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I think he was trying to get us to focus on not being called consumers first. Personally, I agree, it's an assumption that puts too much power in corporate hand

I think he was trying to get us to focus on not being called consumers first. Personally, I agree, it's an assumption that puts too much power in corporate hands. I agree with you as well, though, that it would require quite a large change for us to stop being consumers.

potatolicious 16y ago
I think he has conflated two words: "consumer" and "buyer" - he doesn't seem too concerned with consumption as he is with buying things. We are all consumers - I eat 3 square meals a day, I burn some amount of fuel to keep myself warm, and I breathe an awfully large amount of air. The author here doesn't seem too concerned with whether this consumption is excessive, though. Whether or not we start producing more of what we consume, or we go back to a barter economy (which, if you'd pardon the bluntness, is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard recently) doesn't change our level of consumption, so his real problem is with buying crap. So let's not confuse the two terms.
- shpxnvz 16y ago
  But we are also producers; most of us have to be in order to acquire money with which to purchase goods to consume. His point, initially at least, was that choosing to label ourselves as consumers leads to a discussion framed in terms of that behavior, at the expense of really evaluating all our options.
wdewind 16y ago
Well it's probably not good to not call us consumers if that's what we are doing. I'm a big believer in being honest and trying to be happy with your lifestyle, not repressing the truth to find happiness. As for the comment about us being producers, while partially true the ratio between what you produce and what you consume is much more arbitrary than it should be. So we all sort of have to produce, but few do it in sync with the amount they consume (not pointing fingers or saying I do - I definitely don't).

potatolicious 16y ago

I think he has conflated two words: "consumer" and "buyer" - he doesn't seem too concerned with consumption as he is with buying things. We are all consumers - I eat 3 square meals a day, I burn some amount of fuel to keep myself warm, and I breathe an awfully large amount of air. The author here doesn't seem too concerned with whether this consumption is excessive, though. Whether or not we start producing more of what we consume, or we go back to a barter economy (which, if you'd pardon the bluntness, is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard recently) doesn't change our level of consumption, so his real problem is with buying crap. So let's not confuse the two terms.

shpxnvz 16y ago
But we are also producers; most of us have to be in order to acquire money with which to purchase goods to consume. His point, initially at least, was that choosing to label ourselves as consumers leads to a discussion framed in terms of that behavior, at the expense of really evaluating all our options.

wdewind 16y ago

Well it's probably not good to not call us consumers if that's what we are doing. I'm a big believer in being honest and trying to be happy with your lifestyle, not repressing the truth to find happiness. As for the comment about us being producers, while partially true the ratio between what you produce and what you consume is much more arbitrary than it should be. So we all sort of have to produce, but few do it in sync with the amount they consume (not pointing fingers or saying I do - I definitely don't).