DEFINATION cash! But that doesn’t end there.
DEFINATION OF CONSUMERSIMIn a nutshell, consumerismdescribes the rising want and need for goods and services. The interestingthing is, all the biggest examples are around us, but not everybody realizesit.One huge example is the huge number ofconvenience stores that are open 24/7. Decades ago, they were practicallynon-existent. But because people find the need to consume and buy all the wayuntil the wee hours of the morning, these stores have sprouted like mushroomsall over the country, that you probably couldn’t imagine life without the 7-11around the corner.
Looking at how people make purchases can alsobe attributed to consumerism. Before, you needed cash inside your pocket eachtime you needed to make a purchase. Then, as people found a higher need to buystuff, credit cards came into the picture. Now, you can buy products and payfor services without having to use cash! But that doesn’t end there. Now, youhave tools like PayPal or Bitcoin that are as good as money, too. Thisevolution in payment schemes makes it evident that people are finding betterways to pay more, simply because they are buying more.
HISTORYThe consumer society became prominent in the 17th century andincreased throughout the 18th century. While some say that the change was boosted by theincreasing middle-class people who took new ideas about luxury consumption. Many critics argue that consumerism was a socialand economical need for the reproduction of capitalist competition for marketsand was important to gain profits. Whereas others point to the increasingpolitical strength of international working class.
The more positive,middle class peoples argued that this revolution welcomed the growth inconstruction of huge country estates mainly designed to provide maximum comfortand the increased availability of luxury goods aimed at a growing market. Thisincluded tobacco sugar,coffee and tea. These wereincreasingly grown on huge plantations in the Caribbean as demand constantlyincreased.Thesetrends were greatly increased in the 18th century, as increasing wealth andsocial mobility increased the number of people with abundance of income forconsumption. The pottery inventor and entrepreneur, JosiahWedgwood, noticed the wayaristocratic fashions, themselves subject to periodic changes in direction,slowly decreased down through society. He boosted the use of marketingtechniques to effect and change the direction of the prevailing tastes andpreferences to cause the goods to be accepted among the rich people.
It wasonly a matter of time before his goods were being rapidly bought up by themiddle classes as well. Other producers started following his example and begangetting profits. WHY CONSUMERISM IS A BAD THING.
Therecan be no consumption without production. If a population consumes more than itproduces, this is ultimately unsustainable. Consumption is 70% of the USeconomy. Someday, this will collapse. Consumerist culture isn’t just aboutbuying things you want.
It’s about convincing you that you need things that youdon’t necessarily need or want and encouraging you to spend money on thesethings, sometimes even when you can’t afford them. This is a bizarre way tostructure production – make stuff, trick people into buying it, so you can makemore stuff to trick people into buying. A culture more concerned with growth,development, and improvement than superficial validation and instantgratification would be able to provide for actual needsand wants far better. Consumerist culture also motivatespeople to go into debt, which is also an unsustainable thing, since loanablefunds aren’t unlimited. It also sacrifices the future for the present.In short, consumerism sacrifices the future for short-term immediategratification.
It is like an addictive drug, and withdrawal is going to suck.EXAMPLES OF CONSUMERISMI would wager that most people, up until a certainage, love celebrating their birthdays. There are so many wonderful things abouthaving a birthday: the gathering of loved ones, the cake and, of course, thepresents. For children in particular, I would even go so far as to bet thatgifts are the best part about birthdays. After all, who doesn’t love to receivepresents?Of course, as we get older, getting the things thatwe want is not limited to birthdays. Being able to buy things that we do notnecessarily need, but only desire is an ability that many people want to haverelatively early on.
I know that’s why I got a job at age 15. I was desperateto be able to buy my own clothes, my own CDs and even my own car!The desire to buy things that we want, apart fromwhat we need to survive, is a huge part of the subject of today’s lesson. We’llbe talking about consumerism, or the ideology that places valueupon the excessive consumption of material goods and services. Waste ProductsWastes are substances not produced for purposesin the market. Waste result from the extraction of raw materials; they form thelasting after the final useable product is produced.
Prior to advanced economicgrowth and development, most communities not only in America, but also acrossthe world lived under extreme poverty. As a result, there was no much todispose as waste products; therefore, the environment remained helpful. Thisled to a peace co-existence between human beings, plants and animals. However,with the increase in globalization and technological issues in this world,human beings continue to release more waste products to the environment. Duringthe industrial revolution, industrial tycoons did not have much informationregarding waste management. As such, they disposed their industrial waste toareas that were taken by human beings, and this, resulted to health complicationsto the people. Also, waste from the industries led to environmental pollution;air pollution for instance led to acidic rain, which affected not only humans,but also, animals and plants. It was not long before the governments realizedthat they had to work on issues regarding waste disposal and management.
Radioactive waste is the most dangerous waste and generatesthrough byproducts.Radioactive waste is hazards for human being and also for theenvironment.Radioactive waste naturally decays over time so,this wastehas to be isolated and confined in appropriate disposal facilities for suchperiod until it no longer poses a threat.
