Preview

Explore the Claim That a Consumer Society Is Always a “Throw Away” Society

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1198 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Explore the Claim That a Consumer Society Is Always a “Throw Away” Society
Explore the claim that a consumer society is always a “throw away” society

Consumer society is one that creates desire and encouragement for greater amount of goods, services and peoples identification with brands. A throwaway society is one that constantly creates waste for desire for new products. Nowadays, people self define in other ways leaning towards personal likes or dislikes such as music tastes, cars we drive or latest fashion accessories allowing people to feel a sense of belonging to particular groups in society As opposed to an Industrial society where people were defined by class structure and their profession. This shift in culture offers us insight into how and why our relationship and values with material goods from buying to disposal helped form a consumer society and explore the claim Is a consumer society always a 'throw away' society?

To enable an informed evaluation I will introduce the following factors mass consumption in U.K. contemporary society, supermarkets positive sum power and Bauman’s theory of ‘The Seduced and the Repressed’

Generally when we think of consumerism our immediate thoughts are what goods or services we have bought images of bags brimming with promotional food offers, new clothes and shoes or maybe treated oneself to a new kitchen as the last one looked 'dated'. Rarely does our natural cognitive ability allow us to start at the end of this process to consider the waste and disposal that is created from such mass consumption. Waste is a function of who we are. (‘Evidence in the social sciences’, 2009, track 2) It is part of everyday life in that we all create a certain amount from daily essentials such as food its packaging, leaving the heating on or replacing household items. Notwithstanding the importance of eating, clothing ourselves and live in an environment conducive to health. One of the reasons for this change in attitude to shopping something that was considered mundane and necessary is the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Bruce Dawe Consumerism

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The over consumptions of material goods have overtaken society to the point where it has become a part of today’s necessity. But first of all, what is consumerism? Consumerism is the process of selling and promoting material goods which often leads people to obsessively consume vast amount of products. The concept of Consumerism however, have been negatively depicted within Bruce Dawe’s ‘Americanized’, ‘Televistas’ and a film ‘confessions of a shopaholic’ .…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The need to consume has become a habit that is endless the desire to own superficial materials to demonstrate social economic status by what car, the brand of clothing a person is wearing and the size of a house has become the reality to display our wealth and power. This is a taught behaviour by our social environment that we have to consume has to lead us to think of water, food and other luxuries are in abundance and unlimited, but the problem is more is never enough.…

    • 340 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    As consumers our experience of consumption today is exponentially different from that at the turn of the twentieth century in the recently urbanised and industrialised modern nation. Consumer culture is traditionally described in terms of the arrival of mass consumption as a counterpart to mass production as a result of the Fordist system (Miles, S). Choice is one of the biggest factors of the changing experience for consumers, during the 1950’s after the austerity years the now aging baby boomers were part of large scale changes to consumption patterns. For example as women began to enter the work place leaving less time to run the home, products were being developed to ease the burden of housework, washing machines, fridges and vacuum cleaners were among these products; the ever-growing use of hire purchase to enable consumers to afford these luxury products, combined with Fordist methods of mass production reducing the manufacturing cost of the products allowed the economy to grow strong once again. As television grew in popularity advertising was increasingly utilised by businesses to sell their products creating a far more impersonal environment while shopping for products. From this time the standard of living has been increasing up until present day (The Economist, 2008) with the aspirations of society increasing further still.…

    • 2230 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    In 1983/84, the average amount of household rubbish per person per year in England was 397 kilograms (Defra, 2007), in the following years, this increased and by 2006/07, this figure had grown by 28 percent to 508 kilograms. This trend has been explained by the growing affluence of the general person and their greater amount of disposable income, which is then being spent on luxury products. As a result, more and more waste is being generated each year; this essay will explore the arguments around whether this ever increasing amount of rubbish has any value.…

    • 1156 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption (Veblen, 1899) began to outline how the leisure classes demonstrated status through possessions. However, with increasing affluence and mass consumption, Bauman (Bauman, 1988) later suggests that consumers have become identified by what they have, as opposed to what they do, and have become further differentiated between the ‘seduced’ and the ‘repressed’; the seduced having the means to engage fully in society, but that the repressed are not in a position to become effective consumers and so, by definition, are at best marginalised.…

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Tma2

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hetherington (2009) introduces the chapter by interestingly stating that society today is a consumer society. What occupation people have today is not what defines the society they live in. Instead, how people live their lives and what they purchase is used to identify them as a consumer society. Hetherington starts by giving reference to his high street in The Midlands. Hetherington (2009 Chapter 1 Page.15 Figure 2) displays a picture of Hetherington High Street. It looks like a run-down part of the high street that has a charity shop and second hand shops. Further down the down there is a newly opened Tesco Express. A mile or two further there is an Asda and Sainsburys. Larger supermarkets here have brought in larger consumption and this takes us nicely into Chapter 2.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Neva Goodwin, Julie A. Nelson, Frank Ackerman, Thomas Weisskopf. "Consumption and the consumer society." Massachusetts: Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute, 2008. Print…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Consumer Culture plays a significant role in our everyday lives. The articles In Praise of Consumerism and Needing The Unnecessary; The Democratization of Luxury by James Twitchell show strong arguments in favour of consumer culture. Both articles focus on how important consumerism has become in the modern commercial world and how more people wealthy or middle class are buying luxury items to be accepted by others in society. People in today 's society who buy luxury items find it "arousal seeking" and it is believed that consumerism will soon be the new world culture. These two articles show similar views on consumerism and hold valid information in favour of consumer culture. Korten shows that the transition from an Empire to Earth Community…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Do you think the way we consume products effects the Earth’s survival? In “The Conundrum of Consumption”, author Alan Thein Durning believes the consumer behavior and the detrimental effects of consumption are destroying the world’s natural environment. Durning discusses that consuming goods has become the way of life. Durning exposes that our appetites to live the American Dream have taken a toll on the earth’s natural environment, and suggests that there are other paths to fulfillment. Durning suggests the earth’s sustainability depends on the reduction of consumption levels and realizing that materialistic things do not defines one’s happiness. Durning says we need to address the problem of consumption because it…

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Consumerism is a word loaded with many connotations, some negative and others positive. For the purpose of this essay, the following use of the word will be referred to. Consumerism is an ideology and a way of life that has exploded within the last decades. It is the constant need and want to buy goods and services and upgrade frequently due to planned obsolescence even when they are not necessary or even particularly useful and it should not be confounded with consumption, which is the act of buying fundamental goods.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This essay attempts to identify arguments for and against the view that rubbish has no value. The arguments and their respective concepts and theories identified herein are related to a central theme of rubbish, wastefulness and affluence within a consumer society - all presented in Chapter 1 and 2 of Making Social Lives (Hetherington, 2009). Primarily by using Thompson 's 'rubbish theory ', focus is given to how values ascribed to objects change over time and place through the category of rubbish (Brown, 2009, p.122). Quantitative and qualitative evidence, that suggest and support each opposing argument that rubbish has no value, are identified mainly within…

    • 1224 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Commodity Chain Analysis

    • 1417 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Consumption is an important domain of social life. Consumption is defined as individuals’ autonomous decisions in light of personal self-interest by the economist. However, Consumption is more than just the purchase of things. According to Campbell (1995, p. 101) consumption implies ‘the selection, purchase, use, maintenance, repair and disposal of any given product or service’. That is, consumption involves ‘bundle of social relations’ (Watts, 1999). Warde (2010) by extension adds that consumption is the process of acquisition, appropriation and appreciation of goods, services and experiences over which the consumer has some measure of control. Similar to broad meaning of consumption, commodity, which is the basic unit of consumption, means…

    • 1417 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Marxism And Consumerism

    • 263 Words
    • 2 Pages

    After the examination of the many facets of capitalism and consumerism, it became apparent that the modernistic capitalistic system is just another form of social control. Consumers, unintentionally are conditioned to reproduce their social standings. By purchasing a product's symbolic value, they signal their wealth and class. Advertisers and marketeers combine the subconscious meaning behind products with tactics to trap consumers into the buy, use, discard cycle of planned obsolescence. These tactics distract the public with constantly changing styles and models that break down, or they tire of, just in time for the next fleeting trend. Consequently, this system creates a wasteful, disposable culture. Since products are only designed…

    • 263 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    '"Ethical Consumerism is about more than lifestyle choices," it’s about being an activist in your everyday life.1 Being an Ethical Consumer means participating in ethical purchasing, or the buying of ethical products2 that have been manufactured with minimal harm to humans, animals, and their environment.3 It’s the environmental impact, and treatment of workers.4 The amount of available ethical product choices have gone from organic foods and clothes to green cars (electric cars).5 One of the main causes for excessive consumerism is globalization and the Americanization of corporate Company's.6 The thought of it is very based on Christianity ``god made this world for us to share with our creatures. ``7…

    • 1191 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays