Consumed
-
Benjamin Barber
|
Book Summary
and reflections Of course we all
buy stuff. We all need food to eat, a dry, safe place
to sleep, clothes and shoes for warmth and meds when
sick but those are survival needs. Beyond these basic
needs there’s a step up in consumption which enriches
life – a bottle of wine with dinner, hobby and craft
supplies and tools, sports equipment, the occasional
CD if you’re into physically owning your music and not
just
MP3s. We all consume if consumption means buying goods
and services we actually need for basic survival. Over-consumption or consumerism
is an attachment we have to Stuff when we attempt to
meet emotional or social status needs and desires
through the act of shopping as an abstract activity. Over-consumption
then involves taking more than a fair share of
planetary resources, making us in turn directly
responsible for global heating climate change, openly
recognized today by all but the most ardent sceptics. If every human
on the planet consumed at the rate of our North
American peers, here’s a sample of the number of
planet earth’s worth of bio-captivity
that would be needed: at USA rate - 5.4 earths, Canada
4.2, UK 3.1, Germany 2.5, Italy 2.2, South Africa 1.4,
Argentina 1.2, Costa Rica 1.1, India 0.4 planet
earths. Consumerism
Origins
How did consumerism come about?
Consumerism was not an inevitable
evolution of society nor was it an accidental
development. It came about at the beginning of the
1900s / 20th century as a result of a
convergence of four historic forces: a body of ideas
(based on the Judeo-Christian bible and the Protestant work
ethic) that the earth was ours for the taking;
the rise of modern John Adams Wealth of
Nations style capitalism; steam driven
technological cleverness; and a bounty of North
American raw resources. To put this more
simply - in Canada and the USA there were lots of
resources, especially after 1900 that we thought were
ours to exploit as we deemed fit and we invented new
methods like the assembly line. These were an
extension of the coal and steam powered Industrial
Revolution and a shift from hand-crafted to steam
driven mass production assembly lines to generate lots
of cheaper stuff. Fossil fuels
– coal, oil & gas took over from human and animal
power as the driving force. Examples: 1913 -
auto chassis hand built = 12.5 hours per car 1914 - assembly line auto chassis = 1.5
hours per 1970 - computer power = $12,000 per 1 MB 2001 - computer power = 2¢ per 1 MB We had the
choice to work less and produce the same amount as
before OR work the same amount and produce far more
cheap crap, stuff and things as possible. We chose the
latter. The ultimate result was that we’ve produced a
huge amount of waste. Between 1983, Tee’s birth year,
and 2008 a 25 year span, self-storage in Canada
increased by 630%. Planned
Obsolescence is the concept
of throw away products accompanied by new / improved
advertising methods. Today’s ads are far more
sophisticated and socially endemic through product
placement within media - TV, movies, video game
backgrounds & celebrity endorsement ‘news items’ -
e.g. Kim
Kardashian Loves Her BlackBerry. Cash strapped
schools have been inundated with products and related
advertising to supplement operating costs. The clothing fashion
industry is planned or perceived obsolescence purely
as capitalist driven marketing for profit, actively
achieved through advertising and passively promoted by
fashion industry cheerleader experts –
those who make a living deciding what’s in style and
what is arbitrarily no longer hip and fashionable.
It’s all bull-shite! Keurig 2.0 -
Obsolence BS
Keurig originally neglected to properly
patent their coffee cartridge system. As a result,
other companies began producing cheaper knock-offs.
Keurig then modified their new model simply adding a
patented bar code reader into the machines. Keurig
alone can sell the patented newer cartridges
maintaining control of pricing and blocking out more
economical 3rd parties. Keurig added a few
more minor changes to the machine and now market the
entire system as New
and Improved when in fact the only real
difference is that no one else can legally sell
cartridges that will work with it. Each of the
countless billions
of tiny cartridges now adds to the growing mountains
of ocean clogging plastic trash vortex. Ingredients:
coffee and assorted flavouring chemicals.
Yummm!
|
City Core
Destruction
Consumerism developed hand in hand with
the sub-urban mall. For-profit,
maximized Capitalism developed in five ways: 1. A move toward credit – buy now pay
later – 1920s; 2. Replacement of street cars by
automobiles – 1930s
allowing easy
access to strip mall shopping - 1950s; 3. A switch to big box stores gutting
city cores - ’50s; 4. Systematized planned shorter life
obsolescence - ’60; 5. Advertise,
Advertise, Advertise - 20th Century Home Front
Modern disposability started with razors and
diapers. It makes far more sense to buy a good razor
and replace only the blades as needs be but somehow we
now think its okay to throw away razors, plastic
handle and all by the trillions - it’s just more convenient.
The everyday use of disposable diapers only and the Swiffer mop
are just sheer environmental tree wasting craziness
but a huge money maker for the market. Swiffers must
be changed frequently each time, to meet their
mandated claims of cleanliness and are many many times
more expensive in the longer run than a regular
washable mop-head. ‘Sucked in
consumers!’ Global Warming
Alarm? RELAX!
We’re all becoming more aware that
climate change global heating is “Just the way it
is!” and we should “… just get used to
it!” However,
this does not preclude the fact that we should and can
prepare ourselves and our families for the related
more frequent ferocious wind storms, floods, droughts,
fires, snow-fall, and massive associated costs. In November
2014, the UN officially announced that climate change
is pretty much manmade and damn the Stephen Harper /
Kevin O’Leary type anti-science sceptics. The UN said
we must act
quickly, preferably yesterday to mitigate
climate costs related to human suffering. Right after
that they announced that the next critical
international meeting is scheduled to be held in
Paris, France December
2015. By
then a brand new US President will commit to nothing.
Very likely a tar-sands backed, Canadian Association
of Petroleum Producers (Liberal or Conservative)
Canadian government will also commit to very little or
nothing in ending fossil fuel subsidies / carbon
reduction / alternate energy. We love to drive our
cars and keep our homes overly warm – so we are all down with that.
If Harper is once again PM he will likely not attend
yet again. India and China will continue to use
massive amounts of fossil fuels to produce our crap,
stuff and things for a decade until we perhaps finally
repatriate their production back here at home. We can
only hope that will be just the way it
is. Oh wait! NEWS
Flash!!
November 12, 2014 – “Surprising USA – China
climate deal!” Obama
announced they will start reducing emissions by 2030.
Meanwhile, on the same day, US climate scientists
announced that more frequent climate change induced
storms means that there will be more lightening.
Great! Lightening is a critical part of the nitrogen
cycle. Lightening frees nitrogen from the atmosphere
wherein it is delivered to the ground through rain
entering the soil and thus feeds plants as an
essential growth element. Food crops we depend on rely
on this cycle, therefore – yay! More food? Maybe! STUFF
Our homes are
now basically garbage processing centres. That shiny
prized new possession initially prominently displayed
and cared for is eventually stored on shelf or in
cupboard then storage box in basement, then out to
pre-waste storage garage and eventually recycled if
it’s lucky.
The new car is vacuumed, washed and waxed weekly –
then not so much. BTW – the least used appliance is
the bread maker but I’ll bet the Keurig will
eventually be the second least used kitchen appliance. The Waste
Stream in North American - solid
waste makes up 2.5%; construction / demolition waste
3%; industrial waste (including mining, smelting and
tar sands tailings – 94.5% Average Waste
Pounds per
Person / Day
USA 4.6 lbs each / Australia 2.7 / Japan
2.58 / Norway 2.3 / Canada 1.79 * / UK 1.6 / France
1.45 / China 0.70
(*includes tar-sands and mining which like
Australia are substantial in Canada and integrally
responsible for our standard of consumer driven
living). Bizarre Black-Friday & Storage Wars Only here in North America could there be a sporting activity known as Black Friday when we get excited to shop at American Thanksgiving for shopping’s sake. When this activity is put hand-in-hand with a TV show about chocker-block overflowing abandoned storage lockers – Storage Wars, it can only spawn thoughts of bizarre stupid human behaviour. |