(Top: Hong Kong in the 1950's. Bottom: Hong Kong in the 2000's)Today's world is all about consumption. People of all ages are consumers. Many say consumption is a form of destruction, a form of separation. However, as a student studying Economics, I believe consumption gives the world a better tomorrow rather than harming societies. Consumption may be believed to destroy some societies because richer countries take advantage of economically disadvantaged countries. However, while consumption might destroy old societies, richer countries bring all countries together and help bring the disadvantaged better societies by increasing their living standards.
People consume everyday because it is a way of society. Consumers not only help stimulate the global economy, but give nations a chance to work together. Disadvantaged countries such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, Mexico and Jamaica all need investments from richer countries such as the United States, Germany and France in order to have better, higher living standards. To increase living standards, rich countries provide jobs for the unemployed and in return, these rich countries ask for their services. Without assistance from richer countries, these countries would lag behind and cause a gap in diverging living standards, GDP, and social reforms. The increasing demand for products increases the countries productivity and wealth. Also, consumption gives everyone an incentive to strive to do their best using their special abilities. If the act of consuming had never suggested, students would not be in school, doctors would not save people and engineers would not try their best to create innovative technology for the people. Consumption is not only a form of incentive, but also brings people around the world together.
Putting the money perspective aside, consumption also helps initial revolutions and reforms. Because of an increasing consumption of products, employers hired women and children to work starting in the 1900's. These women exchanged their thoughts and launched a series of protests advocating women's rights. Also, due to increasing consumption and prices, families decreased their familial size in order to reduce the burden of high price of goods and services. Women asked for a more effective way to prevent pregnancy and that caused the invention of birth control. Birth control revolutionized and redefined women's rights. Aside from women's rights, children also earned their rights to get proper education from schools nationwide. Without an idea called consumption, children would not have received any basic education and women would not have earned the rights they deserve.
Consumption does not destroy societies; it only destroys old, inefficient ideology which cause backwardness in some nations. Consumption is not as bad as most people see; it is only one of the methods to improve societies for our future generations.
1 comment:
Your last sentence strikes me as very provocative: "[consumption] is only one of the methods to improve societies for our future generations." What is another method that could improve societies for future generations? You show your reader that you support the general idea of 'consumption', but you have not dealt with the 'exhaustion' aspect of this term. Similarly, while your post's photos of Hong Kong seem to reflect the utter positivity of 'consumption', one could certainly imagine photos of another place that might reflect the 'exhaustion' aspect of consumption over time. (I'm thinking, for instance, of certain neighborhoods of Detroit, MI.)
How can we grapple with the difficulties of consumption so that it is not simply a matter of either/or? How might we begin to understand consumption in a way that would help us *improve* this model rather than merely *accept* it, which is what your post seems to suggest we do?
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