Quotes About Consumerism

Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft.

We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think.

the growing materialism of our societies. This materialism informs political discourse at every level, making wealth and its distribution the only issue that is discussed for long. As a result, people think of conservatism merely as a form of complacency towards the current system of material rewards, which has nothing whatever to say about the things that 'money can't buy', or about the effect of the consumer society on our deeper values. Yet

Something new seems to be at work in the contemporary world - a process that is eating away the very heart of social life, not merely by putting salesmanship in place of moral virtue, but by putting everything - virtue included - on sale.

The cultural work done in the past by gods and epic sagas is now done by laundry-detergent commercials and comic-strip character

As a general rule, desire is always marketable: we don't do anything but sell, buy, exchange desires. . . . And I think of Bloy's words: "there is nothing perfectly beautiful except what is invisible and above all unbuyable.

Sexuality is not meant to be this way - an honest, consensual expression in which a girl might take an active role when she feels good and ready and not one minute before. No. Sexual desire is meant to sell soap. And cars. And beer. And religion.

Brought to you by The Corporation: In your homes and in your pants.

Feast for the Fisherman, the ultimate emo band. Said to be sold with a complimentary prescription for antidepressants and a free flatiron.

New Maxi-Pad Pets. Accessories for your period. Brought to you by The Corporation: In your homes and in your pants.

She didn't really understand. Few people did. Sex sold everything. It was in every advertisement, song, and Hollywood movie. Who was the freak who didn't want to make love?

One of society's absurd delusions is that the spending of money can cure something.

In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one's physical needs.

Aiming at giving our kids a competitive edge in a consumer society - that, in principle, is a goal that is limitless.

The present generation has been born into a throwaway society of consumers in which both goods and young people are increasingly objectified and disposable.

A consumer society is about simplfying and degrading the consumer as well as the product.

Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive - and at the same time publicity is its dream.

We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.

The model of ownership, in a society organized round mass consumption, is addiction.

They Want You To Be A Docile Apathetic Consumer

Propaganda in the ordinary sense of the term plays a less important part in a consumer society, where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion.

The engine of ancient society was religion but the engine of contemporary society, as I see it, is advertising.

People are very narcissistic. It's not all their fault. We live in a society where there is a magazine for you, a channel for you, a perfume for you.

Look, I can surely say by now that I've got the antibodies to communism inside me. But when I think of consumer society, with all its tragedies, I wonder which of the two systems is better.