Stuff- Consumerism wk 8
The word 'Stuff' to many people could mean many things or
anything. Electricity, real estate, money, clothing, beauty products or a
vehicle. The actual word means 'Something of matter, Informal or formal'.
Everything that exists is stuff.
The shopping or fashion industry is one of the many high
ranking of the industries. Earning millions of dollars every day, from the
simplest of things. It goings around in a circle designers come up with new
styles, franchises buy the designs for the most money causing shoppers or,
customers now known as consumers.
- consumerism the things we buy and sell. -
There are many aspects of consumerism both good and bad. It
leads to employment, labour or jobs, retail, and increase of global industry.
However, there are problems associated with consumerism; the constant need to
manufacture a certain product can lead to slave labour or less then minimum
wage for the people creating the product. As there are so many different ways
to look at the subject the way a consumer would look at it or the way a creator
would look at it.
Consumerism is stuff the things that are bought, earned and
sold, these materials, objects, little bits of everything are most of the time
the things that make everything flow. As E.E. Cummings said 'money is what
makes the world go round' even when there are a whole lot of other things that
help.
References:
E.E. Cummings, Quote:
"Money is what makes the world go round" 16/3/1960
Word Press.com- Stuff
Great points made, its true there is a positive and negative side to consumerism and it’s hard to define which one outweighs the other. Globalization creates work for people in third world countries, and even though they are only earning one to two dollars a day, this amount is putting food on the table for their families. I am not saying that this is fair or right, it isn’t, as the mass production companies earn millions, if not billions of dollars in profit. Take the clothing industry as you have mentioned, to countries who have fairer work ethics and laws put in place for fair wages and conditions, mass production is a positive, as it provides jobs in the retail industry. If only governments made a stand to make those cooperate companies responsible for paying labourers a fair wage and better and fairer work conditions for the people of these third world countries.
ReplyDeleteIt is plausible to believe that the positive and negative sides of consumerism virtually balance the "scales" out however you haven't addressed the political side to the argument in this context. Consumerism may seem to enhance freedom, it actually undermines democracy by focusing our attention on the subliminal interests of private consumer corporations (Moyer, 2007).
ReplyDeleteI agree that in the broader world there is exploitation and ruthless conduct committed by consumer corporations in the bid to gain profits and export deals (Patel, 2007).
References:
Moyer, B. (2007). Bill Moyers Journal. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal
Patel, R. (2007). Introduction, in Stuffed and starved: The hidden battle for the world's food system (pp. 1-19). Toronto, Canada: Harper Perennial.