Consumerism – enough is enough

There are true needs and false needs – but only false needs need to be manufactured and nurtured. Indeed, today’s consumerist society has more or less turned Maslow’s hierarchy on its head. According to Maslow, people should be satisfied when they reach the top of his pyramid-shaped hierarchy of needs, but in modern consumerist culture and society there can be no satisfaction of needs. Consumerist society never satisfies, indeed it is meant not to do so, as any form of satisfaction is an enemy of the consumerist, capitalist society – a society that requires the persistent buying of things we don’t need for its continued existence – what is usually referred to as “growth”.

Our entire way of life seems to be built on the manufacturing of self-doubt and dissatisfaction, our economy built on exploiting such human weakness.  Needless desires drive our economy, and our economy drives our needless desires, and consumerism thereby becomes a tool for control.