Simply put, consumerism describes the growing desire and need for goods and services. The interesting thing is that all the greatest examples are around us, but not everyone realizes it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay A huge example is the huge number of convenience stores that are open 24/7. Decades ago they were virtually non-existent. But as people feel the need to consume and shop until the wee hours of the morning, these stores have sprouted like mushrooms across the country, so much so that you probably couldn't imagine life without the 7-11 around the corner. Looking at the way people shop can also be attributed to consumerism. You used to need cash in your pocket every time you needed to make a purchase. Then, when people found a greater need to purchase things, credit cards entered the scene. Now you can purchase products and pay for services without having to use cash! But this doesn't end here. Now you also have tools like PayPal or Bitcoin that are as good as money. This evolution of payment schemes makes it clear that people are finding better ways to pay more, simply because they buy more. The consumer society became prominent in the 17th century and increased throughout the 18th century. While some argue that the change has been driven by the growing middle class adopting new ideas about luxury consumption. Many critics argue that consumerism was a social and economic necessity for the reproduction of capitalist competition for markets and was important for making profits. While others highlight the growing political strength of the international working class. The more positive, middle class, argued that this revolution welcomed the growth of the construction of huge country estates designed primarily to provide maximum comfort and the greater availability of luxury goods aimed at a growing market. This included tobacco, sugar, coffee and tea. These were increasingly grown on huge plantations in the Caribbean as demand steadily increased. These trends were greatly increased in the 18th century, as growing wealth and social mobility increased the number of people with ample income to devote to consumption. Ceramic inventor and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood noted the way in which aristocratic fashions, subject to periodic changes in direction, slowly declined in society. It enhanced the use of marketing techniques to influence and change the direction of prevailing tastes and preferences to ensure that goods were accepted among the wealthy. It was only a matter of time before its assets were quickly purchased by the middle class as well. Other manufacturers began to follow his example and began to make profits. There can be no consumption without production. If a population consumes more than it produces, this is ultimately unsustainable. Consumption represents 70% of the US economy. One day all this will collapse. Consumer culture isn't just about buying things you want. It's about convincing yourself that you need things that you don't necessarily need or want and encouraging you to spend money on these things, sometimes even when you can't afford them. This is a bizarre way of structuring production: make things, get people to buy them, so you can produce more things to get people to buy. A culture more interested in growth, development and improvement than superficial validation and gratification.