Consumerism, in simple words, means entering customers in business. The act of spending money to consume goods is the theory of consumerism, where money becomes a tool for the economy. There must be the protection of interest and rights of the buyers or the ultimate consumers of the goods to destroy the utility of the product. The human desire gets reflected when one purchases more than the need and demands higher than the requirements. They are often termed as a social and economic disorder as it creates uncontrollable expenses and negative influence on society.
Humans desire to get products and goods excess of their necessity. It is common when one has an obsession or a sound income. It gets rooted in the British Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. It occurs when wealth favors the choice. Sophalholic can be an appropriate example of consumerism in simple ways. Consumption differs from consumerism. Eating is a necessity of living as food is a basic need, whereas consumerism is the sophisticated form of use that relates to materialism. The market has been more dedicated to modern living rather than just focusing on the essentials of life. In reality, consumerism has been a critical component of a market where money has been medium exchange.
Consumerism is not possible if wealth doesn’t cooperate with the choice of humans. A rise in price is the root cause of consumerism as the face value of money has been depreciating. There has been a trend of having quality goods for better rates and expensive in a sense. The mass consumer goods come in various price formats that split the consumer’s status, which is why the people afford the higher value as well. Keeping aside the demand and supply theory of the market, the trend of making an abnormal profit is widespread. Adulteration has been a culture, and artificial demand creates hoarding of goods. The misleading advertisement has also been supporting the rise of consumerism.
As a consequence, resource exploitation entered society. Three primary questions generally guide Markey production; what to produce, how to build, and whom to produce, Consumerism has deviated the interest of people to sophisticated needs, and consumption has been increasing more the demands. Some argue that there is a creation of a state of varying youths, depression, stress, unhealthy competition. Generally, consumerism reflects the extravagant expenses and consumption of goods more than one’s requirement. The effects of consumerism are the exploitation of environmental aspects and the degradation of natural health.
As a whole, consumerism in itself is neither a boon nor a curse. But the people are directing it towards the negative impact in society. The rise in the global consumer class is a benefit, whereas people being able to make an excess of their needs is a definite fact. Despite this, leaving a negative impact by creating healthy competition in social class is a threat to human life. The people should adopt the lifestyle appropriate in the long-run instead of short term obsession or the human race. Hence, there should be a focus on long term plans and strategies rather than short term human desires and mundane living.
