Too many people are now spending money they didn't earn on things they don't need to impress people they don't like.
The very phenomenon of the so-called "consumerism" was predicted by V. I. Lenin, who, analyzing where capitalism is heading, suggested two possible options: either it will “devour itself” due to the crisis of overproduction, or it will learn to instill among the inhabitants the desire to buy junk they do not need.
Which path capitalism has taken, we all perfectly see.
Advertising aggressively climbs into all areas of our life - in movies, books, the Internet, even on playgrounds. Everything is on sale - from planes to bracelets, with the help of which muscles swing by themselves. They even sell air - in cans with the words "Air of St. Petersburg" or "Air of Altai Mountains".
So what is “consumerism”? This is the identification of the core of your self-esteem with the quantity or value of things that you acquire. The more or more expensive you buy, the cooler you are.
In scientific and pseudo-scientific works there is a term - "status consumption" or "conspicuous consumption", which describes the behavior when a person bought something prestigious from his point of view and demonstrates it to everyone around him. Such behavior in the eyes of a conspicuous consumer should serve to maintain his image of a “prosperous person”, “successful man” (or “successful woman”) and arouse envy among others.
Well-being itself does not objectively exist. There is only a concept, an idea of well-being, which is formed in this particular society at this particular time. Previously, it was prestigious to have a Hungarian service (which everyone is getting rid of now), a VCR and the latest Zhiguli. Now this has been replaced by other attributes of a “beautiful life”. But the essence remains the same.
The images of "luxury and respect" are cultivated in society artificially with the help of advertising tools and serve to enrich those who order it. One of the most popular methods of suggestion is constant repetition. As the Reich Minister of Education and Propaganda of Germany, Dr. Goebbels, said: "A lie repeated a thousand times becomes true."
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If an average person many times a day from the TV screen, on the radio, from the gloss and the Internet is hammered into: “if you don’t have an apple phone, a car, or various expensive items, then you are a nonentity, you will not be respected and you will not find a partner” - he will sooner or late will go to buy "show-offs" so as not to look dull against the background of others.
In Mother Russia and in developing countries, the cult of the Things blooms in lush color. And in this pursuit of false values, people earn themselves neuroses.
A person begins to be afraid to "lag behind life" and "live worse than others." Didn't take out a mortgage, do you live with your parents? - a laughing stock! Are you over thirty and no Lexus? - a loser! Didn't you buy an expensive fur coat for your woman? - what a man you are!
As a result, a person takes out a loan and starts eating Chinese noodles every day, because all the money goes to pay off the loan.
If before the beginning of the last century luxury goods were purchased by people from the upper castes of society, now, with the development of production, "consumerism" has spread to the poor and the middle class. It is they who in the bulk buy items that are inadequate to their earnings, take things that are impermissibly expensive for themselves on credit.
Chasing things is like running a squirrel in a wheel. No matter how much a person buys, he will always want to buy more or more. No matter how much he earned, it will seem to him that he earns little.
Advertising will constantly shit into the soul of the layman, cultivating his complexes, greed, vanity, explaining to him that he is not cool and handsome enough, that he will not be happy without new and new purchases.
If we take into account that goods are specially produced so that they serve short-lived (because it is economically profitable, there is even such a phenomenon - "planned obsolescence"), and changing fashion devalues things even faster - status consumption turns into a run without a destination. …
The “successful person” brand is just a fiction imposed on producers of goods / services for selfish purposes. “Successful people” are essentially those who constantly bring them profit.
And after many years spent on status consumption, a person understands: he did not become "successful", he simply fell for and spent money on unnecessary things, life passed in the weather behind a hanging carrot.
How to protect yourself from consumerism?
Nobody urges you to give up your car, your mobile phone, throw off your clothes, wear sheets on your body instead, and leave to study Buddhism. You just should not put things at the head of your life and live from buying to buying items that are considered respectable.
Think back to how you felt when you bought something expensive. How long did they last? Where did they go then? Understand that nothing can make you happy; sooner or later it will go out of order or out of fashion.
Personal happiness and wealth do not always coexist with each other, for the simple reason that the latter becomes boring over time and becomes commonplace, or even disappears into the abyss of bankruptcy due to outstanding loans.
To get out of the influence of consumerism, you need to refuse contact with its "sources of infection": TV, radio, other sources of advertising.
We must stop evaluating people according to the principle of "who has more feathers" and stop being allocated with property ourselves.
A person who wants to end up feeding the consumer's car with ineffective waste of money must reorient his financial expenses from shopping “what's fashionable” to “what is needed” and to things with maximum functionality. And stop getting dubious, akin to a drug addict, pleasure from shopping.
Status consumption brings benefits and success only to manufacturers of advertised goods, transnational corporations, and their owners.
It ruins ordinary people and makes those who are already rich richer - it is a mechanism for endlessly pumping money from the pockets of several billion consumers into the pockets of several hundred owners of the largest corporations.
Status consumption is the foundation on which modern capitalism rests.
Author: Stanislav Lenz