Consumption is necessary for capitalism, the way you accumulate wealth is by selling goods and services for profit. Many recessions are caused by production overshooting consumption which leads to people being fired to lower production, which lowers consumption… Most of the evaluation of companies and thus the wealth of billionaires is based on consumption increasing. If it were to ever go down in a meaningful way then production would to, and thus the GDP and the billionaires slice of it.
There are other forms of accumulation besides the capitalist mode, eg. Fighting and conquering your neighbors in a feudal system, but I don’t think musk and bezos want to bet there fortunes on there military acumen and they probably prefer this current system.
I think the whole avocado toast thing was way overblown. It was maybe one cnbc article and a cable news segment but the memes and media against it far outnumber the articles that supported it.
I’ve seen far more media supporting consumption of avocado toast, both social media and advertising, then media telling you to stop consuming avocado toast. We have just gotten so used to “tuning” out advertising that we don’t notice it, meanwhile an article shaming you for consuming is far more likely to get a reaction and make you remember it.
If capitalists didn’t value the accumulation of wealth over consumption, they’d be in favor of wage increases. If they really did want us to consume more, they’d let us have more money to spend, knowing it’s going back into their pockets.
This is also colored by my experiences being homeless when the avocado toast thing was going around. I didn’t have regular internet access, so I don’t remember seeing the memes and media against it, but I do remember how regular society grabbed onto it and ran. I remember hearing avocado toast jokes about me from the people behind me in line when I was using food stamps, and that just strikes me as something that wouldn’t happen if the ruling class actually valued consumption.
The tension between a capitalist wanting lower wages and more consumption is a contradiction at the heart of capitalism. It’s one of the reasons Marx thought it was bound to destroy itself. One resolution to this contradiction is debt, get people buying everything on credit cards and you won’t have to raise wages to keep consumption up. This is why the economy has kept growing while wages have stagnated, credit card debt has boomed recently.
There are many contradictions in capitalism, another is that workers want higher wages, but also want cheaper products. If wages do increase then the price of products increase as well and we get inflation. These contradictions lead to the instability of capitalism and require the state to step in and mediate them otherwise the system oscillates wildly between booms, busts, inflation, deflation etc.
Sorry to hear about your situation. I understand how that sort of rhetoric can kick you while your down and stick with you a lot more. Blaming poverty on the impoverished is always disgusting.
Consumption is necessary for capitalism, the way you accumulate wealth is by selling goods and services for profit. Many recessions are caused by production overshooting consumption which leads to people being fired to lower production, which lowers consumption… Most of the evaluation of companies and thus the wealth of billionaires is based on consumption increasing. If it were to ever go down in a meaningful way then production would to, and thus the GDP and the billionaires slice of it.
There are other forms of accumulation besides the capitalist mode, eg. Fighting and conquering your neighbors in a feudal system, but I don’t think musk and bezos want to bet there fortunes on there military acumen and they probably prefer this current system.
I think the whole avocado toast thing was way overblown. It was maybe one cnbc article and a cable news segment but the memes and media against it far outnumber the articles that supported it.
I’ve seen far more media supporting consumption of avocado toast, both social media and advertising, then media telling you to stop consuming avocado toast. We have just gotten so used to “tuning” out advertising that we don’t notice it, meanwhile an article shaming you for consuming is far more likely to get a reaction and make you remember it.
If capitalists didn’t value the accumulation of wealth over consumption, they’d be in favor of wage increases. If they really did want us to consume more, they’d let us have more money to spend, knowing it’s going back into their pockets.
This is also colored by my experiences being homeless when the avocado toast thing was going around. I didn’t have regular internet access, so I don’t remember seeing the memes and media against it, but I do remember how regular society grabbed onto it and ran. I remember hearing avocado toast jokes about me from the people behind me in line when I was using food stamps, and that just strikes me as something that wouldn’t happen if the ruling class actually valued consumption.
The tension between a capitalist wanting lower wages and more consumption is a contradiction at the heart of capitalism. It’s one of the reasons Marx thought it was bound to destroy itself. One resolution to this contradiction is debt, get people buying everything on credit cards and you won’t have to raise wages to keep consumption up. This is why the economy has kept growing while wages have stagnated, credit card debt has boomed recently.
There are many contradictions in capitalism, another is that workers want higher wages, but also want cheaper products. If wages do increase then the price of products increase as well and we get inflation. These contradictions lead to the instability of capitalism and require the state to step in and mediate them otherwise the system oscillates wildly between booms, busts, inflation, deflation etc.
Sorry to hear about your situation. I understand how that sort of rhetoric can kick you while your down and stick with you a lot more. Blaming poverty on the impoverished is always disgusting.