How Does Materialism Affect Society

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Register to read the introduction… This phenomenon has taken alarming proportions and threatens the new generation to live inadequate life with unrealized potential. That is due to the growing popularity of people’s commercial lifestyle. In the past, the most important things for people were to have something to eat, to have a place where to sleep, and enough money to support their family. In the 21th century our values have changed drastically- satisfaction is no longer based on what we are and what skills we have but on what stuff we possess - phones, TVs, cars, luxurious homes. As George Carlin said in one of his stand ups: “All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!” Contemporary people stress more attention on satisfying their consumerist desires rather than on anything else like family, skills and values. Companies take advantage of a people’s weaknesses (mostly the desire for material possessions) and develop powerful advertisements that target exactly those consumer weaknesses in order to convert them into more sales and higher profit. In today’s busy and stressful life, people think that possession of more staffs will lead to higher satisfaction. But materialistic wants can never be satisfied- for example, after buying the latest phone, you then want the latest car, the latest fashion clothes and so on… your desires never end. …show more content…
Hayek. In response to the Gilbraith Dependence Effect, he wrote the “The non-sequitur of the dependence effect”. He disagrees with the statement that “production creates the wants it seeks to satisfy” (Gilbraith). According Hayek, there is no difference between urgent needs and non-urgent wants. People cannot be only limited to their basic needs like food, sex, shelter because if that is the case, they would not achieve any development and would still inhabit caves and would sleep under the open sky. If we take the Gilbraith position and conclude that the desires/wants are not important then “the whole cultural achievement of man is not important.”- like literature, art, music, dance. (The Non Sequitur of the "Dependence Effect"). Another argument that Hayek makes is that not advertisements but the culture and environment affect the way consumers make decisions. According him ads are designed only to inform the buyers and to promote them the product but nothing

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