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The Work and Spend trap – how we all fell for the consumerist con

One analysis at the University of Melbourne sought to discover the reasons why people are increasingly compelled to work more than 50 hours a week.

 The correct answer was consumerism. It was the “work-and-spend” trap, an endless cycle characterised by the desire for higher living standards, linked with greater levels of debt that can only be managed by working longer and harder.

A frenzy of consumerism   http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/blogs/work-in-progress/a-frenzy-of-consumerism-20121207-2ayut.html#ixzz2EgEa2wIK The Age, December 7, 2012 James Adonis There was something quite tragic about  There was something quite tragic about the Click Frenzy
frenzy, wasn’t there? The same could be said about the Black Friday stampedes in the US, It’s tasteless consumerism to the max, turning ordinary people into ravenous and mindless shoppers, with flow-on effects in the workplace.

But first, let’s go back to 1929. In an article written for Nation’s Business magazine, Charles Kettering – a director of General Motors Research – opined on the need for companies to keep consumers dissatisfied. The moment people are happy with what they have, “almost immediately hard times would be upon us”, he wrote.

And so it is that marketers persevere with advertising to convince us we’re not sexy enough, popular enough, smart enough, or (whatever) enough, unless we purchase what they’re selling.Perhaps that’s why
American comedian Bill Hicks referred to marketers and advertisers as
“Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage”.
This is where work comes in. In order to fund the lifestyles to which
we’ve become accustomed, we work. In many cases, we overwork. Then, as
our credit card balances swell and our home loans balloon, we work
even harder just to keep up. Where households could once get by with
just one wage earner, today both parents have little choice but to be
employed.
One analysis at the University of Melbourne sought to discover the
reasons why people are increasingly compelled to work more than 50
hours a week. The researchers looked at a variety of possible
explanations. Was it that people were motivated by the desire to be
‘ideal workers’? Was it a fear of losing their job? Or was it due to
the collapse in union membership?
What came out in front was none of the above. The correct answer was consumerism. It was the “work-and-spend” trap, an endless cycle characterised by the desire for higher living standards, linked with greater levels of debt that can only be managed by working longer and harder.
In an article published in the Pacific Ecologist journal, Professor
Sharon Beder from the University of Wollongong chronicled the history
of consumerism’s impact on the workforce. It has made, she writes,
workers “less likely to question the conditions of their work, the way
it dominates their life, and the lack of power that they have as
workers”.
That’s because consumerism grants people a taste of the good life –
televisions, cars, electrical goods, houses, luxury items, holidays –
and they want more of it. But that stuff can only be financed by
working more … at any sacrifice.

December 10, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | ENERGY, social effects