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We - consumer society. And this is rather sad... Today I want to bring to your attention some of my thoughts on this matter, as well as consider the main characteristic features of the consumer society, in which you can easily recognize the surrounding reality. I would really like you to think about this and perhaps change your attitude towards some things that have long turned into habits, bad habits.

What is a consumer society?

In the classical sense, a consumer society is a society in which the leading role is played by people's consumption of material goods and services. In other words, people in a consumer society live in order to consume, to consume as much as possible, because this is a very significant value. Some people form an opinion about others, based on how much they consume. Those who consume more occupy a higher position in society, those who consume less occupy a lower position.

The classical consumer society has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include the following points:

• Stimulus and motivation for the development of both producers and consumers;
• Everything is developing at a very fast pace;
• People want to work and earn;
• People quickly spend what they earn - money is always in motion, in circulation;
• Relative social stability in society;
• Low social tension - everyone thinks about how to earn and spend money.

Now consider the main disadvantages of the consumer society:

• People in the consumer society become very dependent and dependent;
• In the pursuit of consumption, people forget about more important human values;
• Due to the high rates of production, natural resources are quickly depleted, very often they are not restored;
• All processes occur very quickly, including destructive ones;
• People do not have a developed sense of responsibility, the responsibility of an individual to society is very small;
• Most people are illiterate and underdeveloped, they do not know how to think, they are easy to control and manipulate consciousness;
• People are incapable of making decisions; they are used to having others decide everything for them.

The most famous description of the consumer society is contained in the book “Consumer Society” by Jean Baudrillard, a French sociologist, culturologist and philosopher, published in 1970. In Russian translation, the book was released only in 2006.

Characteristic features of the consumer society.

Now let's outline the main features that can characterize a consumer society:

• Growth in people's needs and personal spending;
• Reducing the role of small shops in favor of large shopping centers and supermarkets;
• Wide development of lending for consumer needs:, etc.;
• Widespread development of all kinds of discount cards, discount systems and other products that stimulate consumption;
• Goods “obsolete” faster than they physically wear out or fail;
• Advertising actively imposes a “culture of consumption”: it is not the goods and services themselves that are advertised, but tastes, values, desires, norms of behavior, interests that imply the acquisition of these goods and services;
• Such a concept as a “brand” is being actively promoted, as something for which you must “pay”;
• All important areas of human development are put on a commercial basis: training (training centers, paid courses, trainings), sports, health (fitness centers, gyms, sports clubs), even beauty and appearance (paid body care, anti-aging procedures, plastic surgery) - all this is actively advertised and stimulated.

Do you see the reality in this? This suggests that we are actively developing a consumer society.

Consumer society and our reality.

But the consumer society that you can all observe around you, and to which, with a high degree of probability, you can be directly attributed, has gone quite far from its classic example, and for the worse. It practically does not use the classic advantages of the consumer society, but it has absorbed all the disadvantages in multiple quantities.

For the most part, our people are completely unwilling and unable to take responsibility for their lives and are accustomed to entrusting it to someone else: as a rule, to the state, or even to the president personally.

Look at what concepts politicians running for elections most often focus on in order to raise their ratings: salaries, pensions, jobs - perhaps this is the TOP-3. Why exactly these concepts? Because the people, the consumer society, want to hear them the most. Because people want some “good uncle” who came to power to give them everything: salaries, pensions and jobs. The bigger, the better. Because all this will make it possible to consume more.

And also because people themselves cannot and do not want to take care of their own workplace, their earnings and provision for old age. Few people think about, or create for themselves. People prefer to be dependent on someone who will do it for them: from the state, from the employer. Even though it is much less profitable financially. Because it’s easier this way: you don’t need to think hard, you don’t need to take risks, you don’t need to make decisions, you don’t need to take responsibility. Typical consumer society.

In the meantime, all this is not there (desired jobs, high salaries and pensions), you can scold the government, arrange a protest, or simply complain about life.

Things are very interesting in modern Russia: when some local problems arise, for example, in a separate settlement or at a separate enterprise, what do people often do? They write a collective letter to the president: only he will solve all their problems! The one and only person whom the whole country is looking at with hope! Consumer society…

But the most depressing thing is that the values ​​of the consumer society are in no way compatible with the real possibilities of our people and our economy. And, what is very important, with the level.

In developed countries, a consumer society also exists and develops, but there it does not have such a negative effect on each individual person as it does in our country.

Judge for yourself: in Russia and Ukraine from 2000 to 2012, consumption growth was observed almost every year, its rate reached 10-15% per year, while consumption growth often significantly exceeded production growth and growth in real incomes of citizens. Moreover, even in the crisis years of 2008-2009, there was also an increase in consumption, just its pace was decreasing. It stopped and began to decline only in 2014-2015, when it already reached very serious proportions.

What does the excess of consumption rates over GDP growth rates indicate? The fact that the consumer society has such a strong influence that people bought even more than the country produced, that is, they bought imported products, stimulating the development of the economy of foreign countries.

And this situation has a very negative impact on the country's own economy. It stimulates unreasonable price increases, and as a result, locally produced goods cannot compete with imported ones.

And what does the excess of the rate of consumption over the rate of income growth indicate? The fact that a significant part of goods and services was consumed on credit. People in a consumer society agree, as long as they comply with the principles of this society.

In our conditions, for such an opportunity, people for many years gave tens and even hundreds (!) Percent per annum to banks and other credit organizations, which was absolutely not combined with the growth of their incomes and the ability to painlessly repay the loans they received. As a result, a huge number of people are now in: they have debt many times greater than their ability to repay, many have 5-10 loans and loans in different organizations. That is, people borrowed to the last, while they were still given. This is due to the stereotypes imposed by the consumer society, and, of course, the low level of financial literacy and literacy in general (remember that people living in a consumer society are not used to thinking).

The consumer society, combined with our lending conditions, is one of the key reasons why a huge number of people fall into a financial hole.

Our people absolutely do not know how to live within their means, they want not only to consume a lot, but even to consume what they have not yet earned! After all, this is required by the standards of the consumer society.

Let's take a hackneyed example: well, why should our person buy an iPhone of the latest model, which costs, say, 3 of his salary? Buy on credit, overpaying about half the cost. And a year later, to buy a new model on credit again, because it is already outdated (we recall the sign of rapid “moral obsolescence” in a consumer society).

Why buy a branded item if an item of an unknown brand is in no way inferior in quality, but, say, 2 times cheaper? (remember the importance of the brand concept).

Why, in order to play sports, go to an expensive sports club instead of free charging at a local stadium, which can be in no way inferior in quality, and even more useful?

Recall how people most often justify their excessive consumption:

• You only live once!
• I can afford it!
• What am I, worse than others?

But these are by no means the person's own thoughts - these are stereotypes imposed on him by the consumer society. So the human consumer, easily amenable to influence, will assert. And he will be sure that as a result he got into a financial hole through no fault of his own, but, for example, through the fault of the employer (he fired him and stopped paying wages) or through the fault of the state (it did not create a new job for him) or the fault of the bank (he, the bloodsucker, takes the last). That is, everyone around is to blame, but not himself - a typical situation for a consumer society.

Why did I devote a separate article to this topic and made it so emotional?

I want everyone to realize that he he can make his own choice. Either live according to the laws of the consumer society that have been imposed on him and have rather bleak prospects, or live according to his own rules, which may run counter to public opinion, but will be more effective and useful specifically for him. Personally, I have long chosen the second option for myself, which is what I wish everyone. But, of course, the choice is yours, and you are responsible for it. Yes, yes, it happens when a person himself can choose and be responsible for his choice.

Thanks for your continued attention. Always glad to hear any of your opinions in the comments or on the forum. See you at! Learn to use your personal finances wisely and effectively.

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Comments on the entry: 20

I was really looking forward to this article, you are reading my thoughts. Sometimes it seems that consumption eats the brain. By the way, the question is off topic: “How to choose hosting?”.

1. Thank you, Garry, the more of us like this, the better 😉

Also, do you consider buying a $50 phone acceptable if a person's income does not exceed $3,000 a year? I would just like to hear your opinion.

• I think it's acceptable, but not necessary.
  For example, before the beginning of 2014, I had a very simple phone, which at that time probably cost 30 dollars new. Even earlier - there was a service device that was given to me at work - even simpler. Well, I already had it falling apart (he was 5 years old, had been in various “trouble”), and I changed it to a smartphone for about $ 200. First of all, in order to be able to log in to the E-num service, read QR codes and always have the Internet at hand, it was necessary for work. Back then, I had free internet. But now I don’t even use the Internet on it for money, except sometimes Wi-Fi).
  So, only 3 phones since 2004, one of them is official, free)
  PS: my wife has one phone since 2006, at that time it was modern, now it is very outdated, but it is enough).
  Here is such a phone story 🙂

Konstantin, we are all members of the consumer society, whether we like it or not. We are consumers, and we ourselves can choose to what extent we want to consume. A person who thinks and knows how to separate what he needs, who is not amenable to manipulation, will win and move on to the next step of development. We know how to separate the interests of our own and the other person. The same can be done with respect to society, I think.

Great article! All to the point. The only thing I disagree with the author about is the opinion: “why buy a car if there is no apartment”. I think that investing in real estate for the purpose of investment is a very unprofitable business. Even if you just put an amount equivalent to the cost of an apartment on a deposit (even in foreign currency), then the monthly income from interest will be the necessary amount to rent an excellent apartment and even remain for life. Not to mention if you invest money in a business where the income is far from 10-15% per annum 🙂 But our people have a lot of stereotypes about this, that this is “reliability, stability, you need your own mink, etc.” But this is my opinion)

• Yuri, thanks for your comment. I had in mind the purchase of real estate for one's own residence, if it is not. In my opinion, in most cases, owning a property is more profitable and more interesting than renting it. Real estate is one of the most important personal assets that a person (family) needs to live. But of course, for some this may not be the case.

  I also fully agree that if you first invest in a business, you can quickly save up for this very real estate. But that buying a car for personal needs is more important than buying a home for personal needs - I do not agree). Again, to each his own.)

Hello. Almost the same phone history as Kostya :) :). Fourth since 2000. I think that as a training of their own willpower, it would be useful for people to forget the phone at home once a week. Thoughts in my head become brighter. And consumption has become the norm, because people were hungry and ignorant in Soviet times, but now, with the best intentions, they are pushing their children into this slavery, they say, we didn’t have it, at least they will have it. Another unpleasant thing. The local rulers of the planet benefit from such a rich country in the role of a “third world country”. That is, a kind of slave, otherwise, God forbid, he will rise from his knees, what to do with him later. Pay attention, except for the Kalash and the remnants of the luxury of space research, nothing remains. One trade, and that one is taught to us at trainings by their top managers. It is terrible that small businesses are being destroyed or crushed under trade networks, dictating the conditions of production. Although, at this difficult moment for the country, read people, IMHO, needlework can save us. A small manufacturing business - bees, even cucumbers, even clay pots. It's time to pull yourself together and start doing at least something. Import substitution. Let the government take credit for this. No pity.

“And this situation has a very negative impact on the country's own economy. It stimulates unreasonable price increases, and as a result leads to the fact that locally produced goods cannot compete with imported ones,” - why does the increase in prices reduce the competitiveness of domestic goods and does not reduce the competitiveness of foreign ones?

After all, often foreign production facilities move closer to the consumer, that is, to Russia. Therefore, the economy should put pressure on them in the same way as on our producer.

• Because domestic goods become unprofitable to produce. The cost of their production becomes higher than the production of imported goods with a lower quality of products. By the way, it is in Russia that this phenomenon is observed very clearly in many areas.

2. Thank you Ivan. I agree, everything is so .. I also wrote a lot about this).

The article is correct, but I would like to express a couple of my thoughts on this matter.
First, as Konstantin noted, we are a consumer society, we live in this society, which means that we are obliged to reckon with the rules of the consumer society (we are obliged to reckon, but are not obliged to follow them).
To give an example, a person decided to get a job as a CEO, came to an interview in an old worn out suit (a financially literate person decided that he did not need a new stylish suit because he was above this endless consumption), and as a result he was refused, because "meet by clothes." In our consumer society, it is important not only what is behind the back, but also what is on display, in other words, the image (not just show-offs, but the image that serves to achieve certain goals). A scene from the movie “Brothers Duel” comes to mind. The story of Adidas and Puma”, where one of the brothers took out a car loan to appear successful and was credited at the bank. Of course, this can be considered as an investment in a business, but still in our life it can be closely intertwined.

Secondly, with regard to brands. In some cases, buying a brand is really overpaying money for unnecessary show-offs. But often the brand acts as a guarantor that the thing will be of high quality (whatever one may say, but brands are mostly large corporations that have technical advantages over small companies), also choosing a branded thing significantly saves time searching for a good quality non-branded product, that is, it saves time, which is important. And, of course, a brand can enhance social status and serve as the basis for creating an image (why I have already described this in the first paragraph).

Thirdly, it is not necessary to treat this phenomenon negatively, but you need to learn how to benefit from it. People in the general mass cannot be changed, and you, knowing the principles of the consumer society, can make good money on this. Warren Buffett, for example, is a very cunning beetle in this regard - he only benefits, but he does not spend much, denies the rules of endless consumption, but what if everyone is as frugal as our famous investor? Most likely there will be problems in the economy. But who said that saving so much is good? I think this is a back reaction to the principles of the consumer society, saying that consuming a lot is bad, and consuming little is good, but, in my opinion, this is just another extreme, and this is not good.

In conclusion, I want to say that you need to adhere to the rule of the golden mean everywhere, which, as I noticed, can be applied in almost all areas of life. Applying the rule to the above points, we can draw a simple and important conclusion that you need to live within your means. No extremes. Not on credit, like people in a financial hole, but not like Warren Buffett driving an old car, being able to buy a new one. Actually, what's wrong with the fact that having money (being in a state of financial independence) I will consume more, thereby providing myself with a higher quality life? Otherwise, why do I need this financial independence?

I would like to hear Konstantin's opinion about these arguments 🙂

• Daniel, wonderful reasoning, I like them very much! Especially “to benefit” from any situation. Thank you for such an informative addition! 🙂

3. Forgive me. I myself consume expensive brands, but I only bought ours for a long time (and about the TV, I haven’t had it for 7 years, but there is an Internet worse than a TV set !!! You and I are a consumer society, whether we want it or not, we have no choice, we eat what they offer us, we look, even the provider of the Internet is a society of consumption, but they don’t understand and don’t take it seriously, refused a mobile phone for more than two months (people no longer understand that you can come and talk personally, which is more important and more effective than on a mobile phone) Everyone freaks out !!! Here is a society of corruption, refused their rules and you are an enemy !!

   Here is what Pavel Durov wrote about this not so long ago (in the VK group and on the forum he posted this entire post of his). He wrote about the rejection of harmful products, but there was also about the TV. I have great respect for this man, and I think that it is worth listening to him. Here are his words, quote:

   Some young people feel the need to lead a healthy lifestyle, but break under the pressure of society. They are told: “This is how it is accepted”, “Otherwise it is impossible”, “This is disrespect”.

   I am writing this to show that “so” is possible. If you feel that this path is the right one, ignore your surroundings.

   A society whose traditions are built on self-poisoning has no future. We can well build our life and our world on other values ​​- the values ​​of creation, self-development and diligence.

We are all consumers. We buy something every day, be it goods or services. And the problem is that our consumption has grown into a kind of cult. The cult of consumption.

It is clear that we cannot do without certain daily expenses, the money we have earned, and this is not at all about that. The point is that we spend too much, even more than we can earn.

The point is that the process of acquiring something has become for us a psychological problem that we do not recognize. Many of us are inveterate shoppers. Or if you like shopaholics. Which is essentially akin to a drug addict or an alcoholic. But these are terrible psychological problems that have killed a huge number of people.

For many of us consumption process became the meaning of life. While the meaning of life should be things that are higher in content, such as love, family, children, dedication to one's work, patriotism, service to humanity ...

I am not saying that money is evil. In no case. The role of money in the life of each of us is huge. Money is the measure of our capabilities and our desires. Earning money is the same norm of human behavior as the creation of family relationships, the birth and upbringing of children, and education. If we do not earn money, then this will already be a deviation. But everyone has a different idea of ​​how to spend the money earned.

Some barely have enough money to make ends meet. At what idea of ​​the ends too at all different. There are people who spend what they earn thoughtlessly. And someone counts every penny. It happens that your monthly salary diverges the very next day, and it happens that it turns out to be postponed until tomorrow and there is enough to satisfy all your urgent needs.

Where is this limit of reasonable? How to determine your measure? What amount of money can be considered sufficient for existence? Of course, everyone will answer all these questions in their own way. And we will never be able to find a universal recipe. Each person has his own idea of ​​life and his place in this life. Every person has different needs. There are people who live one day, burning it to the ground. And there are absolutely opposite people who look ahead and plan their lives for several years.

Each person is individual and consists only of his inherent traits. But if we consider humanity as a whole, then 90% of it consists of similar, identical people who live by common rules. This is the crowd. And the remaining 10% are real individuals, strong personalities who set the rules themselves. It is these 10% that set the tone for the remaining 90%. It is these 10% who are the historical figures who left the deepest mark in the history of all mankind.

The twenty-first century is commonly referred to as the information age. I would call it century of consumers. Consumption has long gone beyond the civilized framework, which makes it dangerous.

Take a look at how we live. Our communication with friends comes down to who earns how much and who has a cooler and more expensive car. We invite you to visit us no longer for communication, but in order to surprise your friends with the high cost of a new kitchen or the diameter of a plasma panel. And vice versa, we are afraid to invite someone to visit, afraid that we might fall in someone's eyes.

Going out into the street, in a thirty-degree frost, we think not about how to dress warmer, but about how we look and what people will think of us. In restaurants and bars, we throw money around to demonstrate our level of success and power. Shopping trips have long become a ritual for us to improve our psychological state and mood.

These examples should not be taken literally, but take a closer look at them and perhaps you will find in them a reflection of your own life.

What are you spending your life on? How much does it cost? How much are you willing to sell it for? Do these questions bother you? But we ask them to each other every day.

And in pursuit of material values, we burn ourselves. We turn our life into a race. We work hard from morning until late at night in order to overcome the set bar of success and well-being, imposed on us from TV screens, pages of fashion magazines, tongues squatted on a needle shopmania friends and acquaintances.

We tolerate injustice, humiliation and stupidity, because we can lose pseudo-benefits. We become hostages of our prejudices and fears, while cursing the Employer.

And in this race, we often forget about the most important thing that we have. Your loved ones and children. Your hobbies and talents. We forget about what makes us truly happy and free.

And I will end this post with the following words: “…Only when you swim against the current, you understand what a free opinion is worth…”(S. Shnurov - Freedom).

This year, Black Friday fell on November 27 in the United States - on this day, pre-Christmas sales start throughout the country (and not only in America). In the same United States, already in 1992, the action opposite to “Black Fridays” appeared - World No-Shopping Day, in 2015 it fell on November 27th. The action is held in protest against excessive consumption, as a result of which almost a third of the products produced in the world are simply thrown away, which does not solve the problem of hunger on Earth, but only exacerbates the problem of garbage.

The term "consumer society" was coined by the Freudo-Marxist sociologist Erich Fromm, author of the book To Have or Be. According to Fromm, modern people are involved in a constant chain of consumption and earnings for this consumption, leaving their spiritual sphere undeveloped. The consumer society at some point, of course, brings the economy to a higher level, but often this process is accompanied by a spiritual crisis. Only small groups of people are trying to find alternative ways of existence in the world of consumption. Who are they and why do we buy so much, MIR 24 talked about this with Andrei Gasilin, a graduate student at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSUMPTION

A person's craving for unbridled consumption is deeply interconnected with his congenital or acquired complexes. The most consistent and thoughtful criticism of the consumer society was formulated within the framework of Freudo-Marxism. What is Freudo-Marxism? On the one hand, it is a renewed Marxism, which rethinks and revives the ideas of the early Marx, for example, the concept of alienation, which played a key role in critiquing the consumer society. Within the Freudo-Marxism of the Frankfurt School, it was clearly demonstrated how a person becomes a slave to consumption, being included in this endless cycle. On the other hand, Freud is also involved in this problem: Freudo-Marxism showed how this complex is integrated into a person at the family level, how consumption turns out to be a natural sublimation of repressive practices within the family. Herbert Marcuse and other representatives of the Frankfurt School quite convincingly showed how upbringing in a family built in a paternalistic model is connected with the functioning of an authoritarian and even totalitarian state. A person from his very childhood - at the level of intra-family relations - is included in repressive practices, and in the future this is transformed into an authoritarian style of power relations at the level of society as a whole, creating the basis of a vertical hierarchy.

Consumption is a compensatory practice, it is, in fact, not the mastery of an object, but an attempt at self-identification. A person who buys new things (clothes, gadgets, a car, a dacha, etc.) tries to discover himself through the mode of possession. A person who was brought up within the framework of a paternalistic family has a repressed natural personality and creativity, he exists in an alien, externally imposed grid of coordinates. Since the authoritarian family model does not allow a person to fully express himself, he tries to gain self-identification through the acquisition of things. As a result, a cycle of endless accumulation is launched, and when acquiring a new thing, a person does not satisfy deep needs and even experiences a little disappointment, because what this was done for, in fact, has not been achieved. A new thing has appeared, the status of the symbols has been obtained, but there is no true satisfaction from this. New things grow on us like a heavy burden, littering our living space and at the same time aggravating the emptiness of our lives. And the more things, the more discontent accumulates.

Another representative of the Frankfurt School, Erich Fromm, identifies two alternatives: "To have or to be?" - this is the title of his central work, in which he speaks with a global critique of the "have" strategy. According to Fromm, many modern people do not exist in the full sense of the word - they are constantly expanding their world through the acquisition of things, but since they are not these things, their life is reduced to a constant race for possession. Even when a person gets an education, he wants to have a diploma, to have a status, to have an ability. He has no understanding how he himself exists in this world and what is the meaning of his existence. The consumer society in general is trying to free itself from moral principles. Fromm considered this one of the causes of neurosis, which almost every person now has. This is not about some kind of universal morality, but about the inconsistency of a person's life with his own convictions. Most people, if they have beliefs, they are pulled from a variety of sources and often contradict each other. That is, a person does not have internal consistency, how to live, what to do. And in the store they sell you not just things, but ideology, quasi-religions are created. Now there are many courses on various spiritual practices - you pay, and they tell you how to exist correctly and in a balanced way, lifestyle and wellness are sold. If this is done in the logic of consumption, it will work only as long as the person communicates with the coach and goes to seminars. At first glance, he will feel spiritually superior, but in reality this is the same strategy within the consumer society. If you run out of money or desire, you will very quickly find yourself where you were.

In America, the consumer society flourished in the 40s, immediately after the end of World War II, they went through a sharp economic recovery and began a baby boom. At this time, the logic of consumption began to unwind, which ordinary citizens began to implant at all levels - from small business to politics. “Consume, this is how you invest in the economy!” - every American hears this message from childhood, it has already become part of social culture. Using the resources of personal savings, uncontrolled consumption stimulated an unprecedented growth in the lending market. Now every American has a fan of credit cards in his wallet. It is simply unrealistic to find a person without loans there - the first one is opened as a student, just so that you start a credit history. You must open it purely formally, even if you do not need money, only in this way you can “correctly” go through all the stages of social development that society imposes on you. In fact, the state is very interested in the credit dependence of its citizens. If the government or law enforcement agencies have any questions for a person, he simply disconnects from the “feeders”. He has a huge amount of debt, and he can't do anything. This is a fantastic manipulation opportunity. Therefore, a person on whom a lot of loans hangs, keeps to work and tries not to conflict with either the authorities or the authorities. Thus, the logic of consumption makes citizens total conformists, incapable of protest.

In Europe, the consumer society also flourished somewhere in the mid-60s. So, the riots of 68 in Paris, paradoxically, happened just at a time when the economic situation in the country was quite prosperous. It was a golden era when the French government managed not only to restore the pre-war level of the economy, but even to raise it. And against the background of this well-being, the students suddenly begin to rebel and make such a "brawl", after which the government first resigns, and then President Charles de Gaulle. On the one hand, the consumer society promotes the country's economy, and on the other hand, children take to the streets to protest. In the late 60s, the planet was in full swing, everywhere young people preached the logic of the absurd contrary to the logic of common sense. This is the basis of the acid revolution - expand your consciousness, stop thinking in a standard way, understand that the universe is much thinner and more multidimensional than you are used to seeing. Your consciousness should not be stereotyped, people should be able to think in a variety of logics, and then your life will be full. Otherwise, this is the life of a robot that walks along the intended trajectory. In the West, there are still many echoes of the 60s, for example, in the United States there are communities of people who have left civilization and are trying to live in subsistence farming in the style of the 19th century. True, this is already a kind of radicalization of "green" strategies - anti-globalization, anti-civilization, anti-urbanism.

In Russia, since the days of the USSR, a very strange attitude towards consumption has remained. Then the imperative of production prevailed in ideology, production always dominated consumption - this is Marxist logic. According to Marx, a person must produce more than he consumes. In Russia, people who begin to live in Western values ​​reject this logic and prefer to live according to the American system - to consume as much as possible, because by consuming you develop the economy. True, no one talks about the expenditure of natural resources there, this problem is completely ignored. The main thing is to develop the economy. This all leads to an absurd situation, when a lot of things that have never really been used are thrown into a landfill.

According to Marx, the capitalist system should be replaced by communism, and radical Marxists really think so. This should be a society in which a person has an absolute value, no one uses him, everyone has a lot of free time, which is enough for both creativity and self-development, that is, he invests much less in his life support than we do now. The problem of our society is a constant shortage of resources, and people who live in this society develop a neurotic craving for the reproduction of status symbols, which can be neutralized through the transformation of a person’s mental body, his attitude to the world, relations with other people. In a consumer society, direct communication between people is difficult, it exists, of course, but it is hindered precisely by the constant consumer logic of exchange. Here, a person to a person is, first of all, a business partner, and sometimes a rival. And the system of relationships "man to man - man" is rare. In a communist society, according to Marx, this can be achieved. But I believe that the welfare society will most likely never come, simply because conflict is integrated into the very structure of society and is an integral part of human existence.

HACK WAYS: BEATNICK, MINIMALIST, FREEGAN AND OTHERS

The fight against the consumer society has its downsides, which are discussed by the modern Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. In his works, he very subtly criticizes those pseudo-"green" strategies that seem to be directed against the consumer society, but are actually included in the same system. For example, when a company organizes a campaign: buy a cup of coffee and help environmentalists, because we transfer a third of the cost to the fund. Žižek shows that this is a purely capitalist scheme, because the company neutralizes all its investments by production. Žižek calls this "cultural capitalism".

The logic of unlimited consumption is opposed, in particular, by modern minimalists - Leo Babauta, Joshua Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus and others. The minimalist movement originated in the mid-2000s in the American blogosphere. Minimalists offer amazingly simple formulas that work in any situation, although there is no deep philosophy behind their beliefs. The bottom line: get rid of unnecessary things, unnecessary events, unnecessary people, unnecessary everything, reduce your life to the necessary minimum. A person needs fantastically little for life, there is no need to overload it, to chase after fashion. Babauta is one of the top bloggers, whose Zen Habits blog was in the top 25 most visited blogs in the US and the top 50 in international ratings 10 years ago. In it, he wrote small posts about how to get rid of everything superfluous. In principle, everything is elementary - for example, on the desktop, except for those things that you use, there should be nothing. Nicodemus once conducted the following experiment: he packed all his things into boxes and began to take out only those items that he really needed. A month later, it turned out that he used only 20% of things. He donated the remaining 80% to charity.

A real attempt to change the system can be called the beat movement, which originated in the 40s and 50s in the United States. Of course, it was mostly avant-garde youth, students of Harvard and other Ivy League universities. At first, its ideologists were mainly writers: Jack Kerouac, William Burrows, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, who created a new, romantic culture that absorbed values ​​from a variety of worldviews, distancing itself from the dominant one. There was a lot of mystical research, drug experiments, so the beatniks, and then the hippies, tried to break the reign of common sense. Every day they were told on TV that the communists were advancing, they needed to build a prosperous America, to be guided by common sense, to behave rationally. The culture of the “seniors” constantly appealed to classical paternalistic morality and common sense. This obviously did not suit the beatniks, for them spiritual needs were the main ones, they tried to understand what a person is and how he should live.

They traveled, listened to jazz, fell in love, wrote poetry and novels. The essence of this conflict was formulated by Hunter Thompson in the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. First of all, it was a conflict of generations, while there were young people who wanted to live freely, do what they want and set their own rules, and there was a generation of “old and evil” who supposedly knew how to live, tried to limit and put up barriers all the time. At that time, many dreamed of creating a fundamentally different humanity, based on the ideals of love, and not on the ideals of monetization and materialism, but in general it was a protest against the policies of the old, therefore, when yesterday's children themselves became dads and moms, the movement withered.

Nowadays, there are quite a few movements in the world that are somehow trying to get out of the consumer society - from voluntary hermits to freelance artists reminiscent of modern beatniks (not to be confused with hipsters). One of the striking examples is the Russian artist Sergei Balovin, the author of the Natural Exchange project, who managed to travel around the world without money and generally make his life free and interesting.

I was disappointed to realize that art is always a big market. Everything depends not on how the artist works, but first of all on the market, the potential buyer, rather than on some desire for the artist's self-realization. I oppose the rules of the art market, where an artist cannot underestimate the price of his works, cannot give them away for free, because then this affects the price of his paintings. In this sense, my project violates the principles of the art market, although the market will not destroy it, but it can play against me if I destroy the opportunity for myself to sell works for money. Previously, from the age of 17, I sold my paintings, and I started bartering in kind at the age of 27-28. And I haven't sold anything since then.

When I started the Natural Exchange project five years ago (The artist receives the necessary things as a gift in exchange for portraits. - Approx. ed.), I did not pursue the goal of giving up money in principle. I wanted to go beyond the art market and act contrary to its laws. After some time, I realized that I could go further and try to stop using money altogether. I prepared for this and was able to completely do without money during my trip around the world, which lasted from the beginning of 2013 to the middle of 2014. I did not use money except for a few cases, but 99% managed to do without them. Having proved that it is possible to live like this, I loosened the restrictions, and if now people offer me money instead of a gift, I accept, but do not name the amount and do not put price tags on the work. The fact is that when you live completely without money, every day you have to worry about the smallest things, for example, how not to be left without water, how to use public transport or pay for mobile communications. During the trip, when I did not have bus tickets, I had to go through the cities on foot. But in general, it is possible to live without money, and not only within subsistence farms outside the big cities. And life is interesting.

The more you travel, the more you realize that you don't need many things to live. I have not been shopping for a long time, I continue to receive clothes as a gift, I don’t go to stores with pleasure, I don’t pay attention to shop windows and I think that people really spend too much money buying too much unnecessary stuff. At first I kept all the gifts as some kind of artifacts, but at some point I stopped hoarding and began to distribute. Recently, having arrived in my native Voronezh, where I stored all this, I gladly packed several bags of clothes and sent them to those in need, and I felt much better. All this is an extra load.

With the Natural Exchange project, my lifestyle has changed, I have not had any permanent job for a long time and do what I like - I draw and receive gifts for portraits. The main thing they give me is food. Is there something that I can’t get as a gift - I don’t even know, because they even gave me medical insurance, visas, air tickets, a computer and an iPhone. Now I spend these actions less often, as I settled in Shanghai, where I rent a room in exchange for drawing lessons with the daughter of the owner of the apartment. There are local internet forums where I post ads and people contact me from time to time. Mass actions I arrange on average two or three times a month.

Photo from Sergey Balovin's vk.com page

Everyone knows that tons of products are destroyed every day around the world, the expiration date of which or which simply do not meet the standards of supermarkets. This happens not only with products, but also with clothes, electronics, cars that did not have time to sell. Thousands of new cars gather dust in abandoned stadiums, and someone saves up half a life for a motorcycle ... Abandoned stadiums, by the way, can also be included in the list of useless use of resources. I think that a total rejection of shopping is impossible, but the education of a conscious attitude towards resources is possible.

A more extreme form of protest against consumerism is freeganism, a movement that advocates the minimization of resource use and is against the consumer society. At one time, it crystallized out of the vegan movement, and the term freegan was coined by the drummer of the American band Against Me! Warren Ochs, who published his manifesto Why Freegan in 1999. Freegans protest against the power of corporations and globalism and, in order to avoid the chain of sale, look for the necessary things ... in landfills. This also applies to food, often freegans eat what stores and markets throw away. There is a special term for this - dumpster diving. The largest number of freeganism followers live in Europe, but there is also a small community in Russia. On the Internet, you can find a lot of videos with theoretical and practical advice from freegans:

The musicians from the experimental Moscow group "Table-Chair-Walls", having decided to bypass the consumer chain, generally distributed their first album in the garbage heaps. By the way, the album is called “Look in the garbage heaps”. A batch of 100 discs was simply left in landfills, having previously announced the action on a social network page. The violinist of the group "Table-Chair-Walls" Mitriy Grankov told us about this in more detail.

"Look in the garbage" was the first album we recorded. In general, we gathered just to develop, play music and improvise, we wanted to come up with various performances and actions. The idea of ​​garbage dumps arose spontaneously, to be honest, we didn’t know anything about freeganism then. We thought - anyway, many things end up in the trash - and decided to leave the discs there, that is, distribute them, bypassing the consumer chain. In addition, it was also a symbol of the fact that physical media are fading into the background. On our own, we produced 100 copies, managing with a minimum of costs. About six months have passed since the formation of the group, and there were already draft recordings on the recorder. We cut them, mounted them, it turned out quite interesting material, which I still remember with warmth. Then we bought discs, I drew the cover, we reproduced it on a regular printer, and the finished discs were distributed in the garbage dumps, captured on camera. Surprisingly, the action against consumption turned out to be the most famous in our country.

In fact, we do not particularly practice searching for things in the garbage, but garbage dumps are, in fact, very interesting places. Once I found a notebook, sketches and art albums by an unknown artist in a dump on Novokuznetskaya. Perhaps this incident served as an incentive to distribute discs in the trash heaps. Now there are a lot of musicians who, to some extent, oppose consumerism, posting music on the Internet for free.

For many people, a convenient way to partially get away from commodity-money relations is free markets, or free fairs. The bottom line is that people bring unnecessary things in good condition and in return they can choose new clothes for free, this applies not only to clothes, but also to books, household appliances, jewelry, CDs, and items for creativity. “We can buy and use much fewer things and resources, while our lives will not become less comfortable,” believe the supporters of these actions. In Moscow, freemarkets are held almost every month. At a recent free market in ZIL, about which MIR 24 wrote, master classes were held on various types of art recycling (or upcycling), that is, on turning old things into new hand-made.

Participation rules: clothes must be in good condition, clean and ironed. If the equipment that you bring to the free market has defects, then the item should be tagged with this information. Many people put notes for future owners in the pockets of their clothes. You can come to the free market without bringing anything with you, which is a great opportunity to dress for people with low incomes. Clothes that have not found new owners are often sent by the organizers to social assistance centers. In addition, there are many second-hand and charity shops in Moscow where you can dress for free and stylishly without stimulating overproduction, which directly affects not only the environment, but also people's health.

The topic of protest against consumerism is becoming more and more relevant with the increase in the population of the Earth and the growth of consumption. There are alter-globalists, anti-globalists, minimalists, freegans, vegans and downshifters (and others-other-others) who in one way or another try to build a society based on other values, which is inevitably reflected in culture and art. One way or another, everyone can make the world a better place. For example, just give up shopping for one day.

Ritual shopping trips, fetishization of stocks and sales, somnambulistic purchases of unnecessary things, deification of glamorous standards - consumption has become a philosophy of life for many of our compatriots. Should it be limited? Eat, buy, and then what? Is the person who has everything happy? Experts of "RG" and the TV program "Cultural Revolution" argue about this.

Eduard Boyakov, director, creator of the theater festivals "Golden Mask", "New Drama": Consumption should be limited. In Soviet times, my call would have been complete blasphemy. After all, we all needed, lived in a society of total scarcity. And an apartment, a car, a dacha - these were some kind of totem goals that few people achieved. And capitalism, which came into our lives quite recently, made it possible to satisfy our needs. And we ended up in the space of a Western supermarket. Think back to your first trip abroad. The main thing that shocked our compatriots, and me too, were not great works of art and architecture, nor museums. Store shelves! It was the biggest culture shock! We are used to cheese, bread, sausage. And there are hundreds of their types and names! We all thought that when such stores appeared in Russia, we would begin to live differently, we would become more free and happy. But it didn't happen.

I remember Getrude Stein, who said that when a person achieves what he wanted, it often turns out that he did not want it at all. So it happened with us. Now we understand that this refrigerator filled to capacity, which was the object of our parents' dreams, is nothing but a terrible profanation of the altar, which actually has nothing to do with our happiness. This is a parody of the altar. We are chasing consumption, we want to achieve something, to buy something. And suddenly it turns out that this something - a gadget for a child, a toy - is needed only to distract, to occupy him. And then mom and dad can .... work hard. And so they work, get stressed, the child is alienated. We are losing a family. We thought that our families would live better. It turns out not.

American scientists compared the sizes of dishes and food on fifty-two art canvases of the last millennium. And they found that the dimensions of the plates increased by sixty-six percent, portions of food by sixty-nine, and slices of bread by twenty-three percent.

We believed that our people would live better if they had a good food market. But the developed capitalist countries show the opposite. Twenty-five percent of American schoolgirls are obese. A huge number of diseases come from the fact that we overeat. We cannot control ourselves. And this process applies to everything. What is a European or Russian city turning into? How much asphalt do we put on the ground? How many flowers and greenery do we kill? How much waste do we produce? From time to time, terrible articles appear on the Internet that there is a huge garbage island in the Pacific Ocean, which has surpassed some European countries in its size.

Eduard Boyakov. A photo: Igor Filonov / RG

Eduard Boyakov: What to do in this situation? Of course, it is impossible to limit consumption by any political decrees. But we have to think about whether we really consume as much as we need? This question needs to be addressed to yourself. I had a moment in my business biography when I tried to count the number of my ties. I confess, there were five hundred of them. I chose them for colors and textures. Now it seems so stupid. Society should not age, but grow wiser. And this wisdom will inevitably lead to the fact that there will be people who will show an example of limitation ... They already exist in the West. Suffice it to recall the creator of the IKEA empire. He flies economy class, very restrictive to his children. For example, he announced to them that the legacy he would leave would be very modest. Develop yourself!

Ruslan Grinberg, Director of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences: To be honest, I thought that I would be the champion in terms of the number of ties. I have two hundred and twenty seven...

Mikhail Shvydkoy, artistic director of the Musical Theatre: By the way, Wells described Karl Marx like this: "Well, what kind of a serious economist is he? A man with such a beard, which must be looked after indefinitely, cannot be a serious economist!"

Ruslan Grinberg:... The fact is that when a person is born, he has no way out, he must be happy. And this is very nice: to have a variety of food, a large wardrobe. Consumption is synonymous with freedom. We must have a choice for everything. Be it socks, bosses, prime ministers.

Ruslan Grinberg. A photo: Sergey Karpov / ITAR-TASS

Remember seventy years of Soviet asceticism, terrible humiliation, despondency, dullness. And suddenly Mikhail Gorbachev "opened the gates of the prison", we saw four hundred varieties of cheese and, of course, were stunned by this. This is not a synonym for happiness, but a very good thing.

But seriously, the market economy works according to the principle: everything that you have produced, you must sell. There are a couple of countries in the world that don't think so. And there, by the way, there are decrees on the regulation of consumption. These are North Korea and Cuba. And I must say that in these states people live quite happily with what they have, because they do not know anything else. By the way, here is a story from the Soviet past. A friend of mine went to jail for seven years for exchanging a few rubles for a few dollars in order to buy a novel by Bulgakov for his girlfriend. "The Master and Margarita" was sold only for hard currency.

But speaking honestly and seriously, the discussion of the topic of the dangers of consumption seems to me a great hypocrisy and hypocrisy. In our blessed country, only twenty-five percent of the population consumes what Europeans consume. The rest survive. We are underutilized.

Marina Krasilnikova, sociologist: Consumer orientations of three-quarters of the Russian population are limited to food and clothing. Where, then, does the recently popular talk that society overconsume come from? Irritation appears when there is a dissonance between income and consumption. Some of our citizens have already received a lot of money, but have not learned how to spend it correctly. People dragged the skills of the poor from the Soviet past. And how can a poor person demonstrate his social status? Because he ate well and dressed well. When someone in the center of Moscow buys clothes at insane prices, incomparable with prices in European capitals, he pays not for a thing, but for the honor of joining a higher status.

Sergey Kovalev, psychologist: Leo Tolstoy believed that the person who realizes becomes truly happy: what he has is all that he needs. Academician Dmitry Likhachev echoed him: the poor is not the one who has little, the poor is the one who has little.

It is necessary to seriously talk about limiting that status, that fetishization of consumption that currently exists. Yes, there is a goal - to live well. There is a means - consumption. Nobody argues with this. This is a normal process. But if the means becomes an end in itself, the so-called law of displacement arises. For example, in women who were obsessed with diets, the goal was not beauty, but weight loss itself. They turned into anorexics, who were then pulled out of this peculiar understanding of the meaning of life in psychiatric clinics. It is impossible to turn consumption into the main reason for the existence of civilization, society, and an individual person. There is always something higher, for which, in the end, we consume. As a result of this fetishization of the meaning of consumption, the status character of consumption, we have an existential neurosis in twenty percent of the population. Fed up, bought up. And then what?

Others have a social neurosis. We just can't live up to the glamorous standards that are shown to us on movie screens, on television, in magazines. A situation where cars, rags, parties have replaced the mind, honor and conscience.

Modern value orientation of modern civilization: status, power, material wealth and sensual pleasures. Happiness is replaced by success. But consumption studies have shown that between 1966 and 1996, the standard of living of American citizens rose by one and a half times, while life satisfaction fell by half.

Japan has been depressed for the past few years only because it stopped consuming

Mr. Ishize Motoyuki, Minister-Counsellor, Head of the Information Department of the Japanese Embassy in Russia: In Japan, they believe that a soul lives in any thing. My parents would not allow me to leave rice half-eaten, because by doing so we show disrespect for the spirit of food. You can't waste anything. Understanding this is a Japanese cultural feature.

From our point of view, all things and products must be of very high quality. To maintain quality, it may make sense to limit the quantity of production. And further. Traditionally, in our society, the one who consumes too much or throws away things that could still serve is condemned. In my opinion, it makes sense to listen to Japan, because it successfully overcomes the challenges that the whole world is also likely to face.

Ruslan Grinberg: But Japan has been depressed for the past few years just because it has stopped consuming. And this is a very difficult question. We live in capitalism. We have no other alternative. And capitalism is a society that produces in order to sell. If you don't go to the store and if you don't buy, production stops, the world stops.

Mikhail Shvydkoy. A photo: Sergei Pyatakov / RIA Novosti www.ria.ru

Mikhail Shvydkoy: Honestly, I'm not sure that in houses with stove heating, with a toilet on the street, it's easier to think about the meaning of life. Although it just so happened that people thought about such serious problems, precisely when they lived in more difficult times than today. But it seems to me that the question is not how we will consume, and whether this will make us less spiritual or more spiritual. It is a matter of the inner efforts of everyone. And most importantly. The problem that we will soon face, especially in developed countries, is that people who have never worked will be consuming. Already today, fewer people produce than those who consume without working. And the last chance to work, in general, no. Let me give the example of the USA. There are only 17 percent of industrial workers. Four percent of farmers. Some work in the service industry. And half have never been productive! These are those who simply receive a social package.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), one of the world's leading economic organizations, which includes 34 states, has released a report "How's life?". It follows from this that the progress of the state depends on broader parameters than GDP. In particular, from the priorities and aspirations of people, their ideas about their "happiness".

Russian and world services and organizations specializing in statistical research have long been looking for an answer to the question of how a person's happiness is related to the level of his consumption and well-being. Here is the latest information on the subject. Psychologists say that satisfaction with life, and this is almost a happy self-feeling, is only 10-15 percent due to external circumstances, 50 percent - the general personality and 35-40 - depends on personal choice in making decisions.

Sociologists from ROMIR, who compiled the so-called "global index of happiness," gave Russia 33rd place out of 54. 42 percent of our citizens called themselves happy, against 53 percent on average around the world. Since 2006, the World Happiness Index (The Happy Planet Index) has also been calculated. This is a composite indicator that measures the achievements of the countries of the world and individual regions in terms of their ability to provide their residents with a happy life. It is calculated according to the methodology of the British research center New Economic Foundation together with the environmental organization Friends of the Earth, the humanitarian organization World Development Movement. Issued every two or three years.

The compilers of the rating emphasize that in those countries where the emphasis is on the development of production, and with it on economic growth, people, as a rule, do not become happier. So, according to data published in 2012, Russia in this list of the 151st country takes 122nd place. Between the Congo and Bulgaria. The happiest of all, according to the rating, are the inhabitants of Costa Rica and Vietnam, and the unhappiest - Chad and Botswana. US citizens are in 105th place. Crisis, jobless Greece - on the 83rd, unstable Egypt - on the 91st. The happiest of all the former republics of the Union was Kyrgyzstan, which took 38th place in the list of happiness.

Another international organization, the OECD, has presented a new version of the Better Life Index, calculated on the basis of respondents' assessments of 11 parameters. On the sum of all of them, Russia ranks 32nd out of 36 places in the rating, located between Estonia and Brazil. Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden are more satisfied with life than others. The Russians rated the national "balance of work and leisure" above all: approximately at the level of the inhabitants of Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway.

Vladislav Flyarkovsky, journalist:

The intention to limit consumption reminds me of a strong desire to start a new life on Monday ... I remembered one episode that shocked me. I am flying on one of the major airlines. Having nothing to do, I read the catalog of goods: "Panda soft toy - twenty euros. You will be proud that part of your money will go to support the Wildlife Fund." I scroll further: "Watch. Three hundred and fifty euros. A great gift, a genuine python leather strap." Mankind has finally moved with reason. I am not a big connoisseur of human nature, but for some reason I am sure that a person can force himself not to eat hamburgers. But he cannot force himself not to listen to vulgar songs and read stupid detective stories. That's the way it's made.

Vladislav Flyarkovsky. A photo: Grigory Sysoev / ITAR-TASS

Blitz Poll

What was your childhood dream item?

Eduard Boyakov: Car.

Ruslan Grinberg: Cloak-bologna.

Do you have extra items at home?

Eduard Boyakov: A lot.

Ruslan Grinberg: Only extra ones.

Are you satisfied with today's book market?

Eduard Boyakov: No.

Ruslan Grinberg: More than.

How many films do you watch in a week?

Eduard Boyakov: Probably five.

Ruslan Grinberg: None.

What are you missing today?

Eduard Boyakov: The realization that I have everything.

Ruslan Grinberg: Just enough.

By the way

The term "consumerism" was coined in 1970 by two different people: the Italian director Paolo Pasolini and the American political scientist Herbert Marcuse. Academician Vladimir Vernadsky calculated that of the total volume of raw materials extracted from the earth, a person consumes about six percent in the form of finished products. The rest is waste at different stages of the technological chain.

Friday, 06/05/2015 Friday, 06/05/2015

Age of consumption

Today, the main part of humanity is no longer faced with the question of elementary survival. You can earn money for housing, clothes and food even in the countries of the so-called third world. However, the modern market civilization, with the help of all available media and communications, convinces a person that he is obliged not only to live, but to live well.

Well in a society of mass consumption, when a person owns a certain set of material values. At the same time, the consumer is required not only to possess this set of benefits, but to engage in its constant multiplication and updating. This is evidenced by regular, with an interval of 3-4 weeks, changing collections in clothing stores, constant releases of new "ultramodern" models of phones, tablets, computers, household appliances, cars. The speed of supply is growing, and the desires of consumers are becoming more sophisticated every year.

Thorstein Bunde Veblen was the first to attend to the scientific and theoretical consideration of the problem of consumption, back in 1899 he wrote the book The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, in which he outlined the problem of so-called conspicuous consumption, which later received the name “Veblen effect” in economic theory. In turn, the psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm in the book "To have or to be?" raised the problem of excessive mass consumption, and at the same time introduced the term "consumer society" into wide scientific use. Later, such prominent researchers as Jean Baudrillard, who put forward the theory of the simulacrum, wrote about the consumer society; Gilles Deleuze, who voiced the concepts "body without organs" and "desire machine"; Dennis Meadows, in his book The Limits to Growth, raised the problem of the transformation of ethical values ​​in a mass consumer society; and Herbert Marcuse, who created the concept of a "one-dimensional man" capable only of consuming. Later, Benjamin Barber introduced the special term McWorld, which characterizes the modern world based on the principles of mass consumption, and Pierre Bourdieu, talking about television and the role of journalism, wrote about the fast-thinking phenomenon generated by television techniques for quickly creating easily digestible information. Pop art and the work of postmodernists became a criticism of the consumer society in art. Research by scientists and artists in this direction continues today, but no one has been able to achieve any visible result that allows people to abandon mass consumerism.

Practice shows that today more research is being carried out in the field of marketing, which aims to find additional levers of influence on the consciousness, desires and emotions of the consumer. The results of these studies form the basis of large-scale advertising campaigns that increase the number of fans of a particular product / brand. The paradox, as a rule, lies in the fact that a person simply does not need goods or services so well imposed on him by all available means. If all McDonald's or KFC restaurants suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth, nothing terrible would happen. As Mark Twain once aptly put it, "Civilization is a machine for the production of needs for which there is no need."

Added to this is the fact that the widely advertised "novelties" differ from previous models only in minor technical improvements or exclusively in design in the form of a new shape of headlights or additional body bends. In pursuit of more and more demanding tastes of consumers, manufacturers of cars, gadgets, household appliances save on the quality of their products. The superficial variety presented to consumers by advertisers is compensated by the internal technical uniformity of "novelties". Engineers simply do not have time to create something revolutionary, as the market race for the consumer forces them to release new items in an ever shorter time. So, according to statistics, if in the late 90s, mobile phone manufacturing companies released 2-3 new models every two months, today, in the same period, the number of announced new products can reach ten. And the development time for a new car model has been reduced from an average of 4 to 2 years. The situation with clothing brands is no better. The lion's share of their costs is the cost of large-scale advertising campaigns, and not the production itself. Walking for several years in the same clothes (with one phone for more than six months, driving the same car for more than five years) has become socially unapproved, a kind of deviant behavior. At the same time, manufacturers and sellers themselves practically no longer use slogans like “Boots that will not be demolished.” The consumer society lives by the principle: buy today, throw it away tomorrow. Things become almost disposable. And therein lies another problem: the consumer does not know how to truly appreciate things. After all, he listens to advertising, and she claims that instead of one thing, you can easily buy another "better" one (and also at a more attractive price).

In addition to the purely economic aspect of the consumer society, there is also a socio-political one (which is associated with psychological, social and ethical). As Marxists and other critics of the mass consumer society argue, the key point in considering consumerism is morality, or rather its absence. In their opinion, the ideology of the consumer society, which became stronger after the Second World War in the United States and a number of Western European countries, became an alternative to morality. In the conditions of liberal freedom, which gives every person the right to choose the most convenient moral principles and norms of life for him, the functioning of society - due to the lack of morality basic for the whole society - becomes somewhat difficult (you can’t write everything in laws). The only way to keep society at least under some kind of control in such conditions, in addition to the path of force, is to control people through their desires and needs. In addition, a person who is focused on the consumption of material goods does not think much about the world in which he lives. And this greatly simplifies the task of managers.

In social terms, consumerism gives rise to a distorted attitude of a person to surrounding people and things. Consumers recognize the value of a thing not from the point of view of its real usefulness or quality, but from the point of view of the conformity of this thing to the trends and norms of behavior set by the media, advertising and mass art (films, pop music, videos). Consumerism, by the way, exists in various spheres of society, ranging from everyday life to “technologies for life” or high mass art, designed to work for the market and form the public’s taste for a consumer lifestyle. As for interpersonal relations, in the conditions of a society of mass consumption, the assessment of one person by another occurs solely from the consideration of his compliance / non-compliance with market demands. A person also becomes a kind of commodity, which must be able to profitably sell itself.

Alas, most theorists of the modern market economy do not give an unambiguous answer to the question of where mindless consumerism will lead the world. Mass consumption has already given rise to a number of both global problems (environmental, ethical) and very narrow psychological ones (for example, shopaholism or, scientifically, oniomania). And it is worth recognizing that the resources of the planet are not infinite (in contrast to actively stimulated human needs), as well as the markets for goods and services and the prospects for a further global division of labor. Therefore, sooner or later, consumption will begin to decline, and this, in turn, will require remarkable efforts from mankind already spoiled by marketers. It is worth starting to prepare in advance, and, who knows, maybe the appearance of some subcultures like street tagers or minimalists was the first steps of humanity into the post-consumer future of our planet.