For years, it seems, we all have been groomed to think of ourselves as consumers. Spokespeople often speak of the government’s support for the “consumer”, the “consuming public”, “consumer rights” and so on. There are innumerable “consumer reports”, and “bureaus” “agencies”, and “departments”, both private and governmental, geared to promoting and supporting consumers in our pursuit of never-ending consumption. ”Consumer spending” is what drives modern economies and is the raison d’être for the corporations and businesses that produce the products we consume. One of the main tools used to engender and maintain such a system is, of course, advertising, an industry that is expected to exceed over six hundred billion dollars in revenues by 2024. Advertising and its demands permeate virtually every aspect of our lives; in all formats the average person sees over 3,000 advertisements each day. (In 1970, we saw less than 400, and if that’s progress I’ll eat my Heisenberg pork-pie!) Without consumers reliably buying the goods and services produced by our globalized, industrial system, economies around the world would collapse in a matter of months, if not weeks.
But he begins with first principles: He visits with the Gǂkao (“Gitkao”) people of South-West Africa, known more commonly as the Bushmen of the Kalahari. He goes there to understand how such a society functions with so few connections and products from the globalized network of commerce that surrounds their tribal lands. The first thing MacKinnon notices in the Bushman village is how few possessions each person has; the few common items most share are tool kits and hunting gear, and his first thought is how impoverished these people are, the occasional Nike jersey or NBA ball cap only adding to his view of a people in terminal decline. But, as you might guess, a society that has existed for as long as the Gitkao might have a thing or two to teach us about resiliency and survival. One point I’ll mention here, that MacKinnon expands upon in later chapters, is the Bushmen’s sense of sharing: sharing their food, tools, their time, and this trait is the bedrock of their society’s cohesiveness and ability to sustain itself. Another trait is one he calls “enoughness”, a word that doesn’t appear in my copy of the OED (but should). Enoughness suggests the belief, the feeling that one has "enough" of whatever is being considered, and there is no need to acquire more. This important attribute, MacKinnon suggests, might allow radical, new possibilities for reordering our consumerist societies, and to develop more healthy lifestyles and goals in the future. Of course, the threat of consumer-oriented societies operating within an economic system (capitalism) whose underlying principle dictates that it must grow forever in order to thrive and survive, is a grave one. Such a system, one created for infinite growth on a finite planet, is an existential threat to our species, perhaps exceeded only by the threat of nuclear war.
MacKinnon’s book is a journalistic examination of societies and cultures around the world, conducted through interviews with academics, farmers, “intentional community” residents, trades and business people. He looks at modern examples like Finland and Russia that have experienced societal collapse and rapid declines in living standards and GDP, as well as examining hyper-capitalist cities and enclaves that continue to grow in leaps and bounds, asking each person he interviews the same questions: What if shopping stopped? What would you do, as a politician, an entrepreneur? What would the world be like if shopping were to decrease 25% globally? (He uses this percentage in his interviews to suggest gradualism to his otherwise conversation-stopping question: “What if all shopping were to cease?”)
As he was writing his book, the world-wide pandemic of 2020 gave MacKinnon important data points about the effects of sudden demand destruction for most of the world’s goods and services. One example, the effects on the climate, pollution, air quality and so on, were evident within weeks following the shuttering of the world’s factories and industries. The amount of carbon pollution excreted into the atmosphere (the main contributor for the rise in global temperatures) decreased by a staggering 15% over 2020. Many of the countries that signed the 2015 Paris Climate Accords patted themselves on the back for how easily they met, even exceeded, their annual carbon-reduction commitments, a victory that was a temporary one, as businesses soon began to gear-up and re-orientate their production to satisfy the needs of consumers once more.
His book explores the psychology of our “attachment to things”, and for me this was one of the more interesting sections, examining what it means to be "a shopper" in terms of our relationships with each other and the world around us. Here he outlines how the Industrial Revolution and particularly the growth of “mass production” industries in the Twentieth Century drove the consumption of goods and services that were more easily and cheaply manufactured than in the past (of course, ignoring costly “externalities” of resource depletion, pollution, etc.*.)
He looks at
such concepts as “deconsumption” and “non-commercial time", things that can enhance
and enrich our lives. “Non-commercial time", for example, is time spent NOT acquiring
things—the Gitkao people live most of their lives this way—and MacKinnon
posits that such time is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the
time by which most of our lives are governed. And it is time well spent.
In his epilogue, MacKinnon offers some suggestions about creating a world that stops shopping. One idea is not new, but it is seen here in a clearer light than is normally the case: Governments can effect changes to how we shop, slowing it down, making it count, if (in one example he provides) the "externality costs" are factored into the price of quick-made, modern consumer goods. The price should reflect the entire life cycle costs of an item, say a shirt, with its carbon footprint, water pollution, air pollution, health effects on workers, and a range of other costs factored into its sale price, costs that most industries have long foisted off onto society and the environment. On the other hand, ethically made shirts (there are some) would not be levied the additional taxes because their product does not pollute, has a low carbon footprint, etc. Furthermore, favourable tax incentives could allow firms that practice ethical manufacture to compete more evenly against firms which do not. Given the choice, and costs, of buying a new shirt, we might decide to make do with our old one a little while longer.
So, it can be done; practical and effective changes can be made at the governmental level--if there is the political will to do so.
The Day the World Stops Shopping is thought-provoking and offers a vision of hope and change that emerges from the most unlikely places. Buy this book. (Or better yet, share it!)
Cheers, Jake.
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*One of the most egregious examples of pollution is, of course, waste, simply not using what we have, and throwing away what we don’t want, or can’t use. With online shopping increasingly taking up the slack to address shortfalls in spending wrought by the pandemic, this example of waste speaks for itself.
**MacKinnon notes that societies with a greater income disparity have a correspondingly greater level of discretionary spending. In other words, more goods are made available to be purchased by those who have more disposable income. In more egalitarian societies, less is spent on such goods. These societies shop less.
Higgs, Kerryn. How the World Embraced Consumerism”. BBC Future online article. January 20, 2021.
MacKinnon, J.B. The Day the World Stops Shopping. Random House Canada, Toronto. 2021.
Van Praet, Douglas. “How Your Brain Forces You to Watch Ads”. Psychology Today online article. Oct. 30, 2014.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/236943/global-advertising-spending/
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