CMNS 110 Chapter Notes -Consumerism, Business Cycle, Mass Society
17 Apr 2013
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Document Summary
Anti-consumerism is one of the most important cultural forces in millennial north american life, across every class and demographic. People in wealthy industrialized society are on average happier than poor ones: greater wealth comes a greater ability to meet needs and desires. People spend their money on private consumption goods: something pathological about consumption habits, obsessed with acquiring more even though this leads to unreasonable sacrifices is social criticism really a criticism or rather a piece of modern mythology. Marx thought that the tendency toward overproduction was responsible for the business cycle: after the second world war though there was almost two decades of uninterrupted growth. One answer is the advertising was introduced to solve the problem of overproduction transform the worker into a consumer. Non standard acts of consumption come to be seen as politically radical the rebel consumer. When money is introduced to an economy things become more complicated.
