. Be the change that we so desperately need before it is too late and the damage caused by these actions is irreversible.

FOOTNOTES/SOURCES:

1. “The Seeds of Democracy in America ... The House of Burgesses.” Travis Air Force Base, 8 Jan. 2009, www.travis.af.mil/News/Display/Article/153298/the-seeds-of-democracy-in-america-the-house-of-burgesses/. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

2. Leach, William. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.

3. Mitchell, Wesley Clair, 1912

4. Higgs, Kerryn. “A Brief History of Consumer Culture.” The MIT Press Reader, 11 Jan. 2021

5. Ewen, Stuart. PR : A Social History of Spin. New York, Basic Books, 1996.

6. Packard, Vance. The Waste Makers. Brooklyn, Ny, Ig Pub, 1960.

7. UNEP. “Global Waste Management Outlook 2024.” UNEP - UN Environment Programme, 25 Feb. 2024

8. US EPA. “Basic Information about Landfill Gas .” US EPA, United States Environmental Protection Agency, 9 Apr. 2019, www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas.

9. Ritchie, Hannah, et al. “Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Our World in Data, Jan. 2024, ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions.

10. NASA. “Ice Sheets | NASA Global Climate Change.” Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet, 2024, climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/?intent=121.

11. Lindsey, Rebecca. “Climate Change: Global Sea Level.” Climate.gov, NOAA, 22 Aug. 2023

12. “Climate Change Indicators: Wildfires | US EPA.” US EPA, EPA, July 2016, www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-wildfires.

    
    

SAMPLES USED FOR MUSIC

"Hope" Sad Piano Melody by cat_attack

"i hope see you again" by 1ndoryü

Dreamwave Hypnosis Synth + Bass by Rohan Gopinath

Intro music made by me!