...From A Global Perspective

From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, in the United States, England and around Europe, consumption was mainly based on what was needed. Only the wealthy and elite would spend heavily and extravagantly. Religious and other belief systems promoted limited consumption which was also supported by the elite to maintain disparities and control over the society at the time.

Today, global inequality in consumption, while reducing, is still high. With new advancing technology , there are resources available that were not always there which is why we now consume resources and products beyond basic needs.

For this to occur buying habits had to be transformed and luxuries had to be made into necessities. Shah (2003) focuses on Richard Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), which describes numerous ways this was accomplished in the US to allow for the rise of consumerism:

Transformation in the meaning of goods and how they were presented

- The evolution of the department store which presented goods in a manner that inspired persons to purchase items

- Advertising

- The idea of fashion which encouraged persons to buy to be in style. Consumption today helps define who we are. Brands encourage purchases based on fashion and peer or social pressures.

- The concept of service “the customer is always right”

A transformation of the major institutions of American society, each redefining its function to include the promotion of consumption.

- Education expanded from production/manufacturing knowledge to include other areas such as accounting, marketing or sales and so on. Business schools began opening

- There was also the increasing role of federal government in the US in the promotion of consumption as with the establishment of the U.S Commerce Department in 1921 under Herbert Hoover. The Commerce Department endorsed retail and cooperative advertising and advised merchants on service devices, fashion, style, and display methods of all kinds. They advised retail establishments on the best ways to deliver goods to consumers, redevelop streets, build parking lots and underground transportation systems to attract consumers, use colored lights, and display merchandise in “tempting ways”.

Workers given buying power through higher wages and expanded consumer credit.

A culture of unnessarities has indeed emerged. Today the American Dream is not localized to the US but has spread throughout most of the west and beyond, where happiness and security equals the ability to have and consume more.




A. Shah; “Creating the Consumer”; http:www.globalissues.org/article/236/creating-the-consumer; (2003)
T. Atlee; “The Conversion of the American Dream”; Context Institute Summer (1990)