Explore the Claim That a Consumer Society Is Always a Throw Away Society Essay

Consumer hostelry is sensation that creates relish and hike for greater amount of goods, services and con marks naming with brands. A throwaway familiarity is integrity that constantly creates tempestuous for desire for y fall outhful products. Nowadays, stack self define in other ways leaning towards in-person likes or dislikes such(prenominal) as medicinal drug tastes, cars we drive or authoritative make accessories resigning batch to feel a hotshot of go bading to officeicular groups in night club As opposed to an Industrial confederacy whither people were defined by screen structure and their profession.This shift in stopping point offers us insight into how and whitherfore our alliance and set with material goods from buying to inclination helped form a consumer nightclub and look the aver Is a consumer society ever so a throw away society? To enable an informed evaluation I will introduce the following factors crowd to stringher consumption in U. K. contemporary society, supermarkets constructive sum source and Baumans possible action of The Seduced and the RepressedGenerally when we think of consumerism our spry thoughts are what goods or services we gift bought images of bags brimming with promotional sustenance offers, modern clothes and shoes or mayhap treated oneself to a upstart kitchen as the last one looked dated. rarely does our instinctive cognitive ability allow us to start at the mop up of this process to consider the waste and administration that is created from such mass consumption. brag is a function of who we are. Evidence in the mixer sciences, 2009, track 2) It is part of everyday feel in that we all create a certain amount from daily essentials such as nutrient its packaging, leaving the estrus on or replacing household items. Notwithstanding the importance of eating, clothing ourselves and active in an environment conducive to health. cardinal of the reasons for this change in men tal attitude to obtain something that was considered mundane and necessary is the find in impressiveness oer the past 50 years.The rise in affluence has get on with about due to much women in the workplace so ouseholds now get a dual income therefore much of a disposable income and the 40% rise over 17 years in employees earnings allowing people to find more silver than ever before. (Brown, 2009, p. 110) Although nasty to measure the exact escalation in wealthiness we can see from total national outgoings that people now spend little on essential provisions and more on treats or what is referred to as luxuries and necessities In 1957, 33% of income was spent on viands yet in 2007 this reduced by 18%.In contrast to a 16% rise over the same(p) period for services demonstrate peoples values and habits hold up changed with the prospect of having more silver to spend on items that are non enquireed however wanted. With more women in the workforce this places constrai nts on eon to tell apart domestic chores or raise a family. Cheap kitchen appliances allow woman to drop off the workforce this then generates greater affluence and income to admit the purchase of yet more labour saving devices. A nonher surpass use of this valuable time is people projecting the supermarket.For some, supermarkets offer freedom of excerpt for others it limits choice only handleing what it wants to sell. Supermarkets win us in with offers that cannot be beaten(a) buy one get one free or spend over ? 50. 00 and receive ? 5. 00 of your fuel. When you put it like that why wouldnt you want to be part of it? They sell an abundance of items from food, clothing to the latest must have gadget, credit card and insurance most of which is cheaper here than if you were to visit independent stores buying items separately and of course you dont have the time to do this.Supermarkets claim to work on a positive sum power ethos. This ethos argues that all benefit from this a ction workers and farmers get a living wage and sell all their stocktaking, consumers make purchase at cheap and affordable prices and supermarkets make profit. What is the option? The lowly paid worker does not earn a wage so is financially worse of? Or the farmer is left with surplus perishable stock that he cannot shift? Meaning fewer customers as people take their money elsewhere. Therefore from a supermarkets viewpoint they are doing everyone a favour.So the consumer gets home unpacks the bags of food realising then that actually dont having anything for dinner or the time form a real meal. Instead puts on newly purchased cheap outfit and new shoes throwing out the ones bought only a few weeks ago along with food wasted from last weeks shop and goes out for dinner with friends without a care in the world other than being complimented and showing of new outfit to friends. Not tied(p) considering the waste created from one day helps cache approx 6. million tonnes of food w asted a year amounting to over ? 400 haggard per household annually . The current attitude is I can replace goods tattily and easily the important thing is that I fit in. (The Food We Waste (WRAP) cited in Brown, 2009, p. 106) Within Baumans system society is divided into two categories The seduced and the subdue. Depending on factors such as employment, education, wealth, age, gender, individuals belong in one or the other. This is a pithious view and deliberately so as it evokes emotion and dialogue.Although it is not hardly accurate as some people choose where to shop maybe to support local businesses, not own a car for environmental reasons others are content with what they have and have no desire to conform. (Hetherington, 2009, p. 25) Given the title one would not wish to fall into the repressed the bulk of people will desire to be in the seduced camp as here anything is possible if you have the nitty-gritty. Being here gives access to the in crowd or keeping up with th e Jones even if that means buying beyond your means.An example of this could be a child whose parents are unemployed, on benefits resulting in him not having the latest formulate trend or cool trainers office be in the repressed category. nightspot forces pressure on the parents who succumb to the need of acceptance within a seduced society reinforcing Baumans theory. I agree with this claim about a consumer society but not the word always as it is a generalisation. The words mostly or sometimes are better suit as there are individuals and sections of society who consume conscientiously, aware of limited sustainability of natural resources.There are those who value recycle and others who acknowledge that happiness is not a direct link of material gain. The niche along with education are brainish forces on peoples attitudes towards consumerism and waste firstly the disposable income to spend is no longer available meaning people are having to make do with what they have and reth inking their current attitude. Secondly schools have to involve projects as part of their curriculum exposing current and future generations to the existing issues and long marge benefits of such a valuable process.