Consumption and dive!

Consumption is usually defined as final purchase of goods and services. Consumption is at the end of the cycle of economic activities that starts with an evaluation of available resources and proceeds through production and distribution of goods and services. One question we can raise is how long can producers economically survive if no one buys their goods and services? From this perspective, consumers are essential to the mechanism that makes the economy running. Definition of “sovereign consumer” implies someone who independently makes decisions. But what if those decisions are heavily influenced by norms and aggressive marketing by enterprises? Who “rules” then? When we look at an economy from this perspective, we can see that consumer behavior is often cultivated as a means to the ends of producers, rather than the other way around.

Some people have consumerist values (the belief that meaning and satisfaction in life are to be found through the purchase and use of consumer goods) or attitudes. They always want to consume more, and their meaning and satisfaction in life, to a large extent, is seen through the purchase of new consumer goods. Consumerism as part of a historical process has created mass markets, industrialization, and cultural attitudes that ensure that rising incomes are used to purchase ever-growing commodities.

Our healthy and productive economy... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual and ego satisfaction, in consumption... We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing rate. 

Increasing consumption is an important goal in situations where people have insufficient goods and services. However, as the human race grows richer, it becomes significant to recognize that more consumption is not always better. Increasing consumption can be worse for individuals who may suffer from overeating, psychological disturbances from certain kinds of overstimulation, and from exclusive or excessive attention to material things. It is evident that there can be such a thing as too much consumption. The use of reference groups creates a paradox: we can apparently never have enough to be satisfied, because there is always someone with more than we have. More consumption of goods that use up nonsustainable resources in their production and generate waste materials also means more degradation of the natural environment. High-consuming countries have an impact on the natural environment that is out of proportion to their populations.

One response of the society on this destructive consumption style is dumpsters diving. Dumpster diving practice emerged as an environmentally and socially conscious way of life contrary to the wastefulness of consumer society and throw-away culture, and is becoming part of reality.