CONSCIOUS CONSUMER

new american dream

Consumption and Beyond

Wise decisions are hard to make without the right information. But it is out there and we're dedicated to getting it to you so you can make informed choices about the things you buy and the way you consume. As an individual, you have daily opportunities to make an impact. Become a Conscious Consumer and start making that impact. Then start thinking about consumption and beyond, to a higher quality of life.

The meaning of "consume" has almost come full circle in the English language. The early English term had negative connotations: destruction or laying waste, as in "being consumed by fire." In modern times we have witnessed the equation of "consumer" with individual –one is as likely to hear the phrase "American consumer" as "American citizen," and many of the duties of the two are the same in an economy driven by consumer spending. Consumers have responsibilities as well as rights: every holiday season brings tremendous pressure to spend as part of a record year.

Relationships

"Consumer" has become more popular than "customer" to describe buying things--customer implies an ongoing relationship.1 Consuming, then, is a particular way to buy or relate to stuff, one which may not always be pretty. We may associate "conspicuous consumption" with SUVs and our brand-preoccupied culture, but the phrase was actually coined in 1899 by Thorstein Veblen in his criticism of American society, which he believed to value "homo consumens" (consumer humans) over "homo faber" (maker humans). 2 Veblen argued over a century ago that consuming did not bring true happiness, and the critique has been echoed by other authors such as Scitovsky,3 who believe that the consumer is the one who becomes consumed by a craving for novelty and a growing sense of emptiness.

The rabid, sometimes lethal crowds at holiday sales vividly illustrate the destructive aspect of consumerism, but the environmental destruction it causes is often less evident in the short term. (See true cost). Consumption has become synonymous with quick fixes without regard to wallet, waistline or world, so that the "latest" burger is spun out as the next big taste, with no regard to the grain, water, and other resources that went into that cheap meal.

Consumption: A study in contrasts

• The American relationship to things doesn’t necessarily imply having money to spend. In recent years, household spending as a percent of the GDP has steadily increased (see chart).4
• We consume to signal identification with a social group, 5 but consumer choices are often portrayed as answering to no higher authority than the individual taste.6
• We often hear consumption described as filling a void (as it does when we engage in "retail therapy" or buying for its own sake). This sense of emptiness predating--and lingering after--consumption figured in President Jimmy Carter's Crisis of Confidence speech: "Owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning." 7
• There’s something peculiarly American about consuming: the stuff we buy and how much of it we purchase. In 1959 Richard Nixon’s "Kitchen Debate" set U.S. homes with modern appliances as an example of the superiority of Western democracy.8 It's what Americans were called upon to do after the September 11th terrorist attacks: as now-President Obama observed during the presidential debates, Americans were told to "go out and shop."9
• We consume to have fun, but how do "commercialized leisure" options (amusement parks, shopping malls, video games) shape our very idea of fun? 10 Consumer activity and public leisure spaces granted more freedom to Victorian women, but access to these arenas have often been restricted by race, class, and gender.11
• Some thinkers, like Jean Baudrillard, claim that we consume because advertising tells us to…but does that mean advertising is a bad thing? Baudrillard has said that we acquire meanings not objects when we consume. These "ethereal" transactions have been interpreted as possibilities for re-envisioning consumption into a less resource-intensive act.12 See the David Report’s ideas for "involv(ing) design and communicative elements in the product" so that it tells its own story.13
• Consumer protests like the Woolworth lunch counter sit –ins attacked lack of equal consumer access as a lack of civil rights. Slogans like "close your charge account with segregation, open up your account with freedom," linked politics and consumption, as did colonial protests over taxation like the Boston Tea Party.14
• Ironically, we sometimes consume to show that we’re against consuming. Baby Boomers, who had protested American consumerism, proved a powerful market for products that reinforced that identity.15 Some worry that the growing market for green goods provides the same kind of easy identification with what one is protesting. 16 When we spend to save, buy meditation tapes to help lead to nothingness or get premade countercultural outfits at the shopping mall, we are reaching the limit of what a commodity can bring us.

Consumption has everything to do with individual needs, choices, and satisfaction, but it is also inextricably related to our current climate crises. Find out why we must search for a better way and some models for sustainable consumption.

1. Glickman, Lawrence B., editor, 1999. Consumer Society in American History: A Reader. Cornell University Press, 1999 p. 20.

2.The Use of and Commitment to Goods, Kaj IImonen, Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 4., No. 1, 27-50 (2004).

3.Scitovsky, Tibor, as quoted in Bianchi, Marina, The Active Consumer, p.200.

4. "Income vs. Consumption," Mother Jones Kevin Drum, October 31, 2008.

5. From Cool to Passe Identity Signaling and Product Domains, Knowledge@Wharton. September 05, 2007.

6. Slater, Don, 1997. Consumer Culture and Modernity, Polity Press.

7. Primary Sources: The "Crisis of Confidence" Speech, PBS American Experience

8.The Kitchen Debate: 1959 Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev,TeachimgAmericanHistory.org

9 Transcript of second McCain, Obama debate, October 7, 2008 CNN Politics.com.

10.The Making of Modern America: Commercialized Leisure. Period 1880-1920 Digital History

11. Loeb, Lori Anne, 1994 Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women.. Oxford University Press.

12. Jean Baudrillard, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

13. The David Report, Issue 8 December 2007 The Sustainable Wheel p. 8.

14 Glickman, p. 6.

15. Glickman, p. 5.

16. Maniates, Michael. 2002. “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” in Confronting Consumption, edited by T. Princen, M. Maniates, and K. Conca. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

New Dream's new consumption pages offer a fresh perspective on how we relate to stuff and how that stuff affects the environment.

Browse the new website section for answers to the following questions:

• How is consumption intertwined with the American identity?
• What are some models for sustainable consumption that reflect the true cost of goods and our finite resources?
• Can consumption be refashioned to reflect a more meaningful relationship with objects, or are we moving beyond it entirely?