We must wean ourselves off ‘stuff’ now
A recent review of Shopping is My Life in The Guardian caught my eye the writer suggested that helping people find fulfilment outside of the malls and high-streets of the land might not be the best way to combat our excessive consumer culture.
I personally think this is exactly where we need to start. I want people to feel good about themselves because of who they are, not what they buy; and speaking to large groups of people through media like the TV is the best way of inspiring the nation to change.
We are a planet of rampant consumers. We’ve been brought up on a diet of things - shiny boxes and enticing clothes - to help fuel the free-market economy and create the growth that politicians and shareholders desire. Adam Smith, the father of economics and grandfather of the free-market said ‘Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it.”
Today, consumer confidence is the greatest predictor of economic wellbeing. To create the stuff we want so badly the producers rape the earth for the raw materials that end up as mobile phones, food packets and low-budget flights. Until recently they told us it could go on that way for ever. We of course now know this is not true.
Experts estimate that if we carry on the way we are going - particularly if millions of Chinese and Indian consumers want just the kind of luxuries we take for granted - within 20 years we will need the equivalent of two planets to feed our combined desires. When the fridge is empty we go hungry. And when we are hungry we fight for what little is left.
There is no point “just worrying” about climate change, or sighing as Tesco’s profits hit another record. It is how we see the world that guides our behaviours. Even if unconsciously we are still living in the myth that there are infinite oil reserves and land to grow food, we will keep acting in ways that drive the economy… yet damage our future.
The only answer is to wean ourselves off our consumer habits. Perhaps not throwing away our mobile after a year or buying a new dress because we can’t be bothered to sew the old one. But what could we replace the thrill of the shop with? Maybe the sense of meaning and purpose that can only be found when we give of ourselves selflessly. I reckon we have it all wrong. It is not by getting stuff that we get happy. In my experience, it happens when we give.
