Consumerism

Stephen Colbert had this guest on last night that was talking about the problems with what consumerism has become. He says that it used to be that products were created in order to feed the needs of consumers. But NOW - things are invented first and the need is developed after. As a result, we've developed a culture of overabundance and excessiveness.

This is definitely something I agree with, although I hadn't even thought about it that way until now. In marketing, we used to do case studies where we would research what needs people had, but by this, they mean needs that people didn't even know they had. Food, consumer electronics, clothes, shoes, etc. Kind of crazy. I wonder what would happen if the economy didn't work that way...