Consumerism Zombies
Culture of Consumerism

Much of the estern orld has been transformed into a Cult of Consumerism and grounded in Fashionable Consumption. As the Limitations of the Natural orld become more clear, something must be done to Challenge Consumerism

It can be hard to pinpoint a definition for consumerism. However, generally the term is used to describe people that conflate wants and needs. For example, some people might identify the new iPhone as a want that would be nice to have. hile others actually would describe this as something "need" in order to be happy; to the extent that they will actually wait in line for hours on end to be the first to purchase the new iContraption. Consumerism can also include the concept of fashionable consumption. Fashionable consumption goes beyond what an individual actually needs in terms of their physical well-being.

For example, we all probably need coats to stay warm in….

"The things you own end up owning you." This quote from Tyler Durden, the protagonist in the movie Fight Club, sums up the message of this movie. The movie, Fight Club takes a critical stand against consumerism. Unlike Sex and the City which accepts consumerism with open arms, embraces and celebrates it, the characters in Fight Club are portrayed to be enlightened, resists and fights consumerism. Tyler Durden especially, the protagonist, is portrayed to have an internal battle, the battle of confirming with societal pressures toward consumerism and the battle of asserting his realizations about consumerism which ultimate aim is a life not driven by consumption and consumer goods.

In the movie, Tyler Durden said, "Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need." This quote drives home the point that the movie wants to make, that consumerism has become the….

And yes -- so she breathed in the earthy garden sweet smell as she stood talking to Miss Pym who owed her help, and thought her kind, for kind she had been years ago; very kind, but she looked older, this year, turning her head from side to side among the irises and roses and nodding tufts of lilac with her eyes half closed, snuffing in, after the street uproar, the delicious scent, the exquisite coolness (oolf 18).
Literary depictions of the two cases are polar opposites of one another. The differences also reflect the complicated nature of capitalist market economies and mass consumerism. hile Clarissa's ability to buy flowers and gloves at her leisure time is the demonstration of how consumerism makes people happy, "Miss Kilman's need for a petticoat is in direct opposition to the needs being met, encouraged, and created by modern consumerism" (Abbott 204).

Miss Kilman is….

To this day, high-end automobile companies make cars by hand for the luxury market, and those vehicles still are demarcations of status.
The increased complexity of modern consumer society reflects the increased complexity of our social strata. We are no longer characterized in broad categories of nobility, bourgeoisie, workers and peasants. Our society today has a near infinite number of strata. This has taken consumption as a marker of status to near-absurd levels. Comparisons of products are endless. We compare the square footage of our houses, the engine power of our cars, the number of DVDs in our collection and the size of our television screens. Each slight improvement is another increase in our status. This shift has taken us from a society with only a handful of social strata to one in which the social hierarchy is a continuous progression. This in turn fuels near-continuous consumption in order to….

Many of the products we see in developed countries seem really cheap. For example, consumer electronics in the United States are cheaper than in many developing countries although the income level is much higher in the United States. So, how do manufacturers provide consumers with cheap products? According to Leonard, manufacturers force workers and Third World natives pay the price. Distributors in giant supermarkets such as Wal-Mart pay their workers the minimum wage, while manufacturers that outsource labor pay Third World workers even less, forcing them to work in hazardous conditions. The natives pay for the cost of manufacturing (aimed primarily at consumers in rich countries) with their health, their environment, and sometimes even their lives (Leonard, 2008).
Distribution leads to the major component of the material's economy: consumption. The facts associated with consumption are indeed frightening. It is estimated that 99% of finished products are trashed within six months.….

Daniel Harris describes this coping mechanism the "kitschification of Sep. 11." Harris's main argument is that we stopped asking critical questions about the actual reasons of why 9/11 happened. Instead, he says, we resorted to mythologizing history, viewing ourselves as the absolute good and depicting the enemy as the absolute evil whose actions could never be explained with reason. I think, Harris is pretty harsh in his scathing criticism of our response to 9/11. But looking back at what happened and the consequences of government response, I think, his criticism is justified. The only point where I disagree with him is in his suggestion that we turned our commemoration of 9/11 into a national euphoria and became "excited." I do not remember any sense of excitement over the tragedy though Harris might have been more alert than me.
Reading William Hart's article was also eye-opening. It gave me a different….

The entire research constitutes three different studies, each of them dedicated to a distinct stage in problematic usage of mobile phones.
Study 1

A multi-dimensional psychometric measure was developed for the behaviour, described as problematic use of mobile phones (PUMP). The four-factor 16-item solution included behavioural dimensions of problematic use as follows: (1) impulsive use, (2) mounting tension, (3) dependency, and (4) control loss. A fifth dimension (denial) was removed during the EFA stage of scale development. Data was collected from a large developmental sample of 2364. Scale reduction and validation analysis involved EFA, CFA and nested model comparison.

Following scale development, theoretical analysis was performed on the PUMP model to enhance conceptual understanding of each of its four dimensions. This analysis utilized the frameworks of time-inconsistent preferences theory (Hoch and Loewenstein 1991) and the theory of automatic behaviour (Bargh & Gollwitzer, 1994); frameworks which supplement the dominate informational-processing approach in consumer….

(Assefa and Degefa, ND, online at (http://www.hmbasha.net/Starbucks_Ethiopia.htm)
Until, very recently there were many upscale coffee drinkers that assumed that the nations that hold a geographic monopoly on the coffee market (as coffee can be grown in a very limited region) were benefiting from the overall growth of the success of coffee as a preferred drink all over the world. They were wrong, nations that sell coffee usually in its raw form are suffering at the hands of corporate greed and dominance a clear example of divergence of both voice and income.

The opposition movement is an attempt by forward thinking individuals to warn blind consumers about the dangers of globalization when it goes into the market unchecked by the needs of the people it buys raw goods from. The divergent camp, apposed to globalization would say that the poorest countries in the world deserve a share of the earnings that are….

The result is the problem: that humans loose the connection to what it means to be human.
What is the end or goal of transformation?

The end goal, regardless of ones religion, is happiness. However, the definition of happiness differs greatly from one religion to another. In religions such as the Lakota, happiness is found by making the gods happy, or Mother Earth, by learning to be one with nature. Other religions have a similar goal of happiness, where one obtains happiness by serving their god. However, in consumerism happiness can be bought yet is never actually attainable because there is no end to the possessions one can consume.

What are the means of transformation?

For the Lakota and other traditional religions, the means of transformation are the service of one's god. Typically this involves such things as loving others, not sinning, doing good onto others, and so forth. In consumerism, on the….

Online Consumerism
Internet usage has been on the rise in recent years, and consequently is the increase in the number of online consumers. This research explores the attitudes, behaviors, and motivations of this new type of consumer in the market. The online consumer behavior has been considered for over 2 decades and will undoubtedly make a contribution to many future researches as internet consumerism expands. This paper will be guided by the following research question: (1) how previously researched factors influence the purchasing adaptive skills of online consumers and (2) what are the important consumer behaviors that affect internet consumerism while considering both the positive and negative side? People are known to shop online for experimental reasons, goal-oriented and instrumental reasons. esearch methodology will include administering questionnaires randomly to respondents both face-to-face and through emails, interviews and gathering information from selected internet sites that provide different goods and services. Data….

So denotes the Pope in his 2009 remarks, which do not call for an end to globalization and its implications. Indeed, as his remarks demonstrate a clear and studied understanding of the patterns of globalization, so too do these represent a realistic evaluation of how best to address its inequalities. It is here that the Pope calls for a recasting of the approach taken to global trade liberalization. Here, the Pope indicates, "there is no reason to deny that a certain amount of capital can do good, if invested abroad rather than at home. Yet the requirements of justice must be safeguarded, with due consideration for the way in which the capital was generated and the harm to individuals that will result if it is not used where it was produced." (Pope Benedict XVI, 40)

This is to suggest that proper regulation of private enterprising and global oversight f the abuses….

Consumption Consumerism Important in Contemporary Global Society
The economies of the world today are subject to inflation and depression, and both are related to the market forces. Today it has become global. To ignore these market forces is not possible. The major market forces basically are termed 'demand' and 'supply'. These underlying forces are determined by two sets of persons or two principal classes of decision makers in the economy: businessmen and consumers. The decision making of businessmen is concerned with the choice and use of resources in firms; the decision making of consumers is concerned with the choice and use of resources in households. This entire volume deals with the many and diverse implications of decision making by consumers, and consumer decision making always has a macroeconomic impact. (Cochrane; Bell, 1956, p. 60)

Consumer behavior is studied at length because it is the basis of production. Entrepreneurs are actually concerned using….

The interests of one umbrella organization may conflict with the interests of another. This is the reason why so many umbrella organizations have emerged and why there is little unity between them.
5) Privatization is turning over government assets to the private sector. Federalization is returning something to the government. There are a few tradeoffs. With privatization, there is the risk of price gouging, in particular when newly-privatized assets constitute a monopoly (a bridge, for example). With federalization, it is often viewed that the assets are not managed in accordance with maximum productivity. Privatization is often best when the product/service in question is going to be subject to competition (for example state-owned liquor stores like those in New Hampshire or Utah). Federalization is often best when the product/service falls under auspices normally reserved for the central government, such as issues of national security. There are problems, however, with both. Privatization….

Gender & Consumerism
Thomas Hine compares sex to shopping. In every culture, sex is different depending on gender. In many cultures, the male gender retains more power with regard to sex. Shopping is usually considered a past time for females, even though shopping in general is encouraged in consumer cultures. Some people derive the same kind of pleasure from shopping or from finding a great deal as they would from having sex. Hine comments that the mentality regarding sex is similar to attitudes and even behaviors regarding shopping, such as some people are proud and announce it whenever they do it and that some people hide their consumer activities the same way they might hide their pornography or other behaviors people are ashamed to make public. Gender is just as much a factor in consumer behaviors as it is in sexual behaviors.

Jean Baudrillard, in Consumer Society in American History, he mentions….

Until that time, the lower classes, as they were known, would produce most of what they needed at their own homes, and the upper classes would simply employ the lower classes to produce whatever goods they needed and subsequently purchase them, or employ craftsmen to produce 'quality' goods that were usually required by noblemen. (Elemental Economics: Intermediate Microeconomics)
There were also firms that would purchase goods and services and these would be the 'inputs' in the production process of the final products and services. Those goods or services that are purchased by such firms are generally known as either 'intermediate' or as 'producer' goods, and style and taste hardly have any significance here; rather, it is either the price or the technical quality of the good that becomes more important than anything else. (Elemental Economics: Intermediate Microeconomics) in a nutshell, a consumer good can be explained as something that is….