Musings on consumerism

Is the modern world better than the one fifty years ago? Terrence Bondfield thinks it might be, if we could get off the merry go round of wanting more stuff and instead sit back and make do.

The world certainly has changed in the last fifty years or so. The western world had to rebuild after the Second World War. The amount of destruction and the cost in human and monetary terms was an incredible task.

By the late 1950s in Australia, changes started to drift in from the old way to the new way. When in the 1950s only maybe two families in the street had a car, families still had ice box fridges, home delivery on meat, milk, fruit and veg, bread and groceries. Mum couldn’t afford a taxi to get these items home so home delivery was the big thing. Steam trains, trams in Sydney, double decker busses. TV didn’t happen until 1957 and only for those who could afford one. So everyone went up to the electrical store at night and watched TV through the window. The transformation started to occur. The perceived evil of communism had to be combated in the Western democracies.

How to do this, keep people happy and aligned to the western ways and democracy? Consumerism – let the people have what they couldn’t before. Buy cars on finance, TVs, new homes, furniture. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s just like today. By the 1960s steam was replaced by diesel electric and electric trains, tram lines were pulled up in Sydney, air conditioning in major shops, supermarkets came into being, everything was on the up, including people’s happiness.

Only the model became its own head to tail colossus. More consumerism, more products to buy, more easy credit, more, more. How to get more, as Dad was the only income earner? Mum goes to work and – bingo – more stuff. Everyone’s happy, happy. No chance of communism in Australia.

Hang on, if Mum’s at work, how does that fit into the kid’s lives? Suck your thumb and get over it because we need more stuff. So kids adapted with TV being the home nanny. Eventually, child care would arise and before and after school care. Vital components in the modern world because we need more stuff.

Consumerism has a short lifespan 

Communism was defeated through American consumerism, which pervaded the western world, and Russia was going broke trying to keep up. It all fell in a heap because Russians wanted stuff too. So now we live in a world of stuff and we go into the $2 shops and buy stuff we don’t need. Anyway, most of it has a short lifespan, because the Chinese want it that way, so they can sell us more stuff.

Is the modern world better than the one I grew up in? I think it would be, if we could get off the merry go round of wanting more stuff and sit back and make do. I grew up in a pre-electronic era. I went out and climbed trees, skinny dipped in the creek, road a horse and could take off anywhere. That was great growing up, free of everything – except communism, which was rammed down our throats, and the constant worry of nuclear war, which we were told would wipe out the planet. That was real fear. You got the lectures at school, at church and by your parents that nuclear war was real. It all came to a head when John F. Kennedy threatened to bomb Russia over the Cuban missile crisis. We all held our breath over that one. I think he gave the Russians 24 hours to turn the ships around… Whew.

So enjoy your stuff and keep working on a never ending treadmill called consumerism, because it has a big mouth to feed, the bonfire of happiness. Burn stuff so you can get more stuff. Consumerism has a short lifespan.