Life Beyond Consumerism

Life Beyond Consumerism

By Dr Arvind Kumar

Consumerism is the assiduous promotion of cravings which are seemingly satisfied by existing economic system to somewhat extent. The amping up of desire for stuff is so normal here that it's hard to imagine another approach to life. Buddhist practice teaches that life is full of suffering and suffering comes from cravings. The trouble with cravings is that they often can't be satisfied and, when they are, the objects may vanish or degrade. And, in any case, they usually don't ‘make us happy,’ or, if so, not for long.

In this view, a system of implanting cravings by sellers who hope to profit by them, of exacerbating desire, would be crazy. Of course, people need the basics such as shelter, clean air and water, food, clothing, education, healthcare, the ability to work. But as Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin asked in their classic, Your Money Or Your Life, to what extent does it serve you to mortgage your life to get more and then more?

Is there an alternative to consumerism? If the future will be less affluent than the past, for whatever reasons -- we don't know -- will we cling to a system that is failing, or will we have adopted new basic premises? If the latter, what are values that don't depend on having a growing amount of stuff? Change comes from within rather that just a critique of a prevailing system.