As Galbraith's Argument Essay On Wealth

Valerie Valdez

AP English

Period:4

3/4/17

The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den. Men remain free to rise or fall in the world, and if they fail it must be because they willed it so. The visible signs of wealth testify to an inward state of grace, and without at least some of the talismans posted in one’s house or on one’s person an American loses all hope of demonstrating to himself the theorem of happiness. Seeing is believing, and if an American success is to count for anything in the world it must be clothed in the raiment of property. As often as not it isn’t the money

Advertising and the sales create a desired want within people, which makes them “consume” more, because their wants were created by the companies that prey on people and their insecurities. “As often as not it isn’t the money itself that means anything; it is the use of money as the currency of the soul” As Galbraith explains in his article Companies target people in order to have them purchase unnecessary things to fill a void with in themselves or to feel a momentary sense of joy from someone else. “The higher level of production has, merely, a high level of want creation necessitating a higher level of want satisfaction There will be frequent occasion to refer to the way wants depend on the process by which they are satisfied. It will be convenient to call it the Dependence

In his article “waste” Berry speaks of the aftermath of consumerism and how in his past he would see trash, old materialistic things that use to be “new” materialistic things. People buy, buy and buy things then once they lose their worth or the user don’t see the need for the item anymore it is discarded, most times not in the way it supposed to. I confess that I am angry at the manufacturers who make these things.” There are days when I would be delighted if certain corporation executives could somehow be obliged to eat their products. I know of no good reason why these containers and all other forms of manufactured “waste” solid, liquid, toxic, or whatever should not be outlawed. But our waste problem is not the fault only of producers. It is the fault of an economy that is wasteful from top to bottom a symbiosis of an unlimited greed at the top and a lazy, passive, and self-indulgent consumptiveness at the bottom and all of us are involved in it. If we wish to correct this economy, we must be careful to understand and to demonstrate how much waste of human life is involved in our waste of the material goods of