Consumerism as a Source of Structural Violence

  • COMMENTARY (BuriedTruth). This is a fascinating and prescient work -- written in 2003, it is even more relevant today (2020)!

  • McGregor, SLT (2003) "Consumerism as a Source of Structural Violence."  Kappa Omicron Nu Human Sciences Working Paper Series. Retrieved from https://www.kon.org/hswp/archive/consumerism.html  |  local copy (html)

    Consumerism as a Source of Structural Violence

    McGregor, SLT (2003) "Consumerism as a Source of Structural Violence."  Kappa Omicron Nu Human Sciences Working Paper Series. Retrieved from https://www.kon.org/hswp/archive/consumerism.html  [html; local copy (html)]  |  pdf  [local copy (pdf)]

    Abstract

    Capitalistic consumerism needs an infrastructure in order to continue to manifest itself. Components of that infrastructure include technology and telecommunications, corporate led globalization, the neo-liberal market ideology, world financial institutions, and complacent, or complicit, governments. Most significantly, the other component of this infrastructure is the consumer, and by association, the family and consumer sciences (FCS) profession. The basic premise of this paper is that this entire infrastructure is a key source of structural violence, enabled by consumers and FCS professionals who, knowingly or unknowingly, embrace the ideology of consumerism.

    Introduction

    This collection of quotes is not from the family and consumer sciences (FCS) literature. The quotes are definitely not from the consumer studies literature. They are from the peace and social justice literature. If readers are anything like me, perceiving consumerism as a form of structural violence will be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. It is not the way the profession has traditionally viewed or understood the widespread and popular concept of consumerism, central to our field of study. Seeing consumerism as violence turns everything on its head. My hope is that this working paper will lead people out of their comfort zone so they can enter into a collective discussion about consumerism as a source of structural violence.

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    Consumerism

    Consumerism is usually understood to refer to the social movement that seeks to protect the consumer against excesses of business and promote the rights of consumers (Gabriel & Lang, 1995). People in this movement often fight for the rights of consumers who are affected by structural violence (landlord tenant issues, housing discrimination, abuse of elderly consumers, discrimination against women by financial institutions, and children as vulnerable consumers). Although much as been written on consumerism as a social movement that arose as a result of consumer problems caused by the way the market is structured, little has been written in the family and consumer sciences (FCS) field about consumerism as a source of structural violence.

    For the sake of the argument presented in this working paper, consumerism is viewed as a facet of the ideology of contemporary capitalism. ...

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    A consumer society has the following characteristics (drawn from McGregor, 2001). Identities are built largely out of things because things have meaning. People measure their lives by money and ownership of things. People are convinced that to consume is the surest route to personal happiness, social status, and national success. Advertising, packaging, and marketing create illusory needs that are deemed real because the "economic" machine has made people feel inferior and inadequate. To keep the economic machine moving, people have to be dissatisfied with what they have, hence, with whom they are. Consequently, the meaning of one's life is located in acquisition, ownership, and consumption.

    In a consumer society, market values permeate every aspect of daily lives. Marketplaces are abstract, stripped of culture (except the culture of consumption), of social relations, and of any social-historical context. Consumers are placed at the center of the "good society" as individuals who freely and autonomously pursue choices through rational means, creating a society through the power they exercise in the market. Consequently, in a consumer society, there is a widespread lack of moral discipline, a glorification of greed and material accumulation, an increased breakdown in family and community, a rise of lawlessness and disorder, an ascendancy of racism and bigotry, a rise in the priority of national interests over the welfare of humanity, and an increase in alienation and isolation. Social space is reorganized around leisure and consumption as central social pursuits and as the basis for social relationships. A consumer society needs leisure to be commercialized and the home to be mechanized in order that time and energy are freed up for shopping and producing more things to buy. Social activities and emotions are turned into economic activities through the process of commodification. ...

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    Consumerism is the misplaced belief (myth) that consuming will gratify the individual. In this sense, it is an acceptance of consumption as a way to self-development, self-realization, and self-fulfilment. In a consumer society, an individual's identity is tied to what she or he consumes. People buy more than they need for basic subsistence and are concerned for their self-interest rather than for mutual, communal, or ecological interest. In a consumer society, whatever maximizes individual happiness is considered the best action and that line of thinking gets translated into accumulating goods and using more services (Goodwin, Ackerman & Kiron, 1997). Society has even gone so far as to understand consumerism to be a vehicle for freedom, power, and happiness. It supplements work, religion, and politics as the main mechanism by which social status and distinction are achieved. Although people perceive each of the isolated (a) personal moments of consumption, (b) working within the home, and (c) engaging in cultural endeavors as very private, they are actually very public actions, inherently tied to global economic and political processes.

    In the global marketplace, consumerism is also viewed as the pursuit of ever-higher standards of living, thereby justifying global development and capitalism via trade and internationalism of the marketplace. Capitalism needs laborers, money, and markets. Large sections of the world population are excluded in a consumer society, save for the exploitation of their labour and their nation's natural resources to produce consumer goods. Rampant consumerism has lead to pollution, hazardous wastes, exhausted resources, irreversible environmental damage, spiritual withdrawal, and an increased gap and growing tension between the haves and have-nots. The loss of biodiversity is paralleled by the loss of cultural diversity via cultural homogenization, leading to the consumer monoculture that feeds the capitalistic machine.

    "Under the spell of consumerism, few people give thought to whether their consumption habits produce class inequality, alienation, or repressive power, i.e., structural violence. People are concerned more with the "stuff of life" rather than with "quality of life," least of all the quality of life of those producing the goods they consume. Indeed, consumerism is manifested in chronic purchasing of new goods and services with little attention to their true need, durability, country of origin, working conditions, or environmental consequences of manufacture and disposal ("Why overcoming consumerism," 1997).

    To conclude, capitalistic consumerism needs an infrastructure in order to continue to manifest itself. Components of that infrastructure include technology and telecommunications, corporate-led globalization, the neo-liberal market ideology, world financial institutions, and complacent, or complicit, governments. Most significantly, the other component of this infrastructure is the consumer, and by association, the family and consumer science profession

    .

    The basic premise of this paper is that this entire infrastructure is a key source of structural violence, enabled by consumers who, knowingly or unknowingly, embrace the ideology of consumerism.

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    Consumerism as Structural Violence

    Johan Galtung (1969) first coined the term structural violence intending it to refer to the presence of justice (positive peace) to balance the prevailing focus on negative peace, the absence of war and violence. Whereas direct violence and war are very visible, structural violence is almost invisible, embedded in ubiquitous social structures, normalized by stable institutions, and regular experience. Because they are longstanding, structural inequities usually seem ordinary, the way things are and always have been done. Worse yet, even those who are victims of structural violence often do not see the systematic ways in which their plight is choreographed by unequal and unfair distribution of society's resources or by human constraint caused by economic and political structures.

    Unequal access to resources, political power, education, health care, or legal standing are all forms of structural violence (Winter & Leighton, 1999). Structural violence can also occur in a society if institutions and policies are designed in such a way that barriers result in lack of adequate food, housing, health, safe and just working conditions, education, economic security, clothing, and family relationships.

    People affected by structural violence tend to live a life of oppression, exclusion, exploitation, marginalization, collective humiliation, stigmatization, repression, inequities, and lack of opportunities due to no fault of their own, per se. The people most affected by structural violence are women, children, and elders; those from different ethnic, racial, and religious groups; and sexual orientation.

    Those adversely affected by structural violence are not involved in direct conflict that is readily identifiable. Because they, and others, may not comprehend the origin of the conflict, they feel they are to blame, or are blamed, for their own life conditions.

    This perception is readily escalated because people's perceptual and cognitive processes normally divide people into in-groups and out-groups. Those outside 'our group' lie outside our scope of interest and justice. They are invisible. Injustice that would be instantaneously confronted if it occurred to someone in 'our group' is barely noticed if it occurs to strangers or those who are invisible and irrelevant. Those who fall outside 'our group' are easily morally excluded and become demeaned or invisible, so we do not have to acknowledge the injustice they suffer (Winter & Leighton, 1999). 'Consumerism is the drug that causes people to fall into moral sleep and remain silent on all kinds of public matters. As long as their little world of peace and relative prosperity is not disturbed, they are happy not to get involved. It is against this background of consumer complacency that all kinds of moral relaxation can arise . . . . A consumer society is one that is prepared to sacrifice its ethics on the altar of the material 'feel-good' factor' (Benton, 1998).

    Persons living in a consumer society live a comfortable life at the expense of impoverished labourers and fragile ecosystems in other countries. Too often, they conclude that they must arm themselves to protect their commodities and the ongoing access to them. This position justifies war and violence (Cejka, 2003). The 'veil of consumerism' enables them to overlook the connections between consumerism and oppressive regimes (governments, world financial institutions, and transnational corporations) that violate human rights, increase drug trade, and boost military spending (Sankofa, 2003). This disregard is possible because consumerism accentuates and accelerates human fragmentation, isolation, and exclusion for the profit of the few, contributing significantly to violence (Board of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, 1994). Society has ignored the 'new slavery' and the resultant disposable people through ignoring the implications of consumption decisions on third world citizens, the next generation, and those not yet born (Sankofa). ...

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