The Anticonsumers

SSPP: The new politics of consumption: promoting sustainability in the American marketplace
Anti-Consumerism

Among some youthful and vocal adherents, the disparagement of mass consumerism as a set of social practices, as well as attacks against some of its most emblematic symbols, has become a visible form of protest politics in the United States during the past decade. Activists have yet to construct many of the institutional features of a social movement, and instead rely on boisterous pranks designed to malign dominant expressions of contemporary consumer culture. Proponents are often disillusioned not only with material icons, but also evince a more general disenchantment with contemporary society (Zavestoski, 2002). While this disaffection derives from numerous sources, for analytic purposes it is instructive to group them into three broad categories—social, economic, and environmental.

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I call my kids the anti-consumers. There’s nothing they want, except perhaps more video games and faster graphics cards. Oh, and cool knives for the older one. Clothes, toiletries, the usual teen fetishes? Feh. They couldn’t care less. it helps that they are boys, but still. These kids are so turned off by advertising, they adore the Tivo. And all they watch on the TV is anime, Family Guy, Futurama, The Daily Show and That 70s show (my fave).

I guess I’ve turned into something of an anticonsumer as well. I’m back to my 70s T-shirts and jeans, although lately I’ll buy pretty much anything organic.

For us, it’s not activism, it’s just that we’re tired of the marketplace. The same old, same old, sell everybody the same crap everywhere is what is really going to kill consumerism. We don’t all want the same thing, really, no matter how much the marketeers tell us we do. And once people finally realize that all that stuff ain’t gonna make ’em happy, they turn off to the noise machine.

Voluntary simplicity is not a lifestyle of deprivation, and this is often a critical point of misinterpretation by individuals who are unfamiliar with its aims. It is about discovering what is sufficient in life—based upon thoughtful analysis of one’s values. Apropos for Elgin is Simone de Beauvoir’s contention, “If all life does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.” If people look to non-material satisfactions, thus simplifying their lives, then they can establish a more meaningful existence and truly experience life. Voluntary simplicity is, then, about forging modest material needs to allow opportunities for people to surpass themselves and to find more satisfying, meaningful existences.

Or, as it was put to me at a critical point in my life when I was debating over staying home with the kids and being broke, “The work will be there again, but childhood won’t”. When are you going to enjoy your life, after all? how much stuff do you really need to be happy? Oh, guess what? That stuff ISN”T GOING TO MAKE YOU HAPPY! REALLY!!!

We also did a lot of putting off and waiting until we could afford better stuff. It was hard to do without all the latest gadgets sometimes, and there were things I really thought I needed. But, you know, taking that time to chop your own veggies instead of having a food processor is really cool. You can really get into it if you try. Even more fun? Growing them – if your dog doesn’t eat all your tomatoes, like mine does.

I just love that the young twenty and thirty somethings are getting into knitting now – some of them even spinning their own yarn. How cool is that?

Despite this groundbreaking legislation, the past thirty years have seen a massive accumulation of consumer debt in the United States. By 1999, per capita consumer debt had exceeded $30,000, nearly fifty percent more than it had been ten years earlier. Overall, American consumers are now in debt to the tune of $2 trillion dollars, with approximately one-third of this amount payable on high-interest credit cards. The typical American household carried forward each month $7,500 in unpaid credit card debt, a two-fold increase in just ten years. Thirteen percent of families in the United States have outstanding balances that exceed 40 percent of their household income, a situation that means 90 percent of each monthly payment is solely dedicated to paying interest. The inevitable outcome of this situation is an ever-mounting number of personal bankruptcies—more than 1.3 million in 1999 alone.

And this is the real death knell of the consumer economy. We are so deeply in debt at a personal, government, and corporate level that it is now unsustainable. The culture of debt is what will ultimately bring us down as a consumer culture

All of this suggests that efforts to reconfigure consumption practices in the affluent countries will proceed along different trajectories, and will be conditioned in specific places by political culture and institutional constraints. It is difficult to imagine an American political administration, regardless of party affiliation, embracing a meaningful program to move the country toward alternative modes of consumption. The economic risks are simply too high and the political payoffs too elusive.

Indeed. Until it all comes crashing down, we will continue in our madness. And when it does, somehow the Republicans will find a way to blame Clinton.