Consumerism in Modern Day America

Ok the next essay was my final for Sociology 101. I thought it turned out reasonable well. What is really funny, was the conditions I was under when writing it. Not only was I suffering from a concussion, but my mother had just gotten into a serious car accident. The anxiety and panic could not have been good for my brain. When I finally got to full on writing, it was midnight 7 hours before it was due. I'm a huge procrastinator by nature. lol
This is not my best work, but it is mediocre.
My bias shows through in this essay. I don't care, I still got a damn good grade. 297/300 A+
I might take a pic lol
Anyway here is my essay on Consumerism.

Consumerism in Modern Day America

written by: Darkd

With the rise of the 21^st century, capitalism has grown to become the most popular of the economic systems. In modern capitalist society one of the most important concepts is consumerism. Consumerism was originally a movement whose main goal was advocating greater protection of the consumers. Over time, this movement was rethought into a theory that an increased consumption of goods was beneficial to the economy (Miller 2009). This redesigned theory of consumerism was thought to be able to sustain society. Slowly this theory began to embed itself into society, and thus created what we now know as most modern capitalist countries. This concept has begun to create problems within society. With properly functioning countries, the main problem behind this concept is disguised. The problem is that Consumerism affects people morally and compels them to develop hedonistic attitudes. Consumerism is a concept that is beneficial to capitalist economies and enables them to succeed; however, it creates problems in society by influencing the creation of outsourcing and globalization, influencing the creation of modern advertisements, and by influencing the value of money.

Consumerism is one of the main forces that drive global outsourcing. In order to effectively progress a business, company owners concentrate on key areas to make profit. One of business’s main concerns is creating a cheaper and more economically efficient product. There is a saying that if a product can be made at all, it can be made cheaper. This is a concept that was adopted by many businesses over the course of history. This practice was largely implemented around the later portion of the 19^th century, and soon began to reveal itself in many forms (Rajan 2009). At first it revealed itself in the forms of discounts and special offers. Businesses started to offer discounts and special offers in order to appease their consumers. This was a good way in order to create sales and this idea was copied by many businesses. This slowly was soon adapted into other businesses, and eventually became almost mandatory for sales. Any price cuts over the competition could create sales for one company and causes losses for another. This seemed harmless, and served to increase competition between companies. However, this served to spread a bandwagon effect on the market. Discounts and price cuts were one of the first sources to spread Consumerism. It is common knowledge that lower cost equates to higher sales. This practice can be seen in modern society in the form of global outsourcing. Outsourcing is the production or procuring of services and/or goods from an outside supplier or manufacturer. Global outsourcing occurs when a company outsources to a company that is located outside of their country. Global outsourcing is normally an effective way to lower production costs, and is good in moral practice. While it still creates problems such as job and tax loss, the problems that occur are not a severe burden on the country. The problem is that the companies that receive the work are usually located in countries with substandard economies. While this does not happen all of the time, it tends to occur often. The problem with outsourcing to substandard countries is businesses are able to create products and/or services at an extremely lowered cost. Usually the costs are lower than the ones you would find in countries with better economies. By outsourcing to these countries, the companies create a position that would allow them to defeat their competition by creating a cheaper product. In order to keep up with the competition, everyone would have to lower the price of their product. One of the easiest ways to do this would be to jump on the bandwagon and outsource globally to a substandard country. Consumerism indirectly created global outsourcing, because it required the company owners to create their product in the cheapest way possible (Miller 1995).The companies do not want to take profit reduction, so they turn to outsourcing to develop their product. Consumerism, which is the cause of Global outsourcing, is a detriment to economic competition and negatively affects capitalist systems. Consumerism affects our lives in other ways than just the prices of the products.

Modern advertisements are also affected by the theory of Consumerism. In order to keep the economy flowing, people must be buying products and/or services. Advertisements are the media that influence individuals to purchase these products. Anywhere you go today, you will see an advertisement. They are located on billboards, on television, and even on the Internet. People are constantly bombarded with advertisements for products that they may never even try. Not only are all these advertisements overwhelming, but they also place a false sense on life. In combination with effective marketing techniques, companies are able to tie real life into fictional advertisements. The line between entertainment and advertisements has become extremely blurred recently. This blurring causes the viewer of these advertisements to emotionally and mentally connect to the advertisement, and the association with the commercial is usually then used for the product. Real life has begun to be compared to these fictional worlds, which in some cases is a negative thing. For example, if an average middle aged woman compares herself to a Make-up model. She may find herself inadequate and this could be debilitating to her demeanor. In order to recover from this feeling, she may purchase that product in order to make herself look better or more like the woman from the advertisement. The woman feels the need to conform to that look of beauty. By using propaganda and various marketing techniques, companies are able to market their product to who they want to purchase it. Products are usually targeted at specific groups of people. These groups of people are divided based on race, age, gender, etc (Benson 2006).When members of society do not conform, and they are typically pushed away. For example, a new toy is released and it becomes extremely popular with schoolchildren. If a child does not have that toy, he cannot relate to his peers. Therefore, he is shunned from the group. If the child who was shunned purchases this toy, then he is conforming to the group. Consumerism in combination with effective advertising is a very powerful force. They have the power to create groups of people, and inspire conformity through social interaction. In some cases, this conformity may cause impulsive spending which may result in debt. Consumerism causes consumers to purchase products, and makes them the victim of advertisements. It is the people’s job in order to keep the economy flowing by purchasing products, which are shown through advertisements. All of the products available to us today have really changed the value of money.

Money has more meaning than just its economical value. Consumerism incorporates money into our lives from when we need diapers as a baby, to the cost of proceedings at a funeral home. With this large importance for money, we almost have a connection to the money itself. Consumerism necessitates that products be purchased, therefore products are considered valuable (Kasser 2002). The currency to obtain these products would be considered valuable as well. Consumerism often is related to materialism, which is the value of material possessions over emotions and social relationships. Money has become a huge force worldwide.

Consumerism is a theory that is a large force of a capitalist economy. While this theory keeps the economy in check, the ethics of the theory are still questionable. In the United States, as well as in other capitalist’s countries, the media acts as a powerful agent of societal control. As time progresses, people are beginning to place more value in products, and are lacking in the ability to develop strong social connections.

Work Cited

Benson, John and Laura Ugolini. 2006. “Cultures of Selling” Perspectives of Culture and Society since 1700. Ashgate Publishing Company.

Kasser, Tim. 2002. “The High Price of Materialism” The Rainbow Fish. North South Books.

Miller, Daniel. 1995. “Acknowledging Consumption” A Review of new studies. Routledge Publishing.

Miller, and Fellbaum. “Wordnet Search” Definition of Consumerism. Website accessed November 11, 2009. http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=consumerism

Rajan, and Srivastava. “In Focus” Global Outsourcing of Services: Issues and Implications. PDF Accessed

November 12, 2009. http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hapr/winter07_gov/rajan.pdf.

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