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GEE4 Chapter 6

Consumerism refers to the belief that acquiring material goods and consuming products and services is essential to happiness. While consumer spending drives economic growth, excessive consumerism can have negative consequences. It can encourage wasteful spending on goods for status rather than utility, create environmental problems, and define people by what they own rather than their character. While global brands spread ideas of consumerism worldwide, local cultures can also adapt and resist global influences in unique ways. Consumerism is a complex issue with advantages in promoting economic activity but also risks if taken to an extreme.

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125 views24 pages

GEE4 Chapter 6

Consumerism refers to the belief that acquiring material goods and consuming products and services is essential to happiness. While consumer spending drives economic growth, excessive consumerism can have negative consequences. It can encourage wasteful spending on goods for status rather than utility, create environmental problems, and define people by what they own rather than their character. While global brands spread ideas of consumerism worldwide, local cultures can also adapt and resist global influences in unique ways. Consumerism is a complex issue with advantages in promoting economic activity but also risks if taken to an extreme.

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Challenges to GC:

Consumerism and
Consumption
Lesson III-C
Back to Overview

Consumerism
Consumerism is the concept that acquiring
consumer goods and material belongings is
essential to one's happiness and that expanding
one's consumption of products and services from
the market is always a positive objective.
Consumerism and
Economy
The Key to Progress
According to Keynesian macroeconomics, economic authorities should
focus on increasing consumer spending through monetary and fiscal policy.
In order to move the economy toward growth, increasing consumer spending
is seen to be the most efficient strategy. Consumer spending makes up the
majority of aggregate demand and gross domestic product (GDP).
Shaping Busines Practices
Consumerism also helps shape some business practices. Planned
obsolescence of consumer goods can displace competition among
producers to make more durable products. Marketing and advertising can
become focused on creating consumer demand for new products rather
than informing consumers.
Consumerism and
Society
Conspicuous Consumption
Political economist Thorstein Veblen developed the concept of conspicuous
consumption in 1899, where he theorized that some consumers purchase, own, and
use products not for their direct-use value but as a way of signaling social and
economic status.

As standards of living rose after the Industrial Revolution, conspicuous consumption


grew. High rates of conspicuous consumption can be a wasteful zero-sum or even
negative-sum activity as real resources are used up to produce goods that are not
valued for their use but rather the image they portray.
Advantages and
Disadvantages of
Consumerism
Advantages
Advocates of consumerism point to how consumer spending can drive an
economy and lead to increased production of goods and services. As a result of
higher consumer spending, a rise in GDP can occur. Signs of healthy consumer
demand can be found in consumer confidence indicators, retail sales, and personal
consumption expenditures.

Business owners, workers in the industry, and owners of raw resources can profit
from sales of consumer goods either directly or through downstream buyers.
Disadvantages
Consumerism is often criticized on cultural grounds. Some see that
consumerism can lead to a materialistic society that neglects other values.
Consumerism is often associated with globalization in promoting the
production and consumption of globally traded goods and brands, which can
be incompatible with local cultures and patterns of economic activity.
Consumerism can also create incentives for consumers to take on
unsustainable debt levels that contribute to financial crises and recessions.
Environmental problems.
Causes Psychological Stress
Is Consumerism Bad for Society?
Excess consumerism leads to negative externalities like pollution and waste.
Moreover, consumerism begins to define people by what they own. According to
some sociologists, mass culture popularized via the advertising industry creates
consumers who play a passive role manipulated by brands, rather than as active
and creative beings.
Consumerism in the
Global Context
By focusing on the broad attitudinal and value-based concept
of consumerism rather than the mere fact of the proliferation of
global brands and multinational corporations, we can see that
the presence of global brands may or may not signal global
consumerism.

Thus, the association of global consumerism to cultural


imperialism may be more nuanced than what most economists
and sociologists may think,
Theories Concerning
Global Consumerism
Cultural Imperialism
The theory of cultural imperialism states that Western brands,
entertainment, and media were seen as being imposed on the
rest of the world (Dorfman and Mattelart, 1984).
Cultural Splitting
A second set of theories saw the reaction to global products,
services, and media as producing a split between the West
and the Rest.

A variation of this theme sees the clash as being between the


affluent minority and the poor majority.
Cultural Resistance
A third wave of theorizing saw the local as resilient and powerful enough to
coopt, reconfigure, or reinterpret the global for its own purposes.

A variant of this theme sees local businesses as able to use their cultural
knowledge to out-compete global brand adversaries. If the cultural
imperialist position erred on the side of seeing the consumer as too passive,
resilient, and powerful, the local position likely sees the consumer as too
active and empowered.
Glocalization and Creolization
Since cultures constantly change and interact with each other,
it seems reasonable to expect that certain intercultural
elements will blend with one another in unique ways as they
do so.
Consumption of the
Global
With the rise of global consumption is the rise of
Nationalism. Eventually, the distinction between
global and local brands and stores may disappear.
Reason for the Decline of Recognition for
Global Consumption
Habituation
Local Franchises and Outsourcing
One of the reasons for the initial concern with resisting
‘‘cultural imperialism’’ in globalization and subsequent
championing of the local was the feeling that
something authentic is lost when we begin to replace
local products and services with global goods.
But to jump to the other extreme and claim that
globalization is good for everyone would also be
shortsighted.

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