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Danielle Smolen

Mr. Harpt

EC 22769

27 Feb 2022

Consumerism and Us

Consumerism is a topic that we have been working on for the past few weeks, when the class

started, I asked myself what is consumerism? Consumerism is the idea that increasing the consumption

of goods and services purchased in the market is always a desirable goal and that a person's wellbeing

and happiness depend fundamentally on obtaining consumer goods and material possessions (Hayes).

Consumerism can mean many different thing, they range from keeping the planet healthy, teaching

your children values, buying what we need, and buying what we don’t need. Learning all of these

values can make you wonder what kind of value does your life hold in consumerism?

First off will be growth, I learned from Kate Raworth that growth can be a positive thing and a

negative thing. I always thought that growth was a great thing before I heard what Kate Raworth had to

say. She explained that we should thrive and not grow because we can overstep our boundaries. Kate

explained that very well, all us humans know is growth and we are starting to overstep and not know

the meaning of balance. The human race is thriving so much that we keep building and building on this

little planet we call home. Kate explained very well that, “so this double-sided challenge to meet the needs

of all within the means of the planet, it invites a new shape of progress, no longer this ever-rising line of

growth, but a sweet spot for humanity, thriving in dynamic balance between the foundation and the ceiling”

(Raworth.) Growing is positive when it comes to little tasks as in learning to walk for the first time or getting your
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college degree. But Kate said very well that we need to thrive and stop the growth and learn the meaning of

balance. We keep building all these buildings and putting toxins in the air. We should be reusing buildings we have

already built, not continue to make new ones. “And yet, we've already overshot at least four of these planetary

boundaries, risking irreversible impact of climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse. This is the state of humanity

and our planetary home” (Raworth). Consumerism is built on growth but according to Raworth, we should learn to

thrive and slow down the growth. We need to get everyone on the same page and be able to have everyone thrive,

the human race goes from starving and homeless to billionaires.

Second, teaching children values can lead to many problems with the generations growing up

today. Consumerism starts out when we are children, with our parents teaching us the value of a dollar

and what we need and don’t need. If we don’t teach our children value, then it can lead to connection

problems, sharing difficulties and plain and simple, bratty kids will become bratty adults. First off,

everyone is guilty on getting their child more then they need. You just want your child to be happy and

give them the best life possible. Leading me into this topic is Lisa Armstrong who wrote an article called

“How to raise a minimalist”. In one child’s room alone, they counted 165 Beanie Babies, 36 figurines, 22
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Barbie dolls, three porcelain dolls, 20 other dolls, one troll, and a miniature castle (Armstrong). Reading

those facts made me realize that most adults are the same way, but we will save that for a little down

the road. Already as a child we are subjected to an abundance of goods so that is the first start to

consumerism, having to many items that we don’t need. Humans think that having a large amount of

items will make a person happier and give them a better quality of life. In some case that is true, parents

give children so many toys so they will be happy baby’s. The U.S. is home to just 3.1 percent of the

world’s children but consumes 40 percent of the world’s toys (Armstrong). This will help me lead into my

next topic when we all turn into adults, you guessed it, buying more than what we need, and the

statistics just keep going higher and higher.

My final topic comes from something that I struggle with, I know that most of Americans can

relate, we buy to many items that we don’t need. Everyone goes to the store mainly for one thing and

one thing only, but does it ever end up that way? Economists just assume that goods and services

provide well-being, and people want to maximize their well-being (Stewart). Emily Stewart wrote an

article called “Why do we buy what we buy”? This article is perfect for this topic of consumerism

because it explains everything in the title, why do we buy what we buy? American has this vision of the

perfect family home, married couples with children and a beautiful house with everything they need.
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We go wondering through the grocery stores and see items that can make our life’s “easier”. I mean

who doesn’t want an easy life? People, naturally, want things (Stewart). We crave new things in our

life’s, TV shows put out all these examples of products and make the actors look so content with their

purchases and we want to feel the same way. We want something new to keep our life’s exciting and

possibly impress the neighbor next door when you bring in your new flat screen TV. But we didn’t need

that TV, we wanted that TV. Can you think of a time that you bought something that you did not need, I

sure can.

In conclusion, Consumerism was brought to my attention a few weeks ago and I had no idea

what it meant. Consumerism starts out when we are baby’s and we don’t even know it, its no ones fault.

Humans and designed to grow mentally and financially. We crave growth, new and better items to make

our life’s easier and better. We all want to cruise through life so we buy things that aid us in the process.

Bigger and better cars, TV’s, gaming stations are coming out and in our minds we just want the new and

improved. I enjoyed learning what consumerism was, I knew about the topic but did not know the name

for it.
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Works Cited

Armstrong, Lisa. “How to Raise a Minimalist.” Real Simple, vol. 19, no. 11, Nov. 2018, pp. 71–74.

Google.com. 2022. consumerism donut Kate Raworth - Google Search. [online] Available

Google.com. 2022. us toy market size - Google Search. [online] Available at:

<https://www.google.com/search? Investopedia. 2022. Consumerism. [online] [Accessed 28 February

2022].

Raworth, Kate. "A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow." ted.com, Apr.

2018,

  Vox. 2022. Why do we buy what we buy?. [online] Available at: <https://www.vox.com/the-

goods/22547185/consumerism-competition-history-interview> [Accessed 28 February 2022].