As exemplified by the Lawrence Summers quote above, a value is placed on the environment, on life, on different cultures and so on. Consumers are driven both by rational thinking and emotions, and marketers must conduct careful research to tap into and harness the … (This can sometimes challenge assumptions on the instinct and common belief that we are overpopulated by sheer numbers and that this is the major cause of environmental degradation. (See Robbins, cited above, for a more detailed discussion of this paradox, who also points out for example, that the core countries already ship 20 million tons of waste annually to the periphery, or poor, countries (p.235).). USA leads the world in a consumer-driven economy, but developing countries such as India and China are jumping on the bandwagon as well. Other uses of the world’s resources by the wealthier nations include metals and other raw minerals to produce automobiles, planes and so on. This can also lead to clearing parts of rainforests, or other forms of encroachment on other ecosystems. ), waste from industrial agriculture, consumer waste such as household waste, excessive product packaging, our throw-away culture, and so on. The consumption of these have not historically been as high as they are today. advertising companies don't just target adults, they also purposely target young children. automobiles) creates pollutants and waste. For every pound of red meat, poultry, eggs, and milk produced, farm fields lose about five pounds of irreplaceable top soil. Puckett referred to the fact that the United States is the only developed country in the world that has failed to ratify the Basel Convention, a United Nations environmental treaty which has adopted a global ban on the export of hazardous wastes from the worlds most developed countries to developing countries. It then looks like the economy is dealing with this fine, without realizing that even more resources are used to support these jobs and industries that may not be needed in as much intensity. Luxuries can therefore be encouraged to become necessities. As an effect of this, as such businesses also strive to eliminate competition by becoming bigger and bigger, this has become more destructive than what we might actually realize, and on a wider scale. Consumer Culture has been a part of our world for as long as during the late seventeenth century to early eighteenth century. In other words, someone has to pay for our consumption levels. Markets may have to be created where there were none before. For example, a population where health is generally getting worse may result in more sales of medicines or a growth in private healthcare and other knock-on industries. Millions of acres of potentially productive farmland is used to pasture cattle, an extremely inefficient use of land, water and energy, but one for which there is a market in wealthy countries. The problem is that in 1990, worldwide there were only 1.7 hectares of ecologically productive land for each person. The U.S. has exempted electronic wastes from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the nation’s export laws, because the material was claimed to be destined for recycling. Sometimes this growth of cities can go in hand with decline in the rural areas. However, comparing our society’s consumption back then, with the help of the media and technology, it has unsurprisingly increased immensely today. Culture also influences the hierarchy of effects, which is the sequence of steps a consumer passes through from the initial exposure to a product or advertisement to the purchase decision. The following is worth quoting at length (bulleting and spacing formatting is mine, text is original): To understand why people go hungry you must stop thinking about food as something farmers grow for others to eat, and begin thinking about it as something companies produce for other people to buy. Politically this has also been encouraged as it helps create a more conforming populous satisfied by material needs. In East Asia and Pacific, 33% while in Sub-Saharan Africa it was 32%. Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All. Culture is part of the external influences that impact the consumer. Effect of Culture on Consumers To define the culture of a nation, it is imperative to first examine the belief system and values of the people residing there. Poverty, land control and ownership, pollution and so on, are largely parts of economic and ideological systems too. Such global inequality is very wasteful of resources, as further resources are expended maintaining this unequal balance of power (be it through military, political, social or other means). Compared to … is also discussed in more depth after sugar and beef. The example of bananas discussed earlier, and how that has affected forests, environmental sustainability, economies of entire regions, etc. In the Middle East and North Africa it was 58%. Some, being pushed off their own lands, will move to less arable land to hope to farm that, which may conflict with wildlife. The single most important measure of economic growth is, after all, the gross national product (GNP), the sum total of goods and services produced by a given society in a given year. The intention of this work is to evaluate the moderating effects of culture on this buying behaviour in Nigeria. Which suggests that research do show that because of the media, people tend to consumer more, and it makes them powerful to know that they have the ability to spend impulsively on items that are not necessarily a necessity. The commodification of food, the impact of policies such as structural adjustment policies and conditionalities have led to mass production of the same commodities from many regions, mostly exported to the wealthy nations. ... “Consumer Culture is a money driven culture within a society that is very much invested in purchasing and owning material possessions” (Belk). Effects of consumerism on individuals: Obesity. …. The effects of the way things are produced and consumed today have impacts all around the world. That is, culture represents influences that are imposed on the consumer by other individuals. The cost to the environment and local populations is borne not by the consumers of the products, but local people instead. the historic domination and influence of the Middle East for oil, for the support of dictatorships by the west, such as previously in Indonesia to support massacres and invasion of East Timor (also for oil and other resources). Ideologies and religions offer different ways to live, and hence different ways to use resources. As share prices have plunged along with profits, and layoffs have soared, it has sometimes seemed this year as if the American consumer’s addiction to retail therapy was incurable. About this journal. In the quantities that some of the products of these exports are consumed, it could be argued that a lot of this production is wasteful and unnecessary. It has become more or less part and parcel of our lives, and in some ways, it is proof of a country’s economic prosperity. Yet of the three factors environmentalists often point to as responsible for environmental pollution — population, technology, and consumption — consumption seems to get the least attention. Alternatively, copy/paste the following MLA citation format for this page: Shah, Anup. Yet to our horror, we further discovered that rather than banning it, the United States government is actually encouraging this ugly trade in order to avoid finding real solutions to the massive tide of obsolete computer waste generated in the U.S. daily. However, as mentioned in the initial pages on this section, much of this mass consumerism culture in the north has not been based solely on natural demand, but a created demand. As such, firms benefit by serving cultures that already exist as opposed to trying to create a culture. It is an often stated catechism that the economy would improve if people just bought more things, bought more cars and spent more money. Pollution is also related to increased consumption. Consumer culture is a culture focused on consumption of goods and services in society, which greatly influences values, activities and the social status of its members. As hinted above, within the current economic system of perpetual growth, we risk being locked into a mode of development that is: Furthermore, as also hinted above, as consumption increases (in a wasteful way, which we shall see a bit later), the resource base has to expand to meet growth and related demands. (Side NoteAs a side note, it is interesting to note that there are books and insights popping up that predict future wars will be a new kind of war; resource wars. Additional requirements are made on the environment to produce even more. Culture exerts different levels of influence on members. In other words, if you don’t have the money to buy food, no one is going to grow it for you. Hill demonstrates this by showing statistics of global warming due to consumerism. All sorts of goods and ideals were born during this era. describes consumer culture as debased materialism, while at the same time presenting it as core for social life. Other examples include industrial waste (especially when just dumped into the rivers and oceans), waste from the tourist industry (including cruise liners, air travel, etc. The article noted: After the memo became public in February 1992, Brazil’s then-Secretary of the Environment Jose Lutzenburger wrote back to Summers: Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane… Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional economists concerning the nature of the world we live in… If the World Bank keeps you as vice president it will lose all credibility. Hence the West were consuming on borrowed time and resources from the poor. However, even in wealthier nations, it cannot be a guaranteed success. And long before the fears that the Kyoto Climate Change protocol would encourage western businesses to move dirty industry to poorer countries that were exempt from emissions reduction targets, multinational businesses were already looking for places with lower standards. can have enormous impacts on the environment and its sustainability. Destruction of old forests in particular can also mean loss of habitat for many wildlife. As described in the poverty section of this web site, wars throughout history have been because of this control of resources. Culture is an important force that has a deep impact on several things in people’s lives from their taste to their wisdom and basic choices. Sometimes links to other sites may break beyond my control. Popular television shows and movies, fashion and women’s magazines best describes the access and liberty of impulse spending, and the wish for material things was the new world power” (p 141). Anita Roddick: Corporate Social Responsibility? 77-101. The marketing implications of the consumer decision-making process are essential to understand in order to maximize sales. Yet because in the mainstream this is not acknowledged it is easy to just see this as a threat and act on it, without really understanding why it has become a threat. (The causes of these imbalances are discussed throughout this web site, as well as later on in this section on consumption and consumerism.). 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The main and focal point of this research work is on the survey of culture and its effects on the buying behavior of … Primer The good and bad sides of consumerism This is the ninth of 12 primers on various current affairs issues, published as part of the … . But now there are signs that even America’s heroic spendthrifts may be losing heart. However, the production, processing, and consumption, of commodities requires the extraction and use of natural resources (wood, ore, fossil fuels, and water); it requires the creation of factories and factory complexes whose operation creates toxic byproducts, while the use of commodities themselves (e.g. Because industrial agriculture is using more monocultures, rather than a diversity of crops, the loss of biodiversity is leading to more resource usage, as described above. Summers was talking about migrating industries. Combined with more harmful products such as tobacco and illicit drugs, and with input-intensive agricultural practices (including using herbicides and pesticides) the diversion of and misuse of land and the associated environmental damage in unsustainable methods adds up. In yet other situations, economic growth can also lead to more urban migration. A few updates added regarding the impacts and action (or lack of) in the United Kingdom. If it comes from other regions then it can (not always) mean that for one society’s gain, others may not. The U.N. resource consumption statistic mentioned at the start of this section (of 86 percent of the world’s resources being consumed by just the world’s top 20 percent) is testimony to this. However, while there is some concern raised at the amount of environmental resources such nations will eventually require, little is raised about how for decades richer nations have been consuming in further excess and waste. The definition of culture offered in the text, is “That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man person as a member of society.” This as well as other political situations such as the motives for dumping surplus food on to developing countries to undersell the local farmers, leads to further hunger around the world. As one example, hazardous electronic waste, such as old computers, old computer monitors, etc primarily from wealthier nations, are also being exported to places like China, India and Pakistan, where they are processed in operations that are extremely harmful to human health and the environment. The Journal of Consumer Culture is an established journal, supporting and promoting the continuing expansion in interdisciplinary research focused on consumption and consumer culture, opening up debates and areas of exploration.