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Summary Of In Defense Of Consumerism

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Consumerism Vs Minimalism

Have you ever been enjoying some quality time with your family while watching a television show and a commercial comes on displaying the newest and grandest toy? Then, all of a sudden, your child erupts exclaiming that they absolutely must have it! That is advertising at its best. After reading Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.’s essay “In Defense of Consumerism,” one might be enticed to believe that all people in fact do want or need the things that the market is saying that they do. He says that “we want better heating and cooling in our homes and businesses. We want more varieties of food, wine, cleaning products, toothpaste, and razors” (615). While that very well may be true, the question then becomes, do we need these …show more content…

This play on people’s thoughts and emotions will continue to divide our society between the haves and the have nots. Not everyone can afford those things that the market is advertising. Nonetheless, they will continue to see the latest ads, and their feelings of inadequacy will increase until they turn to committing criminal acts in order to get what they want. I am not saying that consumerism leads everyone to commit a criminal act. However, it is a known fact that the prisons are full of people who have resorted to selling drugs or stealing in order to get that new car or house. They have long felt the division in society and feel as though society has let them down. While there are no sure fire methods of preventing crimes, it is possible to deter some of them. Wilbert Rideau in his essay “Why Prisons Don’t Work” says, “the only effective way to curb crime is for society to work to prevent the criminal act in the first place, to come between the perpetrator and crime” (187). Is this to say that if we remove all the ads from television, magazines and billboards that there will no longer be any crime? Not likely! There will always be that drive in some people to take what doesn’t belong to

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