When U.S. soldiers returned home after World War II, they found a country quite different from the one they had left. Wartime production had helped pull America’s economy out of the depression, and during the late ’40s, young adults saw a remarkable rise in their spending power. Jobs were plentiful, wages were higher, and people were eager to spend. Between 1945 and 1949, Americans bought 20 million refrigerators, 21.4 million cars, and 5.5 million stoves, a trend that continued well into the 1950s. The massive growth of suburban populations meant an even bigger demand for automobiles. Families of all income brackets were buying televisions.
Historian Elaine Tyler May thinks that the federal government and the American people saw the new consumerism as a way to de-emphasize class differences while stressing traditional gender roles. Things that defined “the good life” were within their economic reach, so working-class people could achieve the upward mobility they craved.
And we haven’t stopped filling our inner void with sparkling things ever since. As Kerryn Higgs, the author of Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet said, the capitalist system depends on never-ending growth and it would simply fail if people were content with what they have. Over the course of the 20th century, capitalism preserved its momentum by molding the ordinary person into a consumer with an unquenchable thirst for its “wonderful stuff.”
And the subreddit r/AntiConsumption illustrates this notion beautifully. Its 294K members criticize, question, and discuss everything consumerism-related, and provide clear-cut examples of how the system degenerated. What I like about this online community is that it isn’t ringing alarm bells, declaring the end of times. Instead, it invites us to take a step back and look at the reality we have created for ourselves.
#1 Thought This Belonged Here… It Drives Me Nuts How There Is Such A Purchase-Culture Around Fitness And Health
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#2 Useless Stuff Indeed
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#3 Great To See Out Society As A Whole, Progressing
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#4 There Are So Few Spaces Like This Left
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#5 Put The Small Biz Before Big Biz
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#6 Remember Kids, “Vegan Wool” Is Plastic. And When It Breaks, It’s Decomposition Will Not Be Friendly
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#7 My Work Is Required To Have Paper Charts And Maps, But They Expire Every Couple Months. I Take The Expired Charts And Use Them As Wrapping Paper
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#8 Old Bag New Life So My Mom Spent The Day Removing The Old Straps From Her Swimming Bag And Replaced Them With What She Had At Home: Some Old Cargo Straps. I Think The Colors Work Really Great With Each Other! Please Give Her A Thumbs Up!
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#9 What Up Water Homies
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#10 Just Came Across This And I Just Wanted To Share It
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#11 Living In The 20’s
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#12 Yep
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#13 Found On Fb
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#14 My Sister’s Gender Reveal “Party”. Her Doctor Wrote The Baby’s Gender On A Piece Of Paper. At The End Of The Day The Whole Family Joined A Video Call Where She Unfolded The Paper! That Was It!
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#15 This
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#16 To Keep Prices High
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#17 Consumption Is Most Ravenous At The Top Of Society, Consuming Small-Businesses Too
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#18 This “Low Plastic” Pen Is A Perfect Metaphor For Environmentalism Under Capitalism
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#19 Not Perfect Anti Consumption, But I Used Black Takeout Containers And Old Greeting Cards To Give Out Homemade Cookies This Year
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#20 We Need A Different Economy
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#21 Restaurant Ask Customers To Stop Wasting Buffet Food
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#22 Not Sure What They’re Expecting
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#23 Did You Know That You Can Rewear Clothes? This Changes Everything
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#24 The True Cost Of Stuff
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#25 Makes Sense
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#26 What A Beautiful Billboard
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#27 You Are Enough
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#28 Croatian Company Made Their Toilet Paper Package With A Cool Dual Purpose
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#29 Some Decent Tips I Think
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#30 My Sister Asked Me To Buy These 2 Products For Her Birthday. This Is The Packaging For 10 Ml Of Product
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#31 This Really Hit Home For Me To See Today!
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#32 Permanent Permaculture
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#33 Great Idea Stolen From Facebook
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#34 Bernie Showing Us All The Way
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#35 It Do Be Like That
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#36 You Know When You Can’t Figure Out If Something Is Satire?
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#37 Sometimes That’s Hard To Forget With All The Advertisements For Sustainable Clothing Brands
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#38 This Would Be Very Depressing
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#39 Bruh
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#40 I See This Every Year. Over 60,000 New iPhone & Samsung Cases Are Dumped Because They Won’t Fit The New Models
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#41 Plastic Straws And Sandwich Cutters Aren’t The Devil
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#42 Absolutely Disgusting
- You might also like: 50 ‘Weird Facts’ About The World That Might Give You A Fresh Perspective
Image credits: no-oxford-commas
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