Shopping is an important part of our life. But frequently there appears the following question. `Do we live to shop or shop to live?”` And it is always followed by the issue about money. Is it a pleasure for people to spend enormous sums of money on consumer goods or is i a hard work?
Everyone is talking about economic growth and global prosperity nowadays. And we are supposed to benefit from all the advantages of a prosperous society. So why do we fell drained and stressed when we hear about shopping? We have no time for anything other than work and consuming. So, the more we get, the more we consume and the more money we spend on goods. But more spending doesn`t mean that life is getting better. We all know it often means the opposite – greed, deprivation, crime, poverty, pollution. More spending merely feeds our whole economic system, which is based on production and conumption. Unless money keeps circulating, the economy collapses and the whole system goes into stalemate.
As the leading economistpu it, consumer societies are `in need of need`. We don`t need the things the economy produces as much as the economy needs our sence of need. Why, in our suprmarkets, we have to choose from 60 different kinds of pasta and a hundred of different breakfast cereals? Need is a miracle that keeps the engine of consumption turning relentlessly. It is a hunger that cannot be satiated.
But how do we breach the cycle? We need to become far more aware of the results of our actions. We shouldn`t buy strangely cheap clothes that are manufactured in sweat shops by virtual slaves in poor parts of the world. We shouldlearn how to count our money and economise significantly, because `the economy` is not what men is suits do in their offices, but is where we live on our daily bases, earning our living, paying out taxis, and purchasing the necesseties of life.
The evil of the consumption culture is the way it makes us obvious to the impact of our own behaviour. So when we get rid of consumerism, shopping won`t be a hard work.
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