Civilization is Over: Consumerism

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. ~Mohandas K. Gandhi, quoted in E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful

Capitalism: is an economic and social system in which trade and industry are privately controlled for profit rather than by the state. The means of production, which is otherwise known as capital and includes land are owned, operated, and traded for the purpose of generating profits, without force or fraud, by private individuals either singly or jointly. (wikipedia knows all)

Without force or fraud, by private individuals. There is the problem right there. Capitalism can work and should work. But it doesn't. Not because of it's design, but because of the people. Because of force and fraud. Because of greed and selfishness. Because of money. Maybe money is the root of all evil. I used to believe that saying was subjective. I was born poor and as of now have never been considered wealthy or even well off for that matter. I used to believe all I needed to fix my life was money. Then I could buy all the stuff I want and be happy with a home and a car and an i-pod with a wife and kids and all that gooey american dream crap that is shoved down our throats on a daily basis. But is that really the key to happiness? How many people who have achieved the so called dream of a good paying job and a wife with kids and the college fund with their 401k's and stock options do you know? I don't know any. But I'm going off of statistics here.

About 10 percent of Americans, children teens and adults alike, are taking some form of antidepressant. Do you know what that comes out to? Let's do some math. The population of America as of July 2008 was 304,059,724. Let's just use that figure for the sake of time. 10 percent of 304,059,724 comes out to 4,030,405.9000000004, approximatley. The population of New York city in 2007 was 8,310,212. So the equivilant of half the population of New York City is on anti-depressants. That's just what's officially recorded. The rest of us are strung out on illegal drugs or some other form of escapism. Why? Why can't we find the happiness we seek? Why do we feel deep down way deep that something isn't fricken right here? Because we are right. Something isn't right. I think it began sometime in the 50's. This is a direct quote from the econimist Victor Lebow.
"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever accelerating rate."
Convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction in consumption. What!? Hard to believe I know, well maybe not among this crowd. But think about it anyway.

In the U.S. our national happiness peaked sometime in the
1950s.
We each see more advertisements in one year than a people 50
years ago saw in a lifetime.
In a lifetime. Most average people have less free time for themselves than ever before since serfdom. The free time we do have is spent shopping and watching television and all the while being bombarded with advertisements made specificaly to coherse you into wanting to buy what they are selling. You want this you need this. You need to upgrade to this. That is out of style. Blah blah blah. Enough is enough I say. But not only because I am extremley sick of it all. Mainly and most importantly because of the fact that we are consuming ourselves into extinction. That is not me being overly dramatic. This is fact. Humor me.

Consumerism: In economics, consumerism refers to economic policies placing emphasis on consumption. In an abstract sense, it is the belief that the free choice of consumers should dictate the economic structure of a society, (wickipedia is god)

It goes like this. They produce, we buy. We use. We dipose. They produce more stuff to replace what we used. We buy, we use, we dispose. They remind us daily that we need what they have. We agree, we buy, we use, we dispose. We have a bad day at work, we buy, we use, we dispose. They truly have made it into a religion, a way of personal assurance. Who hasn't finally got that new wide screen t.v they wanted for so long and felt like they could fly to the bahamas. It feels great because that's what we're supposed to do right? We were raised as a society to believe that self worth is only as great as the things we own. The cool kid in school has the coolest car. The coolest family in the neighborhood has the big pool in the back. You just buy a brand new fuel efficiant car and see your buddy cruising along in his brand new Mercedes Benz and you go "Oh man I want one of those" Who doesn't. I would love one. But that's my point. It seems perfectly logical to think that way. It isn't. It never should've been. Fact time.

• In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s natural
resources base have been consumed.
• In the United States, we have less than 4% of our original
forests left.
• Forty percent of waterways in the US have become undrinkable.
• The U.S.has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 30% of
the world’s resources and creates 30% of the world’s waste.
• If everybody consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5
planets.

This is all because of our rediculous amount of waste. All of these 'products' we buy on a daily basis do not magically appear in Wal-Mart. They are produced and shipped which means extracting raw material to make into the products we buy. Then they are shipped to wherever they go, which uses fuel and requires the manufacturing of vehicles to do the shipping. That's not the problem. Yeah, we need stuff. We need food and clothing, shelter and fuel. Transportation and all that. True we do. But we use and waste way too much. Way too much. It's not our fault. We were lied to, decieved even. But it is our fault if we don't change the way we live our lives, one person at a time. All I know how to do is write and serf the web. So I serfed the web and wrote this blog. If you are interested in this you can check out this link http://www.storyofstuff.com/
This can and will sum up this issue way better than I can and it is the source of most of this information. I know I need a hobby, lol. Peace out.