Consumerism

Consumerism is the belief that personal wellbeing and happiness depends to a very large extent on the level of personal consumption, particularly on the purchase of material goods. The idea is not simply that wellbeing depends upon a standard of living above some threshold, but that at the center of happiness is consumption and material possessions. A consumerist society is one in which people devote a great deal of time, energy, resources and thought to “consuming”. The general view of life in a consumerist society is consumption is good, and more consumption is even better.

Consumerism --the consumption of goods and services in excess of one’s basic needs, usually in greater and greater quantities --is not a new phenomenon, and early examples of consumerism can be traced back to the fist human civilizations. A significant consumerist tide hit Europe and North America in the mid-18th Century as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the transformation of Western Europe’s and North America’s economies.

The mechanization of a number of processes such as farming freed a certain percentage of the workforce from farming, fuelled both the Industrial Revolution and population growth. As industrialization created the conditions for mass production and mass consumption, for the first time in history, immense quantities of manufactured goods were suddenly available at outstandingly low prices, and thus made available to nearly everyone.