Consumerism: Curses and Causes by Rick Wolff US consumerism --
citizens driven excessively to buy goods and services and
accumulate consumable wealth -- is cursed almost everywhere.
Many environmentalists blame it for global warming. Critics of
the current economic disasters often point to home-buying
gluttony as the cause. Many see consumerism behind the borrowing
that makes the US the world's greatest debtor nation today.
Moralists of otherwise diverse motivations agree on attacking
consumerist materialism as against spiritual values. Educators
blame it for distracting young people's interest from learning.
Psychologists attribute mass loneliness and depression to
unrealizable expectations of what commodities can deliver to
consumers. Physicians decry the diseases, stress, and exhaustion
linked to excessive work driven by desire for excessive
consumption. Yet, for a long time, exhortations by all such
folks have mostly failed to slow, let alone reverse, US
consumerism. The question is why? The answer is not