How Did Enlightenment Ideas Contribute To The Growth Of Consumerism

843 Words4 Pages

The growth of consumerism and the Atlantic economy interacted with Enlightenment ideas by helping spread Enlightenment ideas. Enlightenment ideas encouraged change by doubting traditions and standard rules of that current time. Change that came from Enlightenment ideas included educated change, equality change, and reform change. Educated, equality, and reform changes were able to occur because of awareness towards issues that were brought up due to the spread of Enlightenment ideas.

Because of the growth of consumerism and the Atlantic economy the Enlightenment idea of education was able to make educated change come about. Being able to be educated on Enlightenment ideas was made possible through the public sphere. The public sphere was made …show more content…

Equality among the people was made possible from the growth of consumerism and the Atlantic economy which came from the consumer revolution. Due to the transatlantic trade, slavery, and raw materials from colonies the consumer revolution was able to flourish. The effects of slave labor on New World items like sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, chocolate, and textiles was that many nations began to depend on these items making slave labor increase heavily. According to the reading, “A boom in textile production and cheap reproductions of luxury items meant that the common people could afford to follow fashion for the first time” (Wiesner-Hanks et al., 2021, p. 582). Because more people were able to purchase more objects, consumerism grew and increased the comfort and privacy of homes in northwestern Europe and British North America. Enlightenment techniques of observation and experimentation lead to increased crop yields by using different practices and tools. Examples include different types of rotation of crops, equipment that was able to do the job necessary in a more efficient way, and being more thoughtful when it came to animals that they owned and with which of those animals breeding occurred. More equality was seen between people of wealth and people who were less wealthy when it came to what objects or foods they were able to own or