Consumerism as the key to happiness

GDP, Growth, Sales, Advertising and Confidence, these things are all part of our economy but are these too influential I ask? Has consumerism taken the form as progression, ambition and the common goal in life?

To answer this question (briefly) I will try to explain whether the change in consumer habits has changed our outlook in life. For the purpose of simplicity I shall not consider religious arguments as it would raise too many questions, not because it doesn't matter.

First of all we need to know what we need as a comparison, lets take half a century ago (in the 1960s.) Back in those times consumerism is not what we know of it today. There was no real high demand to consume goods such as the latest fashions apart from those who were in the 'elite' of society. So many may observe that these were the times of simple lives without vast amount of consumption. However, I object that this would mean these were 'good times' as we have it better than people had it then. I feel that people are clouded by nostalgia of what it was to live a simple life. Without 'mad consumerism' we picture a scene of a family sitting around a fire reading books, playing games and singing in a jolly way. Almost picturesque until you consider the flip side. Without consumption, choice was limited to those who could afford to pay for it. Scenes alternatively pictured of families eating bread and butter to get by, and even when people had the choice they had the choice of what was stocked in their local shop. So it seems after considering this that people would not so surely reject consumerism as a good thing to have.

However, as always, that isn't always the case. In some ways these mistaken nostalgic persons have a point. The problem of consumerism is that while it has given us choice of luxuries in which we can afford and cannot bare to say no, it has changed how we act and how we view our outlook in life. Whereas in the past many people wouldn't ask for more they could need, restricting their ambition, in recent times people ask for more than they should. This change has led to an jump from people having barely what they need to a situation where greed has clouded their decisions and judgement. To explain why an over-emphasis on consumerism can lead to disaster, I needn't look back no further than the credit crisis. To sum up the growth of the economy gave the illusion of an everlasting world of growth, causing a dangerous boost in confidence. Because of our consumerism nature that had been built up over the years, our time was now to spend spend spend, to live beyond our means and a party that led to a inevitable economic hangover.

Even if you weren't so sure before, I hope that you now consider that consumerism isn't as clear cut. It seems neither good nor bad in itself but the extent to which it improves our lives and the extent to which it dominates our lives. Both extreme saving and extreme consumerism can never be bad, the solution is the middle ground. But where is this middle ground, well if you can answer this feel free to put yourself amongst the top leading economists. The truth is that we have to balance blindfolded at the moment as people try determine the complexities of the economy, market and consumer behaviour.

Note: I will consider different responses in order to further edit this short piece in the future. 

Help to Buy - An obsession with the housing market.

It could be good or it could be bad, who knows? But what we do know is that we as a country are obsessed with the housing market linking it dangerously close to our economy. A house price is seen as a filler in our money bags and shows our wealth increasing year on year. What could possibly go wrong?

Though I ask, have we or do we ever learn from our previous mistakes? Hindsight is clouded in our minds as we forget the years before and see our houses as the knight in white armour coming to pull us from sluggish growth into the boom era again. It seems we have forgotten the credit crunch already and the real root of the cause of it. Our houses as bloated as our minds and our pockets with hypothetical cash fuelled our buy now spend later mind-set.

Although,  you may ask why would encouraging growth in the house market have a negative effect on our economy and what lessons should we have learnt from the credit crisis? Well firstly, in the pre-crisis period the housing market was at its prime with house prices or value skyrocketing each year. This then led people to an illusion in which they think they had more money because their house was worth more. As a result, people had the opportunity to borrow a vast amount of money for personal consumption whether it be reinvestment into their property or general spending. People in all countries were high on getting more than what they earn.  However, while it was easy to spend it was less easy to pay and when the repayments came in the sweet turned soon sour. Their houses devalued, the market drained, pay cuts, pay freezes and redundancies meant they paid the price for easy cash.

So why would help to buy scheme's be a bad thing? While I'm not saying it is a bad thing to help people to buy their own home, it is a matter of wrong timing. Our economy is heavily bloated by the expansion of the housing market which has been clearly shown is and always has been extremely fragile. It is an addiction we have and a short term fix to our economy that we need to be less dependent on. Therefore, we should be addressing other factors of our economy whether it be jobs, education or infrastructure if we are to build a sustainable economy.

Always wanting more. Why a recession may not be such a bad thing.

By the title you are probably thinking how could you possibly think that? But before I start I would like to say that I empathise with those who are and have been struggling  throughout this hard period. My aim is rather to provide a general overview to why continuous economic growth would not necessarily be best for us.

So wouldn't life be so good if we got more, more and more? Probably not, there inevitably needs to be a limit somewhere and good reason too. If for instance we just kept on growing what are the implications? By imagining a infinitely growing society, there would be greater and greater competition between individuals, so much so there would be a fiercely selfish society that would emerge. Ready to get that extra bit extra on offer, people would become obsessed and disillusioned with no real goal in life.

Following this, it would not only be working life that would be effected but also in our spare time. Continuous economic growth, as shown in the last decade before the credit crisis, would drive people consumerism madness. Without the realisation of risk people would spend without a second thought, saving would be non-existent and consumerism like work would proceed to take over our lives. Sometimes we do need that push back to push us back into reality.

Also, we have to consider that consumer products and growth does not come magically out of thin air, someone and something has to suffer. This would be our environment and developing countries that would suffer. Our quality of life would diminish as we push the lives of those who can be exploited are worked to the death, while our generosity to charities would decrease as we become ever more tight with our money.

Furthermore, while we call it the 'bad times' some of the best ideas and businesses have evolved out of the poor economic climate. Without it we would promote inefficiency as there's no need to innovate and improve. Though this may be short but an important point.

Finally, I shall end by saying that while no one likes the 'bad times', we wouldn't be necessarily better without them. Rather we should take these times as a lesson before we get caught up in the rush of a boom and not to forget that the bad times again may be round the corner. Therefore, growth, work and money isn't everything but it can be over prioritised in the good times and the bad.