Consumerism has seen a recent revival as the COVID pandemic continues to dwindle and the market shifts from malls and retail stores to an e-commerce platform. Globalization of the markets and internet has also seen a new variety of products, each advertised as being unique in their own way. But as consumers buy more and more, falling into the rabbit hole that is online shopping, we must ask ourselves, do we really need the products we buy? Consumerism has tainted our society by leading us to believe that we need more and more new and trendy items, all while we forget about our true priorities and connections in life.

Capitalist consumerism has always had one main goal: Make a profit for the sellers and most fortunate in our societies. Consumerism has never had the interests, or circumstances, of buyers in mind while selling a product. It only sees the money you are able to spend with a certain seller or company. This is typical of a capitalist system, which tells us that we must take on “debt to keep up with the illusion that the entire country is doing great,” and that billionaires are “job-creators.” So it’s no wonder so many people see “the idea that buying things was a form of civic responsibility.” But it’s more clear now than ever that the only ones benefiting are companies and the top 1%. This is why, “fewer and fewer Americans… [are] actually benefiting much at all from those purchases.” We are no longer buying to fulfill the needs we have in our lives. We’re buying because we’re bored, and we’re buying because it is expected of us. We are expected to buy in order to keep billionaires and the capitalist system up. Some may say that consumerism would be better if moderated. But, there is no moderation of consumerism under our current capitalist society model. Consumerism keeps capitalism afloat, and it has taken advantage of us and our dollar. 

Because of its goal, consumerism has led us astray from what we truly need in life, and it has subdued everyone in the middle class. In our modern-day society, constantly following trends to fit in has become a norm and a standard. We feel pressure from others if we are not up to date with the latest products or styles. This is especially true of those in the middle class, who are easily influenced by the upper class’s expenditures. We buy more and more to constantly fit in and feel wealthy, but all we’re gaining is a hefty price tag. And because of this, “the middle class is going deeper and deeper into debt to maintain the expenditures of middle-class identity.” We have lost sight of what we truly need to be spending our money on, like living expenses. There’s nothing wrong with buying something you desperately want, but you must ask yourself, would you still want that product 6 months from now? Is it something that will be fulfilling in your life, or is it simply filling in a temporary void? If more of us started to ask ourselves these questions, we would start winning against the consumerist spending our “current economic model is based on.”

If we let the consumerist model continue as is, we’ll never get out of the mess we caused with fast fashion. I know many people who constantly buy from fast fashion sites (even I do so every now and then). As a society, we are trained “to buy often, buy cheap, and buy a lot.”  Many of these fast fashion sites have suspiciously low prices, which makes them appealing to many. But buying clothes from sites online can be risky due to the fact you can’t try clothes on, and you don’t even know if the picture online is what you will actually get in person.  So, this inevitably leads to mass clothing waste, because if clothing doesn’t meet our expectations, what else are we supposed to do with it after we’ve already bought it? I’ve gotten many pairs of clothing from people who didn’t like it once they received it in the mail. And when I find myself not liking the clothing either, I get stuck. Because of the clothes’s low prices, it makes sense that the workers who made these items are getting paid almost nothing. Due to this, I could never bring myself to throw away the clothing, but unfortunately, that is what many have resorted to. And because so many are going through the cycle of buying and disappointment, the waste only piles up. So under our current capitalist consumer system, we are not only forgetting what we truly need in life, we are also ruining the lives of others and our planet.

There may not be one single solution to fixing our consumerist society. Thrifting and a trade economy are some solutions to our system, but every consumer is a nuanced individual who may find one possible solution more viable than another.  What we should all remember is, “For everything you buy online, there are people in factories packaging it, others in warehouses distributing it, and still more in trucks delivering it.” We need to consider who is and isn’t benefiting from our current society model. We as a society need to think about caring for each other as a whole, while also not forgetting what we truly need in life. If we take these steps now, consumerism won’t be able to taint and ruin our society any further.