NAME: VILASHINI A/P RAJARATNAM STUDENT I.D: 2011699234 GROUP: EUGENE LECTURER: MR.

MUHAMMAD ARIFF

CONSUMERIST SOCIETY Consumerist society is a term used to describe the society whom equating personal happiness with purchasing materials possession and consumption. Yes, indeed that the national economy is based on the amount of goods and service produced and sold in the local market. The more goods and services are manufactured and consumed, the higher the growth rate of the nation economy. More good quality services and goods are manufactured and sold. The advertisement sector will also grow as the products need to be advertized; therefore, more opportunity of occupation is provided. As for consumer, they get to pick or choose products for variety of range. But, there is a catch; these people are constantly changing their goods to newer ones so the outdated goods are often thrown away. New goods become old will be replaced by latest ones. That leads us to a question. What happens to all the things that we threw? Everything has its effect, as what Newtons Third Law of motion states for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. So do in this case. For every good quality, there must be something bad hidden consequences. The implication from the consumerist society is getting severe day by day. The implication on a persons psychology, relationship and environmental can be seen vividly in this scenario. The first point, which is effects of consumerism on a persons psychology, is very obvious if we looked at it as we reflect ourselves. How does it affect us? We will end up in stress and depression in the chase of our desire and lose our moral value in the middle of the chase. Psychologically, when we image something, therefore we want it. When we want it, therefore we should have it. When we should have it, we need it. Because we need it, we deserve it. When we deserve it, we will do anything necessary
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to get it. Lets say that a person, named Z, has carving for product is high. Zs desires and wants increase day by day, from imagine to necessity. The higher the income of Z, the higher Zs power of purchasing what he wants. To make things complicated, or more reality, lets put Z in a situation that he is unable to do so. For sure, Z will feel dissatisfied. He will most probably end up in a rat race to make more money. With all of this hassle and tussle, Z is forced to cope up with high level of pressure and stress. This will eventually makes Z depress. Zs psychological health will be affected and eventually Z becomes jealousy and envy. The probability for Z to become criminal increases as well. Imagine this in a large scale (100 of Z in society). Indirectly, the rate of crime increase as they want to own the latest and expensive product. Due to materialism of consumerist society, a persons is liked by many because of their possession and they way they life their live. That is for a single person, as for a society, the society is also judged in such way by considering the factor of wealth. It decides if that society is developed or not. So the spiritual value has no effects on the community. This is rather odd to the Asian, or Eastern, we generally grow up with being fed to appreciate the spiritual values. Eastern culture emphasis more on the simplicity and non-materialism as we were taught since young that be happy with what we have in live. For an example, the Gandhian principle prefers the non materialism approach in life and so do Jiddu Krishnamurthi who have also lived a simple lifestyle and thinking. But the reality is contrary; most of us (including Eastern) are forgetting our moral values. We work in a job that we hate to buy things that we dont need to impress people that we dont like. What is the moral in it? In another word, consumerist society will cause stress and denature of moral values to themselves. The next implication is on relationship. Consumerist society does affect the personal relationship of a person with other. A persons relationship gets affected as he or she is busy trying to make more money so that he or she can life a standard life. Lets, again take the example of Z. if Z spend too much of time in office working then Z has no time for his family and friends. All he thinks about is to earn enough money. Maybe even Z wants to get goods for his loved ones. And so for that reason, Z works late and extra time to collect enough money. But in this course, Z forgets to spend time with his loved ones, making his loved ones feeling inferior and unimportant. This will
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sprawl the bond between them. Besides that, in a consumerist society, in normal circumstances, relationship is build based on materials. To make someone be pleasant with us, in one way or another, we will someone have to give something that they like. Therefore, the relationship build is based on the material that one gets. Imagine yourself, that you have just met these two people. One is giving you a box Ferrero Rocher and another gives you a Hacks Candy. Which one would you choose? Definitely the box of Ferrero Rocher will be your choice. See, we all have consumerism in us. Back to the question, we will automatically choose the chocolate and become closer to that person compare to the other and the relationship becomes much stronger. Basically, this relationship is build based on our materialism and such relationship, as all of us know, is not the best way to build a relationship on. Thus, it becomes a corrupted relationship and so will not last long. To put it in another word, consumerist society affects the relationship between two parties in a corrupting way. Last but not least implication is the affects of consumerist society is that on environment. Consumerism has resulted in discrepancy of environment. It makes us to overuse the sources on Earth. Consumerist society tends to buy things at random. By doing so, they tend to forget that the sources or raw materials on Earth is limited. We exploit the Earth in order to get something that we dont really need it. Such overconsumption will cause the material price in market to increase rapidly. A common example that can be seen very clearly in this era is the increase in price of petrol. We over-consume petrol making the resource finite. This leads to a chain reaction. When the resource of petrol reduces rapidly, the price of the petrol will increase drastically. The increasing petrol price affects the price of all other goods due to the higher transportation costing. The exploitation of Earth for raw materials to feed the consumerist society also causes natural habitat for plants and animals destroyed. This leads to impaired ecology causing the defects at large scale. Global warming is an indirect effect of consumerist society. In the process to manufacture the goods that we keep on buying and throwing it away, and a lot of energy and materials are wasted. That energy that is used to manufacture the goods is from burning fuel, which causes emission of green house gases. During the British Industrial Revolution, the rate of green house gas emission was the higher compare to its previous time. Coincidently,
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that is the exact period when consumerism starts to grow. Besides that, once we are done using the goods, or even when we thing it is too outdated, we tend to simply throw it away. Think about the goods and services that we consumed throughout our lifespan. Then multiply it with our families consumption, our society, our countries and eventually the entire world. The number of wastage is huge. Now, where does all this waste go to? The answer is on land. Lands are filling with waste and if it continues at this rate, we would have to build our house in dump. Therefore, consumerist society do life scar on the environment. In summary, consumerist society may build a better economical society but when it comes to social implication it has rather have a negative implication. Indeed, in this era of globalization, we can never escape from consumerism. The way of society now days are in such way; to survive this either one can create time travelling machine and travel to past, when the word consumerism have not even existed or simple live a life as a consumerist. But it does not mean that we cannot change or way of consuming things. Learn to buy goods that are absolute essential. Try to apply as much as the 3R, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Reference
1. http://www.paggu.com/business/world-economy/the-effects-of-consumerism/ 2. http://www.verdant.net/society.htm 3. http://www.eisco2002.org/a-consumerist-society.html

Referrance 1.