Fueling The Treadmill Of Consumption

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Within today’s society, consumerism has become a key factor in “what make the world go around;” meaning, our economic system is built on the idea of the treadmill of consumption. According to our society, unhappiness can be fixed through having people purchasing consumer products; therefore, buying stuff fuels this treadmill. However, consumption is not only driven by unhappiness but also by greed, need, status, interest, sentiment, and community. So, people in society tend to by the latest and the greatest production in order to keep up with everyone else, to fulfill their “needs,” to feel better about themselves, to belong to a community, feel better about themselves, and to be considered as more efficient and effective with their interests. Based on these thought on societal consuming, the treadmill of consumption is then considered to be a direct correlation between the consuming rate of the population that …show more content…

People consume because they believe it will meet our needs, satisfy our status, and desire for prestige. According to analyst Victor LeBeau, the idea behind fueling the treadmill of consumption was because “our enormously productive economy…demand that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of good 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” (Fox, 2007). Also, at one point “President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers chairman said that the American economies ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods” (Fox, 2007). Therefore, with higher ups articulating these assumptions for our society, it is clear jumping off this treadmill would be difficult since it has become the way of life most people have grew up in, the generalized

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