“Once upon a time there was a man who lived in Scarcity. After many adventures and a long journey through Economic Science, he met the Affluent Society. They married and had lots of needs.” (Jean Baudrillard)
Modern people believe they have found the path to happiness after the society they belong to installed signposts pointing in that direction at every intersection. The race for acquiring things, or what sociologists have termed “consumerism”, claims to be the key to the promised land.
As early as 1981, François Brune analysed the promise of happiness delivered in the glossy packaging of advertising in a universe of abundance, where we—or rather our childish side—are kings, invested with discretionary power over our subjects—our possessions. This promised happiness is less related to who we are and more to what we can acquire, so it exists on a scale of artificiality in the realm of fierce hedonism.
At the heart of the consumption process lies depersonalisation: the regression of humans to the status of consumers. The advertising industry contributes significantly to this regression through its reduction strategies, which Brune summarises as follows: frustration, eroticisation, alienation and recovery, and conditioning and infantilisation.[1]
Ten years before Brune, Jean Baudrillard was already talking about the process of transforming human beings into objects, detailing the mechanisms underlying this metamorphosis. According to Baudrillard, it is not production or abundance that defines a developed society, but consumption. Production has exceeded the limits of its role of meeting consumer needs, with the relationship between need and production reversing: consumers must be educated (or “trained”, in the words of the French sociologist) to consume.
The frenzy of needs
One method used to persuade individuals is the fabrication of needs. Another method is to associate purchases with the promise of happiness, thereby overcoming resistance to artificial needs and making people susceptible to the allure of consumption.
Baudrillard believed that happiness is the absolute reference point of a society of abundance.[2] The impact of this happiness myth can only be understood through the lens of another myth, to which the first has become a means of expression: the equality myth. In reality, the egalitarian logic of consumer society—that an increase in the volume of goods produced leads to universal prosperity and the elimination of inequality—has constantly been contradicted by the systematic perpetuation of inequality and, above all, poverty, which coexists with prosperity.
The paradox of prosperous societies is that, while they fail to eliminate inequalities (since any economic growth has unequal effects), they are also not interested in doing so. In fact, inequality and the construction of happiness through comparison of one’s purchasing power with that of others is the very fuel of consumer society.
Ultimately, despite promising happiness, consumerism distances people from it, fundamentally altering the landscape of human relationships: people are surrounded by fewer people, and their relationships with others are less frequent and intense.
Poor rich people
Studies have shown that there may be a relationship between income level and perceived happiness, but it is not linear. On the one hand, income facilitates the purchase of goods and services that make life easier and, according to modern logic, provide an additional sense of satisfaction and perhaps even happiness. However, once the poverty threshold is crossed, happiness does not keep pace with the upward trend in earnings.
Although average income has increased in Europe and the US, the population does not consider itself to be happier than it was three or four decades ago. Psychologists Chris Boyce (University of Warwick) and Simon Moore (Cardiff University) sought to find out why economic growth has not been accompanied by an increase in happiness.
Analysing a sample of 12,000 UK residents, the psychologists observed that a person’s rank in an income-based ranking that includes similar individuals (from the same geographical area, with similar educational backgrounds and ages) is a better predictor of satisfaction than absolute income. In other words, the higher a person ranks among their neighbours and colleagues, the happier they perceive themselves to be, regardless of their actual income level.
Thus, the study offered an explanation for the weak correlation between happiness and absolute economic growth: individual happiness does not necessarily increase with societal progress, as we tend to compare our current well-being not with that of the past, but with that of those around us.
In the context of excessive consumption, need is merely a pretext; the object itself transcends its functional purpose and becomes imbued with symbolic value. In fact, we do not need objects as much as we need to differentiate ourselves from others. Objects are no longer acquired for their usefulness, but for the pleasure of consuming them. They no longer fulfil needs, however artificially created, but convey values and meanings, representing an indicator of our social status.
Nothing is gained without something else being lost. The domination of the material, and therefore the visible, entails sacrificing the invisible. This results in one’s progress occurring at the expense of the Other’s loss. However, eliminating the invisible distances us from humanity, since “love, death, the thirst for knowledge, suffering, and faith in God cannot be transformed into commodities unless we cease to be human”.[3]
The mantra “We are what we have”
The transition from acquiring things out of necessity to wastefully consuming them also signifies a transformation of means into ends. Critics of consumerist society do not reject gratitude for the abundance of the world in which they live nor do they promote asceticism; rather, they denounce consumption as a criterion of social value. The object becomes a badge, eclipsing its functional utility with its quality as a status symbol that differentiates social categories. Toothpaste, phones and cars no longer merely fulfil the usual needs of hygiene, communication or mobility; they are symbols that communicate to the world who we are, even mediating our relationship with ourselves. “We are what we have and the standard of living we can afford.”[4]
The list of status symbols also includes natural resources intended for free use, which modern society has confiscated and returned only to an elite in the form of “new rarities”: free time, clean air, green spaces, and organic produce.
In our efforts to possess and consume these symbols, we spend money and energy, and ultimately consume ourselves in this endless spiral of consumption and the amount of work needed to sustain it. We must periodically rebuild our identities from the ground up under the pressure of the models and standards delivered by the media, in an effort to avoid an implosion of identity. The identity dilemmas and tensions caused by the efficient management of resources in an effort to acquire, show off, keep up, and achieve self-realisation distance the furious consumer from the happiness promised by the advertising industry with such conviction.
From the society of the spectacle to the spectacle of commodities
While Baudrillard was meticulously deciphering the workings of consumer society, Guy Debord was examining its image in his essay The Society of the Spectacle, labelling it a “spectacle society” and providing a critical analysis that was so thorough that no corrections were required in its twelve reissues. The spectacle was not merely an extension of real life; it became “the heart of this real society’s unreality.”[5] Debord notes that, through television-mediated communication, “everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.”[6] Humans no longer experience reality directly; they are merely given the right to contemplate, with all its alienating effects: the more they contemplate, the less they experience. At the same time, their identity undergoes the transformations required by acting roles. They have shifted from being to having, and then to being satisfied with appearances.
Society itself becomes a surrogate for a lost paradise, reconstructed under the banner of abundance, waste, and the euphoria of acquisition. The mall becomes its temple, shopping becomes a form of worship, and an inverted axiological universe emerges. This is the Canaan where milk and honey flow—or rather, its imitation, delivered in the form of promotions, discounts, and offers.
However, since purchasing power is unevenly distributed, not everyone can enjoy the feast of objects and services. Nevertheless, society saves them from asceticism or frustration by offering them consumption by proxy: the media serves up generous slices of the wasteful lifestyles of celebrities, who specialise in living by appearances. The spectacle is an easily marketable commodity, all the more so because it claims to be an eternal premiere.
The meaningful is swallowed up by the spectacular. The achievable replaces the substantial in a world that has more options than it could ever have imagined and can activate them at the touch of a button.[7] While writing this article, I was presented with an advertisement revealing that the only obstacle between the alpha and omega of consumption is “a single click”. Happiness has never been easier to obtain!
Advertising makes us feel that the world is a giant shop window and that happiness is equivalent to having the power to consume its abundant offerings. Essentially, the shop window offers neither happiness nor objects; it sells the pleasure of things, which is received all the more eagerly because, in the modern age, men and women are not bodies anymore—they are skin, as François Brune said.
In this spectacle of compulsive consumption, the body itself becomes a consumable commodity. It must continuously align with standards; it is not permitted to age and is not forgiven for being natural. Beauty is reinvented and subsists under the patronage of the artificial while claiming to have reached the ultimate pinnacle of naturalness: skin radiance is deemed “natural” only when touched by an acclaimed cosmetic product. Consumer society caters to the needs of a style-conscious epidermis from which personality and critical thinking have been removed. It pressures individuals to be different and to distinguish themselves through their purchases, despite belonging to a class of consumers that makes them all similar.
Contrary to the views of most consumerism critics, Gilles Lipovetsky rejects the idea of the dehumanisation and standardisation of consumers, arguing that consumer society has enabled individuals to increase their autonomy. No longer captive to a specific ideology or culture, people can build a lifestyle that propels them towards happiness. We should not demonise hyper-consumerist society just because it cannot fulfil its promise of delivering happiness to human beings, since their aspirations will always transcend the material realm. In fact, Lipovetsky analysed consumer society with the intention of absolving it of some of the accusations made against it, without attempting to exonerate it entirely. He rejects the idea that we have regressed to moral primitivism, arguing that consumer society fosters sociability and relationships based on affection and creativity. Generosity is not excluded either, although it tends to manifest itself according to the rituals of the society of the spectacle. However, the French sociologist acknowledges the illusion of consumer freedom: the freer consumers appear to be in their choice of goods, the more dependent they become on the market that provides them. This is the “profoundly paradoxical condition of the hyperconsumer”.[8]
Mario Vargas Llosa takes the discussion of freedom a step further, emphasising that it has always been founded on culture. As consumer society democratises culture—or rather, the lack of it, as Llosa pessimistically assesses—the landmarks and canons with which high, traditional culture operated dissolve, and confusion triumphs. Llosa rejects Lipovetsky’s idea of increasing individual autonomy, arguing that advertising and the fashion for new cultural products seriously hinder the development of individuals to become capable of independently judging what is desirable and repulsive in consumer society’s offerings (including cultural ones). It is more a matter of acquiring a herd mentality than increasing individual freedom. This is why Llosa playfully stated in an interview that, for him, the civilisation of spectacle is a spectacle without civilisation.
Happiness on demand
Modern society is “haunted by the nightmare of being retrograde (which means falling behind progress)”.[9] This anguish affects the relationship between people and the objects of progress and desire, and causes time to take on meanings other than those we are familiar with. Even the calendar becomes consumerist, with each month punctuated by themes and routes to the Mecca of offers. January is the month of winter sales; February is under the sweet tyranny of Valentine’s Day; March is marked by spring and International Women’s Day; April is taken over by Easter (which has regressed into the “Easter bunny holiday”); May brings a range of mini-break offers for Labour Day; June begins with Children’s Day; July is taken over by holiday offers; August is the month of summer sales; September is marked by back-to-school shopping; October prepares consumers for Halloween; November generously provides Black Friday offers; and December is inextricably linked to Christmas and the rest of the winter holidays. Religious holidays are thus reduced to occasions for festive purchases, which do not align with their original meaning rooted in the immaterial sphere.
People end up living in a time that changes its rhythm and connotations, and objects change their traditional relationship with time. In the realm of consumption, the lifespan of objects is becoming shorter and shorter. In traditional societies, objects were passed down as inheritances from father to son. Today, we witness the birth and death of numerous models of the same product in short intervals of time, through wear and tear or obsolescence. The ideal consumer is oriented towards market novelties and keeps up with the pace of progress. They are forced to enter into a veritable whirlwind of income, purchases, and overwork. The philosophy of deferred payment (“buy now, pay later”) strengthens the basis of consumption by separating the joy of possession from the responsibility of paying for goods.
Conversely, failing to keep up with progress removes individuals from the present, casting them into an archaic past. Credit claims to be the solution to enjoying a comfortable present and reaping the benefits of technological progress. However, it alters our relationship with time by making us spend that which does not yet exist. Total consumers pawn their existence, imagining their future in pastel shades, to justify the boldness of borrowing. They are caught between the happiness of consumption and the tension of future payment deadlines.
What will not be said in an advertisement
The harmful effects of consumerism, such as chronic consumer dissatisfaction, using shopping as a form of “therapy” for depression or loneliness, the burden of financial debt, contributing to the consolidation of modern slavery, the diminishing role of family and social ties, neglecting spirituality, and irresponsibly managing natural resources, have attracted criticism and a shift in theoretical and behavioural paradigms.
Theoretical models that marginalise production have emerged, proposing concepts based on ecological economics instead. The theory of degrowth, for example, advocates slowing down production and consumption, and promotes a non-consumerist model that counteracts social inequality and environmental degradation. These anti-consumerist models aim to maximise individual happiness and well-being by focusing on non-economic factors such as leisure time, family, and social relationships.
A 2008 study by Elizabeth W. Dunn, Lara B. Aknin, and Michael I. Norton suggests that being generous with material possessions can lead to increased happiness, even when such spending represents only a small proportion of one’s personal expenses. Other studies highlight the role of close relationships[10], gratitude, and religiousness as drivers of a happy life. A consumption-centred existence fails to decipher the mechanisms of happiness amidst the tensions created by the struggle for increased purchasing power, social comparison, or a fragile identity subject to seismic shifts in commercial models.
The idea that the correlation between happiness and material well-being is fragile is not only found in psychological or sociological studies, but has also crept into fairy tales through popular wisdom.
One story tells of a princess who was immune to happiness and asked for the shoes of the happiest child in the kingdom to be brought to her, hoping that they might convey some of the wearer’s spiritual well-being to her. Since happiness does not lurk around every street corner, even in kingdoms with enormous GDPs, the princess’s subjects had to search far and wide. Months later, the princess received the good news she had been waiting for. The child whom the soldiers had scoured the kingdom for had been found, but the antidote to unhappiness had not. The happiest child in the kingdom had no shoes. Sometimes, happiness walks barefoot even though it would welcome the comfort of a shoe.
Experience shows us that happiness can blossom even in seemingly hostile circumstances. People like Nick Vujicic, who was born with Tetra-Amelia syndrome, have taught us that happiness is possible even when you are born without arms or legs. This is because happiness does not only mean an existence free from troubles or material worries, but is instead found in the names and fragments of lives that make up our identity. It can take many forms, revealing the familiar beauty of the same essence in different sizes, like the famous Matryoshka doll.
