Choice

In theory consumers have significant power in the marketplace. They have the power to choose to buy one product over another, the power to switch brands and to ignore marketing messages. Australian consumers, like their counterparts across the developed world, have almost unlimited choices. However, more choice doesn’t always mean better choice. Indeed, many of our choices may have unwanted consequences not the least over-consumption and negative environmental impact.

This excerpt comes from a forthcoming paper: 'Consumer Choice: Another Case of Deceptive Advertising' 

I want what I don’t need (so I said no thanks!)

Part of me really wants to keep up with the Joneses. I’m as influenced by advertising’s allure as the next person. I want a KitchenAid mixer and a blender. I want a new sofa, the latest season’s wardrobe, designer sunglasses, endless credit, an overseas’ holiday.  A new house and a flash car would be nice too. I want, I want, I want.

My list of luxuries is endless; utterly and infinitely endless. I don’t have any of these things and it’s highly unlikely that I will get them in the foreseeable future. The rational side of me – the side I like to call my ethical side – knows I am not entitled to these things even if I can afford them.

Consumer choice is the catch-cry of the market. As consumers we have the power to say yes and to buy from a seemingly endless list of goods. In many cases, however, I have chosen to say no.

But the real issue at play here is between wants and needs. Establishing purchasing criteria based on ‘needs’ will be more ethical than making decisions based on wants. Should ‘needs’ be the same for those in the first and the developing world? Obviously Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has little to do with modern consumer culture. What are our entitlements if we want to be ethical consumer/citizens?

Don't Buy

Most of us want to do the right thing when it comes to consumption. We want to buy fair trade coffee and chocolate, products that have not been tested on animals or products that are free of genetic modification. Ultimately we want to do no harm. Or as little harm as possible.

But it might be worth looking deeper into our purchasing decisions to ensure our actions are actually ethical. Are, for example, buying second hand goods, being vegetarian or vegan serious alternatives for those of us who want to be ethical consumers? How fair is ‘fair trade’?

It is, of course, not possible to research the merit of every decision or every ethical alternative. Over-consumption is at the heart of the problem leading to environmental damage, climate change, injustice and poverty, to name but a few. Perhaps the best way to reduce over-consumption and its negative consequences is not to buy at all.

consumer discontent

A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand.[1]

Not surprisingly the critique of consumerism developed simultaneously with its development. In his 1960 follow-up to the best-selling The Hidden Persuaders, The Waste Makers, Vance Packard drew his reader’s attention to Dorothy L. Sayers’ lament over the hollowness of a life based on consumer choices.[2] Although the concern of Sayers’ 1947 book, from which the above quote was drawn, centred on materialism’s negative impact on spiritual life, Packard shared Sayers’ distaste and dissatisfaction, deploring the pursuit of a high standard of living based on greed and waste.

By 1960, however, Packard observed a strengthening of a more strident pursuit of the consumerist agenda than had characterised preceding decades. Packard captured the mood of those concerned about the persuasive effect of modern marketing, the waste generated by mass production and consumption and the insatiable desire to keep up with the Joneses ultimately questioning the ability of the goods to deliver the good life.[3]

It is common for writers concerned with consumer and other cultural issues to preface their work with a historical quote to remind readers of the choices they have but have perhaps chosen to ignore. Both Daniel Akst and Bruce Philp, in their recent books, have done this; Philip calls on Voltaire and Akst on J.M. Barrie.[4] Consumer cultures are not created in a vacuum; it important to look to the past in order to make sense of the present and make a better future. Ultimately looking at the past allows us to question and debate commonly held assumptions.

Since the end of the Second World War, the pursuit of economic prosperity and security has been focused primarily on material acquisition; most Australians reaped the economic benefits. With consumption as the key to prosperity all efforts were geared to making the market work efficiently and equitably. The commercial sector, the government and the independent consumer movement all pursued this aim. The consumer policy framework structured over the past forty years very effectively regulated competition. This coupled with strident activism on behalf of the vast body of consumers ensured that individual consumers were increasingly confident about participating actively in the consumer market. The idea that extending choice would solve consumer problems and spread the benefits widely was at the heart of the consumerist ideal and good consumer policy aimed to maximise consumer choices. This focus on choice and its associated benefits have, however, come at a significant cost, not least the environmental impact of over-consumption.

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[1] Dorothy L. Sayers, ‘Why Work?’ in Creed or Chaos and other essays in popular theology, London: Methuen, 1947, p. 47; also quoted in Packard, The Waste Makers, London: Longmans, 1960.

[2] Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, London: Longmans, 1957.

[3] Vance Packard, The Status Seekers: an exploration of class behaviour in America, London: Longmans, 1960.

[4] Daniel Akst, We Have Met the Enemy, North Carlton (VIC): Scribe, 2011; Bruce Philp, Consumer Republic, North Melbourne (VIC): Scribe, 2011.