System  Bas Feijen  Contact
Materialism
Money is god
Jesus Solana - Avarice
For American self-definitions, materialism - as an attitude toward life focusing primarily, if not exclusively, on material rather than on spiritual values - became a major issue in the wake of an ever accelerating industrialization after the Civil War.
Winfried Fluck - "Money Is God": Materialism, Economic Individualism, and Expressive Individualism
Americans have increasingly theorized that money is the definition of "the good life," according to Roper pollsters. In 1975, 38 percent of Americans said that "a lot of money" would comprise the good life, while 63 percent said the same in 1996. This paralleled the responses of incoming collegians between the 1970s and 1990s, who went from valuing developing a "meaningful philosophy of life" to overwhelmingly (75 percent) favoring "making a lot of money" as their top-rated value.
Caroline Adams Miller, Michael B. Frisch - Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide
America has an economic system set up to create the kind of mess we've seen recently. Our form of capitalism encourages materialistic values, and the research shows that people high on materialism ... are more likely to engage in unethical business behaviors and manipulate people for their own purposes.
Beth Azar - How greed outstripped need
The problem of money-making was not only that it favored earthly delights over divine obligations. It also enflamed the tendency to prefer our own needs over those of the people around us and, more worrisome still, to recklessly trade their best interests for our own base satisfaction. ... it serves the desire for profit which knows no limit.
John Paul Rollert - Greed Is Good: A 300-Year History of a Dangerous Idea
Darren Cullen - Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives
Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.
Victor Lebow - Journal of Retailing, Spring 1955
With the rise of materialism comes the decline of morality. Materialism is the excessive desire to acquire and consume material goods. Materialism is the religion of this world. In a materialistic world money is god. Greed has become the norm. Consumerism is imposed on the people by the power elite — who depend on the profit made with their business — by means of for example mass media propaganda. The power elite are masters in maximizing profit for their corporations as is evidenced by for example planned obsolescence. See also Jevons paradox.
American Dream
One of the major changes in the last century has been the rise of the consumer. But this isn't something that just happened — the consumer was created, and the way it happened is an important lesson in engaging people on sustainable business. The key figure in this story is Edward Bernays.
Stephanie Draper - PR created consumerism, what can it do for sustainability?
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.
Edward Bernays - Propaganda
It is that promise that has always set this country apart - that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.
Barack Obama - The American Promise (August 28, 2008)
The American Dream is another so-called big lie of the establishment in order to deceive the masses. Edward Bernays is the father of American propaganda who played a major role in turning people into consumers for the corporate elite.
Depression
The positive effect of both materialism as well as greed on subjective well-being might be short term. It is suggested that on long term materialistic and greedy people experience lower levels of subjective well-being or which doesn't lead to an increase in happiness.
Stefanie de Laat - Are we caught up in an endless cycle of acquiring things in search of happiness?
Materialism is negatively associated with life satisfaction.
Aaron Ahuvia, Nancy Wong - Materialism: Origins and Implications for Personal Well-Being
Major depression is the No.1 psychological disorder in the western world. Economic inequality is rising as the rich get richer and the rest suffers the consequences. Greed has become the norm and psychopaths are its masters. The Dalai Lama said that "We have a largely materialistic lifestyle characterized by a materialistic culture. However, this only provides us with temporary, sensory satisfaction, whereas long-term satisfaction is based not on the senses but on the mind". But the fanatic and narrow-minded materialists even believe the human mind is materially based. A most destructive belief and vicious cycle.
Extra...
Madeline Levine - The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage...
Tim Kasser - The High Price of Materialism
Benjamin R. Barber - Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults...
Juliet B. Schor - Born to Buy, The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
Juliet B. Schor - The Overspent American, Why We Want What We Don't Need
Eric Schlosser - Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
Suniya S. Luthar - The Problem With Rich Kids
Zan Boag interviews Tim Kasser - Living in a material world
Teresa Amabile - How to Kill Creativity
Global Issues - Children as Consumers
Activist Post - The American Dream, Brought to You by Edward Bernays
System  Bas Feijen  Contact