Capitalism, Consumerism and Materialism: The Value Crisis

The Continuum of Crisis 

The global economic, ecological and energy crises we face – as well as associated crises (terrorism, conflict, and so on) -- are not separate but fundamentally interlinked: at the source of our ills is an excessive exploitation of hydrocarbon resources that is tied to the escalation of CO2 emissions with no recognition of limits or boundaries, fuelling global warming and the acceleration of climate change, devastating eco-systems, facilitating the deaths of millions of people and the extinction of thousands of species.

The logic of “growth” is simultaneously driving us to deplete hydrocarbon and other natural resources at unprecedented, and unsustainable, rates – such that oil and gas are for all intents and purposes running dry. Both climate change and energy crises are impacting on our ability to sustain global food production. Water shortages and hotter weather are destroying the viability of agriculture, while portended fuel shortages are set to undermine the continuity of agribusiness which is heavily dependent on oil and gas. The increasing inability of food production to meet consumer demand is also linked to the destructive “growth”-driven technologies of a hierarchical agribusiness industry monopolized by short-sighted corporate conglomerates, within a skewered international system of food distribution that marginalizes two-thirds of the world population.

Finally, the world economy on its own terms is on the verge of self-imploding. Geared to serve the interests of corporate profit maximization, the world economy systematically generates widening inequalities that result not only in the deprivation of the majority of the world’s population, but death-by-deprivation on an increasing scale. But in doing so, the economic system ignores its own internal contradictions, even while leading financial analysts from within the IMF to Morgan Stanley are now warning of an imminent global economic meltdown.

So we are nearing critical points simultaneously on four fronts – the climate, our energy dependence, our economy, and even our food supply. The scale of these crises has been sorely underestimated by officials, and even some experts, because their cumulative impact is not properly understood. Western experts tend to look at these crises as separate processes, and thus to offer separate analyses and solutions. The problem is that these crises are not separate at all – they are fundamentally tied into the way the global political economic system functions, and as they accelerate they are, and will, feed into and exacerbate one another.

The worst thing is, amidst the chorus of condemnation suddenly coming from Western governments themselves about the catastrophic dangers and costs of climate change, there has been a gigantic obfuscation of the true extent, scale and impact not only of climate change, but of its intimate interrelationship with other global crises.

The Matrix: Dysfunction and Disorder 

The “Matrix of Control”, made up of special interests linked largely to powerful financial actors, through its dominance-by-donations of the political party system, is able to influence the agendas of our mainstream political parties on issues we really care about like education, health, social welfare, and so on. Corporate imperatives mean that the government is pressured by its key donors to rollback all sorts of social spending, privatize public services, and open up society to the rampaging whirlwind of corporate financial speculation: Profit over people.

The rollback of social welfare has undermined standards of living and well-being while escalating social tensions and crime, across the West. Simultaneously, the prevalence of consumer culture that is also promulgated by the corporate-owned, advertising-driven mass media has led to dangerous, skewered lifestyle choices. Although consumer goods and services are often sold on the premise that they make life easier and more fulfilling, hidden costs lie beneath the surface.

Take a dream home in the suburbs. A study of more than 200,000 people in 448 US counties found that those living in low-density suburban communities weighed 6 pounds more on average than those living in densely populated areas. Suburbanites were also found to be as likely as cigarette smokers to have high blood pressure. Fast food or highly processed food is typically marketed as saving time and money. Yet, in the US, an estimated 65 percent of adults are overweight or obese, leading to an annual loss of 300,000 lives and to at least $117 billion in health care costs in 1999.

Here in Britain, we now know that the majority of British citizens will be obese at current trends within twenty years; and not even the state-backed media hype around Jamie Oliver’s food revolution seems to be working. We’ve also just heard about how alcohol consumption is at “dangerous” levels among the more affluent middle-class. Those are just two simple examples.

But things look grim from a deeper perspective, the question of well-being. Does money make you happy? Findings from the World Values Survey, an assessment of “life satisfaction” in more than 65 countries conducted between 1990 and 2000, indicate that income and happiness tend to track well until about $13,000 of annual income per person. After that, additional income appears to yield rather modest additions in self-reported happiness, to put it mildly. Although most governments make ongoing growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) a leading priority, under the assumption that wealth delivers well-being, the truth is that undue emphasis on generating wealth -- particularly by encouraging heavy consumption -- is hardly working. Overall quality of life is suffering in some of the world’s richest countries as people experience greater stress and time pressures, along with less satisfying social relationships.

Based on World Health Organization data, British psychologist Oliver James showed that English-speaking nations are twice as likely to suffer from mental illness as mainland European ones over a twelve month period. Deeper analysis exposes a direct link between mental illness and social inequalities generated in the context of neo-liberal capitalism, “which largely explains the greater prevalence among English-speaking nations”, according to James. “By this I mean a form of political economy that has four core characteristics: judging a business’s success almost exclusively by share price; privatisation of public utilities; minimal regulation of business, suppression of unions and very low taxation for the rich, resulting in massive economic inequality; the ideology that consumption and market forces can meet human needs of almost every kind.” 

James encapsulates this specific tendency to generate mental illness linked to neo-liberal capitalism using the metaphor of a virus, which, he says, is actually a kind of disease: affluenza. “Selfish capitalism causes mental illness by spawning materialism, or, as I put it, the affluenza virus - placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances (social and physical) and fame. English-speaking nations are more infected with the virus than mainland western European ones. Studies in many nations prove that people who strongly subscribe to virus values are at significantly greater risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder. Follow the logic? Selfish capitalism infects populations with affluenza; it fosters mental illness; English-speaking nations are more selfish capitalist - ergo, more prone to illness.” So what’s the bottom-line for us Brits? “Blair’s encouragement of free market capitalism has boosted spiralling levels of British mental illness. The net consequence for true Labour voters has been to force us to become more or less severely virus-infected.”

The New Fundamentalism 

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