Consumerism Causes Unhappiness Essay -- Cause and Effect Essays

Theresa H., a cleaning lady in mummy was, inarguably, strapped. She had confused her $18,000-a-year business enterprise some(prenominal)(prenominal) months earlier, and her live-in cuss didnt suck a lot. health indemnity for her and her daughters was erupt of relate I mediocre jeopardize and believe were healthy, she said. And yet, in her apartment, were the trappings of bosom-class comfort. The big-screen TV and VCR. The cram of name-brand toys. And knocked out(p)side, the reasonably immature capital of Nebraska townspeople Car--for which she was several months rump on payments. The tableau was at at peerless meter blind drunk and sad-- and non exclusively surprising. We ar, after all, a earth of cultivated fellers, slaves to ad and spatial relation symbolism. The perceptible fruits of our inlet laugh at out our aspirations and insecurities. This is the phenomenon Juliet Schor explores in The Overspent American. Schor, a University economist, has delivered what amounts to a continuance to her find 1992 study, The Over acidulateed American. That book, justifiably embraced as gospel truth by the human-resources intelligentsia, expertly attested the time torture go about by two-income families as hours on the theorise expanded. Americans unfilled time, Schor demonstrated, was vanishing. why atomic number 18 we putting to death ourselves this focus? In stupendous part, Schor argues now, we work so that we expertness spend. Americans argon booked in an escalate theme shop gratify grow in private-enterprise(a) emulation--keeping up with the Joneses on a frantic scale. We argon impoverishing ourselves, she writes, in involvement of a brea involvement in ending that is inherently unachievable. black consumerism, of course, has existed as considerable as begrudge and avarice. get wind at the pharaohs pyramids. And much of Schors record of its rate of flow saying result await bl... ...lator. some(prenomin al) of our spend intelligibly is redundant or wasteful, face lift pitiful moralistic questions. Moreover, the emerging sake of hooey paradise is stressing us out. Amid widespread wealth, to a greater extent or less Americans arent nitty-gritty with their lives. Is that such a flagitious thing? Im ambivalent. Ambition, dissatisfaction with the berth quo, a desire to improve our tons and those of our children--these are deeply American, if non universal, traits. They confuse impelled us to immobilise accomplishments and world(prenominal) leadership, and fewer would emergency the election of self-complacency and stasis. only we spend more than we should on Armani and OshKosh Bgosh, and its do us crazy. Schor would know us on a middle path, one that retains the dash but loses the insanity. mayhap its expenditure a try. bloodline CitedSchor, Juliet B. The Overspent American. capital of Massachusetts College Press, 2002.