Just as the title asks: I want to know what people here on this forum see as the virtues of consumerism. Not the problems. I just want to know if there is a group of virtues from consumerism about which most people can agree.
Consumerism: the boorish neighbor people tolerate at parties because he brings booze.
It certiantly creates jobs for itself, ie: advertising and in-depth market research.
I wrote a speach on consumerism and why it is bad if anyone wants me to post it.
Just as the title asks: I want to know what people here on this forum see as the virtues of consumerism. Not the problems. I just want to know if there is a group of virtues from consumerism about which most people can agree.
A few hours ago I was eating a delicious slab of well-seasoned, moistened, and sauced meat while drinking a strong hot coffee and blaring some awesome music into my huge headphones. When I sip the coffee while the pork is still in my mouth and the song gets to the climax after the bridge, I am in a good place. I like consuming each of those things individually, but when combining each sensation it provided a sort of amplifier effect.
I do think there was some virtue in giving me some serious pleasure.
Consuming just for the sake of it or for social status? That doesn't seem too virtuous.
You could create equivalent jobs with a society devoted to output of science, art, or space colonization. Those endeavors could create huge demand needing supply of all sorts of goods and services. In a GDP formula that might come under "consumption", but that isn't what innonimatu meant.
I mean obviously you can't turn the economy on a dime, but it is possible over time to alter the purpose of our efforts.
Seeing stuff advertised and buying it? If there are two things people agree about the consumer society is that it came about together with advertising, and it is about consuming beyond one's needs. What "needs" mean people don't agree about. I can't offer a better definition.
So we seem to have three things already:
- jobs
- material goods to occupy our idle time with
- competition for social status (debatable)
I would say it encourages research and development in certain fields. A lot of discoveries done purely for commercial purposes end up have real world effects that benefit mankind.
It can also encourage creativity and can give rise to more pleasant looking products and environments. People buy art and movies and video games with better graphics and design. People want to eat delicious and good looking food, perhaps expanding their horizons. Even Christmas, the king of consumer holidays, has a lot of pleasant looking decorations that adorn all the shops and the gifts people buy there.
Just as the title asks: I want to know what people here on this forum see as the virtues of consumerism. Not the problems. I just want to know if there is a group of virtues from consumerism about which most people can agree.
Kind of what you said once about jobs that create wealth for people but are not necessary. Like child day care. It circulates money to more people. I think Keynes made some sort of multiplier formula about how money changing hands more times makes more money for more people in the end. Or something.
Just as the title asks: I want to know what people here on this forum see as the virtues of consumerism. Not the problems. I just want to know if there is a group of virtues from consumerism about which most people can agree.
Just as the title asks: I want to know what people here on this forum see as the virtues of consumerism. Not the problems. I just want to know if there is a group of virtues from consumerism about which most people can agree.
I suspect every society has it's own bag of virtues, but I suspect consumerism has few virtues really.
Off the top of my head, the virtues I might derive:
1. Consumerism provides some degree of social cohesison and order. Consumerism reinforces a semi-socialist, materialistic, reward for productivity in individuals members of society. It's semi-socialistic in that it assumes every member of society is productive to some degree and is rewarded to some degree.
2. Is possibly some form of non-violent, pacificism that might hopefully lead to increased productivity in intangible areas (e.g. research, art, philosophy, political compromise, etc...).
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