Consumer Society Quotes

“Spectacle is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity”
― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

“The standards of beauty in America's über-culture are purposefully set too high so that we will buy anything in our frantic scramble to become attractive. We are meant to feel crushed, inadequate, and less-than so that we'll buy more and more things in the vain hope of "fixing" ourselves.”
― Kate Bornstein, Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws

“A culture that values only what has succeeded before, where the first rule of success is that there must be something 'measured' and counted, is not a culture that will sustain alternatives to market-driven 'creativity.”
― Sue Halpern

“While much of postmodernist analysis should be credited with theoretical imagination, as well as talent for capturing something of the Zeitgeist, this type of analysis nonetheless misses some crucial facts about consumption: that consumption is vitally linked to production; consumption is anchored in concrete relations; and the driving force in consumption is individual interest, as encouraged and often shaped by profit interests.”
― Richard Swedberg, Principles of Economic Sociology

“A consumerism credo is a poor substitute for liberty, human dignity, and personal integrity; pursing a hedonistic and materialistic lifestyle proved spiritually enslaving. Rather than pointing its aim at raising the moral consciousness of individual persons and our community, consumerism gives its blessing to basking in wanton self-indulgence”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Consumerism is not bad, but reckless and mindless consumerism is not just bad, but downright injurious to the health of not just the individual, but of the entire society.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“The exhaustion and pollution of earth's resource is, above all, the result of man's self-image, of a regression in his consciousness. Some would like to speak about a mutation of collective consciousness which leads to a conception of a man as an organism dependent not on nature and individuals, but rather on institutions. This institutionalization of substantive values, this belief that a planned process of treatment ultimately gives results desired by the recipient, this consumer ethos, is at the heart of the Promethean fallacy.
Efforts to find a new balance in the global milieu depend on the deinstitutionalization of values.”
― Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society

“Responsible consumerism is a crucial part of civic duty.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Bien plus que le vieux désir de sa balader ailleurs, c'est la pression de la société toute entière qui pousse le travailleur à rendre à l'auto ce gain qu'elle lui procure. C'est pour cela qu'elle l'enchaîne à la chaîne, et que pour être sûre qu'il ne la trahira pas, elle le condamne aux travaux forcés de l'achat à crédit. L'auto le lie au travail, et quand le travailleur est bien crevé, elle le mène se distraire là où il doit consommer.”
― Bernard Charbonneau, L'Hommauto

“Comme le souligne un technicien pince-sans- rire : «La marge de sécurité apportée par l'amélioration d'une route est en partie compensée par les risques plus grands que prennent les usagers.»”
― Bernard Charbonneau, L'Hommauto