Consumption: The Fuel for the Economy
-Sarthak Gupte
FY BSc. (2023-27)
Estimated reading time ~ 6 minutes
Crossing the threshold of a four-storeyed elegant shopping mall, a world full of attractive stores unfolds to our beloved consumer. The sparkling charm of the high-end brand stores seems to lure him. “Oh Lord! Save thy child from the advertisers’ wiles, for they sell him what is unnecessary.”
We often fall prey to marketing gimmicks, eventually buying up stuff that we don’t actually require. The insatiable appetite of people for goods serves as a perfect complement to the continuous innovation in the industries. We consume goods and services. We are consumers. But why do we consume what we do?
Consumption can be defined as an act of using resources to satisfy current needs and wants. Our basic necessities include food, clothing, shelter and education. These can be satisfied with a low level of consumption. However, there are more reasons.
According to Matthew O. Jackson, “For a start, it is immediately clear that consumption goes way beyond just satisfying physical or physiological needs for food, shelter, and so on. Material goods are deeply implicated in individuals’ psychological and social lives. People create and maintain identities using material things… The “evocative power” of material things facilitates a range of complex, deeply ingrained “social conversations” about status, identity, social cohesion, and the pursuit of personal and cultural meaning.”
We consume certain goods to increase our well-being by making things convenient for ourselves for e.g. a two-wheeler provides us with greater mobility. Furthermore, we buy things for pleasure (e.g. a movie ticket).
The word consume has been derived from the Latin word consumere, which means ‘to seize or take over completely’ which can be further interpreted as to eat up, devour, destroy or waste something. Earlier usage of this word had a negative connotation to it and was not used as we do today. Consumption in the contemporary sense can be traced back to the writings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo.
Economists recognize two kinds of human needs: physical and spiritual but prioritize the physical need and consider it as a necessity. However, they downgrade the other kind of demand to artificial, false, luxurious and immoral wants. No other economic concept is shaped by social context more than our consumption behaviour.
Our consumption pattern is closely linked to our personal identity. We are what we own. Certain products contribute greatly to our personal identity, for instance clothing, food choices, etc. They convey a message to the people around us about our personality. Moreover, these possessions highlight our relative position in society. The kind of stuff we own reflects our social status. ‘To keep up with the Joneses’ is a phrase we often hear when it comes to comparing ourselves with certain aspirational groups of the society who are financially better off. We end up buying things just to outdo them, even though our income might not allow us to do so. The desire for lavish products is a motivation for many to work long hours. Thorstein Veblen, an American sociologist and economist, in his book ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class’, coined the term ‘conspicuous consumption’. It refers to the consumption done to present yourself as belonging to a certain social class.
Historically, the consumer society originated in the 18th century in Western Europe. This period coincides with the period of the Industrial Revolution. It had clearly transformed production. Large scale migration from the countryside to the cities had disrupted social life. People started finding new ways of defining themselves, through consumer goods.
Exposure to media representations of wealthy lifestyles also influences people’s choices and spending habits to a great extent. Research shows that the more television a person watches, the more likely his or her expenditure would be. Higher rates of watching television are closely associated with greater materialistic values.
The production process of goods has a huge ecological impact. It generates waste and worsens pollution. It is necessary to remind people that after a certain level of consumption, possession of more does not result in increasing personal well-being. Overconsumption creates a destructive effect for the environment. Though it forms a central part of an economy, excessive consumerism could put our limited resources in peril.
References:
- Roach, B., Goodwin, N. & Nelson, J. (2019). Consumption and the Consumer Society (4th ed). Routledge.
- Barber, N. (2018, May 24). Why We Consume So Much. Psychology Today.
5. Douglas, M., Isherwood, B. (1979) The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption. Routledge.