The Society for the Prevention of Capitalist Cancer
& The Committee for Public Health present:
CONSUMERISM: THE DISEASE OF AFFLUENCE
How to Recognize it and How to Combat it

WHAT IS CONSUMERISM?

Consumerism is a social disease which causes severe emotional disturbances, as well as occasional physical, psychosomatic and other ones too.
It can be generally defined as a lifestyle at whose core lies the chronic purchasing of products, without pausing to consider whether we truly have any real need for them, and without taking into account other crucial factors such as their actual quality and durability, their method of production or the environmental consequences of their purchasing and inevitable discarding as trash soon after.
The disease of consumerism damages society's health by creating socio-economic patterns which, instead of encouraging us (or even enabling us) to fulfill our real, basic needs in a simple, natural and direct way, push us through the world of advertising into focusing on an endless, hopeless chase after merchandise, products and objects posturing as viable substitutes for what in reality are emotional needs.
Due to the fact that enhanced materialism (one of the outcomes of consumerism) is by its' very nature uncapable of fulfilling emotional needs such as love, security, a sense of belonging, freedom, joy, excitement etc., we find ourselves in a society where the standard way of life consists of wasting about a third of our lives doing a type of work which we do not enjoy, in order for us to be able to finance a frustrating, ultimately pointless persuit after products which we don't even actually need.
The more our emotional health deteriorates, we try harder and harder to encourage ourselves through the purchase of products, and the more we surround ourselves with more and more products, our emotional health deteriorates.

WHAT CAUSES CONSUMERISM?

The disease of consumerism is caused (deliberately, we should add) by industries and corporations who spend fortunes every single day, every single hour and in every possible place, on aggressive & manipulative advertisement aimed at "convincing" us to buy their products.
The goal of the advertisement world (through ingenious, indirect and subtle ways, of course) is to make us feel ugly, unpopular, failed or in any other way lacking, so it will be instantly able to offer certain products as the solution which will make us feel better. That is why the advertisement world will never ever lead us to believe, for example, that we are just fine the way we are. In other words, given the fact that the vast majority of products in the western world are not manufactured with the intention of satisfying a basic, real human need (but to amass profits for their merchants), it is therefore a necessity - in fact a matter of survival - for these industries and corporations to constantly invent new "needs" for us and discover new "problems" in our bodies, minds and lives. After all, a content person is a bad consumer.
When we take into account the fact that the industrialized west spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year on advertising - way more than on education and schools - the scope of influence which the consumerist disease enjoys in our very characters and lifestyles is not surprising in the least (in the country serving as a model for consumer society, the United States, people have been exposed to about a million commercials by the age of 20!).

WHICH ARE THE RISK GROUPS?

Because the logic of advertising agencies (much like that of drug dealers) advices its' client industries to "get them while they're young", teenagers are of course the highest risk group. However, anyone living in the western world suffers from the disease of consumerism: seniors, infants, women and men; even those among us who are convinced that their cynicism and apathy makes them "immune" to the various manipulations of the advertisement industry.
Those living outside the consumerism-ridden west - the majority of the global population - suffer too from consumerism, from its' very existence, even worse than the ones directly struck by it. A large percentage of the merchandise sold in the west (growing larger still, due to the process labeled "Globalization") are manufactured cheaply, without environmental regulations, in deplorable working conditions and at extremely low wages by the people in the poorer & poorest countries (the so-called "Third World"), who are starving because their lands and natural resources are bought and exploited by the corporations of the rich countries, all in order to stock the supermarket shelves of western civilization and satisfy our consumerist impulses.
The earth itself suffers too, of course, from the heavy burden placed on it by industrial consumerism. We are all more or less aware of air, sea and land pollution, of the destruction of the rainforests, global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain and the extinction of numerous species. All of these are not unavoidable consequences of the existence of the human race, and in fact represent the biggest threat to our very existence. They take place, not because they are a must in order for us to lead good, healthy and satisfying lives, but because the blindness imposed by the disease of consumerism drives us to want, produce, consume and discard many times more than what our earth is capable of dealing with.
Obviously, the consumerist disease manifests itself also in our disastrous treatment of the animals who share the earth with us, and which we have been accustomed to see as merchandise and objects instead of as living creatures deserving of the same freedom we wish ourselves. Western society imprisons billions of innocent animals in industrialized factory farms, in terrible conditions, with barely enough room and air to survive, and then exploits their bodies and lives as if they were not capable of feeling pain in the exact same manner as we do. Their flesh, along with the other by-products of their slaughter and exploitation, is sold to us in stores, wrapped in plastic, inside boxes and under different names, seemingly disconnected from the immense suffering which created it.

HOW TO TREAT THE CONSUMERIST DISEASE

There are various worthwhile things which we, as individuals, can do today without having to wait for the dawn of a new and better age.
Defending ourselves against the ravages of the consumerist disease entails teaching ourselves to understand and recognize the ways in which the world of advertisement (and consumerism in general) hurt us, and resist them through personal as well as public channels. As a first step, we must acknowledge the burden our way of life places on nature, animals and the poor peoples of the world (as well as on our own lives), and internalize the understanding that we should buy only that which we actually need; to try and live simply, so that others may simply live. This will not only diminish the strain on our planet, but also leave us with more money and of course more time, which would otherwise have been spent on the many working hours necessary to finance chronic purchasing.
And when we do buy (and, realistically, this cannot be avoided...) it is crucial that we interest ourselves in what we purchase, since knowledge is the basis of our strength. A good beginning would be to try and buy products whose manufacturing does not include - or includes the least amount of - destruction, killing or massive-scale exploitation of humans, animals and the natural world. Switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet, for example, would benefit animals, your own health and the earth, all of whom suffer vastly from the existence of the meat industry. Boycotting big corporations (those familiar brands we all know) and giving our money to small, local businesses is a further example of a positive step. But we should also remember that "green" or "ethical" consumerism is still consumerism: a way of minimazing the amount of damage caused and not a real, long-term solution. That is why we should not limit ourselves to it, and instead aspire and work to create a different world through the creation of values, norms, cultures and communities forming an alternative to the suicidal society in which we currently live.