Meral O.*
Modern consumer societies are characterized by a recurring cycle of desire and acquisition: individuals purchase new goods, experience temporary satisfaction, and soon find themselves seeking further consumption. This pattern is not merely a product of individual psychology but is structurally embedded within the contemporary economic system: capitalism. The stability and expansion of this system depend upon continuous economic growth, which in turn requires the perpetual stimulation of consumer demand through the proliferation of new products, rapid technological turnover, and increasingly aggressive marketing strategies.
Obsession with Growth
Every country and their economic systems are in a constant race to measure growth. Countries measure this growth and success through GDP: how much gets sold and how much gets bought. Companies are always on a hunt to produce more and sell more, the idea that gets reflected onto our lives. A company improves their itinerary making it beautiful to the eyes of consumers, and successfully selling it to the public that is always wanting to renew our lifestyles.
This comes with a problem. Our planet is not filled with the resources that meet our wants, yet our society pushes it onto us anyway. This creates the tensions that sociologists call a fundamental contradiction.
Dissatisfaction over time
Sociologists examine this lifestyle and our system proving that this “instinct” to constantly purchase, own, and consume is not innate, it’s learned. Through socialization, everyone- young or old- has grasped the belief that “when we own the newest things” we belong. Although not true, we have all been captured by that belief.
Hedonic Treadmill, the idea that no matter what feelings we experience, negative or positive, our body will always end up getting to our baseline emotions. In this scenario, we see this treadmill, when we buy something new, get excited for a couple days, live in joy, only for the feeling to regress quickly. Once we hit that “regressing” state, once again we crave to consume and purchase. This isn’t something that we have naturally, it’s our Capitalistic system that influences our behavior and choices. If we were to reach a pure happiness and satisfaction our system would crumble, we would have no motivation to further purchase or give into our economy.
French political scientist Serge Latousch states that we must “decolonize our imagination.” Meaning stating that we must reanalyze what we think brings us joy, motivates us, and fills our craving. Society shows that to be happy, we must own more. Contradictingly, GDP does not even measure happiness.
What is Degrowth?
Degrowth is when as a society we can say “stop” to overconsumerism, it is when we can realize the difference between our wants and needs. Latusch calls it “a-growth”, an analogy that he resembled to atheism. We have been treating capitalism like a religion, where the main belief is: the bigger the better.
Instead of feeding the desires of looking for “more”, we can be able to say enough. We have been treating consumerism and expansion like it is the most important thing in the world. This doesn’t mean that we stop consuming everything abruptly or giving up everything we own, this means accepting what we have and not believing that we need any more. These resources don’t belong to us, they belong to the planet that we keep taking from, with no room for doubt.
As a society we are aware of the reality, our planet does not have enough resources to fuel our wants.Yet, we don’t do anything to stop it, we sit back and watch, ready to receive our orders. The way to take initiative isn’t to stop consuming at all, but it’s about redefining what we think a good life looks like.
Progress We Need
To start fixing this system that we created, one that hurts our beliefs and our planet, we must first accept many facts.
“Consumption doesn’t equal happiness.” “Earth doesn’t have enough resources for us.”
Once we can find a new definition of what we need as a society, working together can bring this change. Change does not happen overnight and it certainly doesn’t happen with a complete stop to production. Latusch states “Instead we need to enact measured alternatives to that process, progressively replacing elements of the existing economic and political system with more stable alternatives” (Resilience).
We have to firstly ensure that our societies, political systems, and resources are ready to begin an alternation, not a “wipe-out.”
Capitalism is an economic system that has entrapped all of us, and maybe the main way we can understand the paramount situation we are in is to realize that we do not own the planet. We are simply inhabitants. On a finite planet, the only future that we may be able to see, is a future where we accept “enough is enough.”
*Ms. Meral O. is a student at Pioneer Academy with academic interests in Political Science, Philosophy, and Sociology.
