Consumer culture was birthed by the Industrial Revolution. Consumerism refers to purchasing products for both practical and social status symbols.
Before the Industrial Revolution, people relied heavily on natural resources for survival needs. They would chop down trees or forage for plants in order to build homes, tools and medicines from those materials.
Increased Production
The Industrial Revolution enabled businesses to produce goods at unprecedented scale, leading to an explosion of production that ultimately resulted in consumerism. Modern consumers desire luxury items as symbols of wealth and status that go beyond necessities for daily living, driving economic growth while simultaneously having adverse environmental and social repercussions. Understanding where consumerism originated during the Industrial Revolution is critical in creating sustainable paths forward.
Before the Industrial Revolution began, many people worked independently from home or farms crafting raw materials into finished products by hand - this required time and skill. Once manufacturing technology advanced significantly enough to increase production significantly and tools became cheaper to make these items, people were now able to buy many more goods than before at reduced costs.
By the late nineteenth century, factories had become ubiquitous. People flocked to cities for factory work, leading to poor living conditions in these urban areas and dangerous working conditions for workers - including child labor - quickly worsening rapidly.
As more goods became available for purchase, more Americans became obsessed with having the latest goods for purchase in order to be happy. This trend may have begun due to advertising that promoted products in ways that implied they would make life better and simpler as well as greater access to goods via mail order or department store shopping.
Conspicuous consumption is a wasteful form of consumption that depletes real resources while competing for social status, and can offset any gains from commerce while leading to destructive competition that inhibits innovation that might benefit all consumers.
Changing Consumer Culture
As factories opened around the globe, they heralded in a new way of life. Before the Industrial Revolution began, most people lived on farms or small towns purchasing only what was essential for survival; now, goods became affordable to anyone who could afford to purchase them and attitudes shifted, creating the consumerist market we know today.
Consumers embraced the notion that purchasing certain products would improve their quality of life and accepted that conspicuous consumption was an integral way of showing wealth and social status, according to 19th-century economist Thorstein Veblen's definition of conspicuous consumption.
Manufacturing advances, particularly steel and chemical production, made mass-producing goods easier for the first time ever, democratizing material possessions while rail travel enabled people to travel more quickly and conveniently. Newspapers, radio, and telegraph also brought more information directly to people.
Advanced production line technology and materials science enabled businesses to produce better, cheaper goods more efficiently - giving consumers more choices and prompting companies to compete for customer business by advertising more frequently. Furthermore, credit sales enabled lower income Americans to purchase items they couldn't pay for outright.
All these changes contributed to a dramatic transformation of American culture, as once-rural and isolated Americans began urbanizing and adopting consumer culture. Soon enough, people were shopping in department stores and ordering mail order even if they couldn't afford the latest model of car or best hair cream on the market.
Some historians assert that industrialization alone didn't cause consumerism to rise; rather, it was simply an outgrowth of earlier trends. Emulation can be seen as an indicator of social superiority; with increased access to goods and services brought by industrialization accelerating this phenomenon even more rapidly.
Increased Income
The inventions of the Industrial Revolution significantly boosted America's economic wellbeing, enabling more Americans to buy goods than ever before and fuelling economic expansion ever since. Unfortunately, this consumerist model also leads to environmental destruction and social disparity; thus ideally society could maintain these engines of consumerism while mitigating any of its negative side-effects.
The initial Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain between 1700-1800s, spreading through innovations like steam engines, cotton gins and locomotives to other countries. These inventions made possible a rapid increase in metal, chemical and food products production that enabled mass-production, leading to urbanization as people left farms for factories where often poor working conditions and long hours existed.
Workers working in factories also experienced health problems related to smoke, dirt and other pollutants present in the work environment, which caused many workers to fall ill or even die due to these pollutants. Due to these circumstances, worker-owned unions and labor movements emerged which pushed for improved conditions within workplaces.
Increased production had an equally profound effect on consumer culture during this period. Before the Industrial Revolution, most ordinary people consumed only what was necessary for survival; as more goods were manufactured and more people bought more expensive goods to'show off their status. Thorstein Veblen (19th century American economist) described this phenomenon as conspicuous consumption in his book The Theory of Leisure Class.
People with more money tend to spend it, signaling to manufacturers that more products should be produced to meet consumer demand. This creates more jobs, raises salaries and boosts the economy - though it could potentially wasteful if individuals cannot distinguish between needs and wants.
Consumption also provides businesses with benefits by increasing revenue available for research and development investments, making them more competitive by expanding R&D spending opportunities, creating innovative new products to market faster, while at the same time encouraging competition among businesses which keeps prices low while providing consumers with more choices - both factors essential in driving economic growth. Consumerism plays a crucial role in our global economy and is key driver of economic expansion.
Changing Social Structure
Industrialization and increased production led to an explosion of consumer culture. Prior to mass production, most people only consumed what was necessary for survival and little more. Mass production allowed businesses to target middle class consumers with advertisements selling products that were considered non-essential necessities such as clothing and entertainment products.
As well, machines designed to automate repetitive jobs allowed workers to work faster and longer without fatigue; consequently wages increased and life expectancies improved; this lead to lower infant mortality as families could afford fewer children, thus decreasing work requirements.
Emergence of middle class created a novel social structure which had to adjust with an ever-evolving society, giving rise to both an affluent upper class and industrial working class. Though upper class did not own production means directly, they made decisions regarding production methods while overseeing activities of workers.
Sociologists note the distinctions among classes were key to driving consumerism in America. According to sociologists, the upper class consists of households earning incomes exceeding $200,000. Sociologists define the upper class as those characterized by wealth, power and influence while industrial working class people earned most of their money through wage labor rather than luxury purchases; furthermore they were generally not interested in socializing with members of the upper class.
Consumption also fed into credit and debt formation, spurred on by business owners and manufacturers opening stores which offered customers credit or time payment plans to buy goods on time payment or credit cards - this allowed consumers to overspend, even without realising it - something economists like Thorstein Veblen have called conspicuous consumption. Though initially stimulating economic growth, this initial wave of consumerism eventually faded as debt and speculation dampened economic expansion; by 1920s U.S. consumers had borrowed over $7 billion from loans which Sydney economist Steve Keen refers to as "great loads of unsuccessful gambling."
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