Here’s my new book…
Available both in paper and as an e-book.
I’m Listed at Blog Flux
… while a member of the aspirational class is eating kale salad in his made-in-Brooklyn t-shirt, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the current elite consumer ethos is only possible because of the economic growth and affluence that industry created and the luxurious postmodern values it allows us to possess. Elizabeth Currid-Halkett,
Continue Reading...It is simplistic, then, to view consumer culture as passive and de-skilling. A good deal of the rise in consumption involved buying for the sake of making and personalizing the home. DIY, handicrafts and gardening attracted a sizable chunk of consumer spending, with their own magazines, stores and fairs. Consumerism encouraged new skills as often as it killed old ones. …
Continue Reading...It is simplistic, then, to view consumer culture as passive and de-skilling. A good deal of the rise in consumption involved buying for the sake of making and personalizing the home. DIY, handicrafts and gardening attracted a sizable chunk of consumer spending, with their own magazines, stores and fairs. Consumerism encouraged new skills as often as it killed old ones. …
Continue Reading...It is simplistic, then, to view consumer culture as passive and de-skilling. A good deal of the rise in consumption involved buying for the sake of making and personalizing the home. DIY, handicrafts and gardening attracted a sizable chunk of consumer spending, with their own magazines, stores and fairs. Consumerism encouraged new skills as often as it killed old ones. …
Continue Reading...Consumption is about communion; consumerism fails to honor that communion or, worse, rejects the fellowship that is at the basis of human economic life. Or as Stephen Grabill in Episode 3 of “For the Life of the World“: This is the oikonomia of economics…All our work, every product, is a result of a great and mysterious collaboration. Every product that you …
Continue Reading...If humanity collectively decided to stop buying pointless junk, the economy wouldn’t grind to a halt. Far from it. Read more: A capitalist critique of consumerism
Continue Reading...But as is often the case, saying we have too much stuff not only begs a number of questions, it fails to deal with consumerism as in fact a moral problem. Instead, the critique that we have too much stuff uncritically assumes a crude, materialistic understanding of human economic activity. As a result, the proposed solutions (typically, less stuff, more regulations), undermines human moral agency not just in the arena of economic activity but in other areas of human life.
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