Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
YOU AND
I
CONSUME
;
WE ARE CONSUMERS
. T
HE GLOBAL ECONOMY
is set up to enable us to
do what we innately want to do—buy, use, discard, and buy some more. If we do our job well,
the economy thrives; if for some reason we fail at our task, the economy falters. The model of eco-
nomic existence just described is reinforced in the business pages of every newspaper, and in the
daily reportage of nearly every financial news service, and it has a familiar name:
consumerism
.
Consumerism has a history, but not a long one. True, humans—like all other animals—are con-
sumers in the most basic sense, in that we must eat to live. Further, we have been making weapons,
ornaments, clothing, utensils, toys, and musical instruments for tens of thousands of years, and com-
merce has likewise been with us for untold millennia.
What's new is the project of organizing an entire society around
the necessity for ever-increas-
ing rates of personal consumption
.
This Is How It Happened
Consumerism arose from a unique historic milieu. In the early 20th century, a temporary abundance
of cheap, concentrated, storable, and portable energy in the form of fossil fuels enabled a dramatic
increase in the rate and scope of resource extraction (via powered mining equipment, chain saws,
tractors, powered fishing boats, and more). Coupled with powered assembly lines and the use of
petrochemicals, cheap fossil energy also permitted a vast expansion in the manufacture of a widen-
ing array of commercial products. This resulted in a serious economic problem known as
overpro-
duction
(too many goods chasing too few buyers), which would eventually contribute to the Great
Depression of the 1930s.
Industrialists found a solution. How they did so is detailed in a topic that deserves renewed at-
rapid, massive growth of the advertising industry during the 20th century, as well as its extraordin-
ary social and political impacts (if you really want to understand
Mad Men
, start here). He argues
