Explore the Claim That a Consumer Society Is Always a Throw Away Society Essay

Consumer familiarity is wholeness that pull ins desire and encouragement for greater sum of currency of goods, services and peoples identification with brands. A throwaway confederacy is single that ceaseless(prenominal)ly creates waste for desire for new products. Nowadays, people self define in other ways leaning towards personal give c atomic number 18s or dislikes much(prenominal) as music tastes, cars we drive or latest fashion accessories everyowing people to feeling a sense of functioning to arrayicular groups in society As opposed to an Industrial society where people were defined by sectionalisation structure and their profession.This shift in culture stick outs us insight into how and why our relationship and evaluate with material goods from buying to disposal helped form a consumer society and explore the claim Is a consumer society always a throw away society? To enable an informed evaluation I go away introduce the following factors mass consumption in U. K. coetaneous society, supermarkets positive sum power and Baumans theory of The Seduced and the Repressed slackly when we think of consumerism our immediate thoughts ar what goods or services we have bought images of bags feature with promotional nourishment offers, new clothes and spot or perhaps treated oneself to a new kitchen as the last one looked go out. Rarely does our natural cognitive ability allow us to stick out at the end of this process to consider the waste and disposal that is created from much(prenominal) mass consumption. Waste is a function of who we are. Evidence in the genial sciences, 2009, track 2) It is part of everyday life in that we all create a certain amount from daily essentials such as diet its packaging, leaving the heating on or replacing household items. even so the importance of eating, clothing ourselves and live in an environment conducive to health. angiotensin-converting enzyme of the reasons for this change in attitude to shop ping something that was considered mundane and necessary is the airlift in profuseness over the past 50 years.The rise in affluence has come about due to more(prenominal) women in the study so ouseholds now have a dual income therefore more of a disposable income and the 40% rise over 17 years in employees earnings allowing people to have more money than ever before. (Brown, 2009, p. 110) Although difficult to measure the exact escalation in wealth we understructure see from total domestic outgoings that people now spend less on essential provisions and more on treats or what is referred to as luxuries and necessities In 1957, 33% of income was spent on food yet in 2007 this reduced by 18%.In contrast to a 16% rise over the same period for services showing peoples values and habits have changed with the prospect of having more money to spend on items that are non fateed but wanted. With more women in the pull inforce this places constraints on time to complete domestic chor es or raise a family. shoddy kitchen appliances allow woman to enter the workforce this then generates greater affluence and income to support the purchase of yet more labour saving devices. another(prenominal) best use of this valuable time is people visiting the supermarket.For some, supermarkets offer freedom of choice for others it limits choice only selling what it wants to sell. Supermarkets lure us in with offers that cannot be beaten buy one get one free or spend over ? 50. 00 and receive ? 5. 00 of your fuel. When you put it like that why wouldnt you want to be part of it? They sell an abundance of items from food, clothing to the latest must have gadget, credit cards and insurance most of which is cheaper here than if you were to visit independent stores buying items separately and of caterpillar tread you shamt have the time to do this.Supermarkets claim to work on a positive sum power ethos. This ethos argues that all get from this action workers and farmers get a living betroth and sell all their stock, consumers make purchase at cheap and affordable prices and supermarkets make profit. What is the preference? The lowly paid worker does not earn a wage so is financially worse of? Or the farmer is left with exorbitance perishable stock that he cannot shift? Meaning fewer customers as people take their money elsewhere. Therefore from a supermarkets viewpoint they are doing everyone a favour.So the consumer gets home unpacks the bags of food factualising then that actually dont having anything for dinner or the time cook a real meal. Instead puts on newly purchased cheap getup and new shoes throwing out the ones bought only a few weeks ago along with food wasted from last weeks shop and goes out for dinner with friends without a look at in the world other than being complimented and showing of new outfit to friends. Not even considering the waste created from one day helps accumulate approx 6. one thousand thousand tonnes of food wasted a year amounting to over ? 400 waste per household annually . The current attitude is I can transpose goods cheaply and easily the important thing is that I fit in. (The Food We Waste (WRAP) cited in Brown, 2009, p. 106) Within Baumans theory society is divided into two categories The seduced and the repressed. Depending on factors such as employment, education, wealth, age, gender, individuals belong in one or the other. This is a mental objectious view and advisedly so as it evokes emotion and dialogue.Although it is not exactly accurate as some people choose where to shop maybe to support topical anesthetic businesses, not own a car for environmental reasons others are content with what they have and have no desire to conform. (Hetherington, 2009, p. 25) Given the title one would not wish to fall into the repressed the majority of people will desire to be in the seduced camp as here anything is attainable if you have the means. Being here gives access to the in crowd or kee ping up with the Jones even if that means buying beyond your means.An modeling of this could be a child whose parents are unemployed, on benefits resulting in him not having the latest fashion trend or cool trainers might be in the repressed category. Society forces pressure on the parents who succumb to the need of acceptance within a seduced society reinforcing Baumans theory. I control with this claim about a consumer society but not the news program always as it is a generalisation. The words mostly or sometimes are better suited as there are individuals and sections of society who consume conscientiously, aware of limited sustainability of natural resources.There are those who value recycling and others who acknowledge that happiness is not a direct necktie of material gain. The recession along with education are driving forces on peoples attitudes towards consumerism and waste firstly the disposable income to spend is no longer available meaning people are having to make d o with what they have and rethinking their current attitude. Secondly schools have to include projects as part of their curriculum exposing current and future generations to the existing issues and long term benefits of such a valuable process.