C is for Consumerism

"Consumerism" (an awkward word) signaled a sort of liberation movement. It encouraged people to use their "purchasing power" (the main discovery of consumerism) as leverage against the power of manufacturers and retailers, who otherwise could decide unilaterally what products are available in the marketplace and on what terms. "Buyers can have any color they wish, so long as it's black," said Henry Ford. Consumerism replied, if Detroit does not make the small, efficient or long-lasting car you want, then buy Japanese. If the salespeople at hardware store A are not helpful, buy your tools at hardware store B. If the new department store has lower prices, shop there until the old one lowers its prices. By the lever of purchasing power, rotating about the fulcrum of choice, even the mighty manufacturers can be moved.

True, consumerism was not a high-minded and dangerous liberation, as were the American civil rights movement or the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, which fought against legal oppression, police violence and political disenfranchisement. Consumerism is probably self-centered, without concern for the community. It tends to be adversarial rather than friendly. It discourages loyalty, for example, to American auto workers and to the owner of the local store, who volunteers at the Rotary and teaches Sunday School.

American companies, against whom consumerism was deployed, have readily adapted to this new reality. They have learned to be in fact pro-active, using sophisticated marketing surveys to learn what people will buy before a product is designed, so that when it is made and marketed, it will be exactly what people want and they will buy it. A fantasy come true for the buyer. "Tell us what you want so we can make it for you" scarcely differs from "Your wish is our command." This kind of obeisance could go to our heads. Whether this is viewed negatively as pandering, or positively as being responsive, it is omnipresent. The result is more choices and we are glad (except, perhaps, when 24 kinds of Crest toothpaste, or eight permutations of Pepsi ingredients make choosing a chore).

Yet having multiple choices is only one good among others. It might be better for the community's well-being for its members to patronize locally owned businesses, even if their variety is less or prices higher. And we (excepting hard-core free marketeers) do not want consumer "pressure" to be the only force on manufacturers, so that in their efforts to lower prices they damage the environment, risk workers' well-being and produce unsafe goods. We, exceptions excluded, want the government to regulate the market.

Since buying, advertising, marketing and shopping consume a large part of our lives, consumeristic thinking has become a habit, has indeed "gone to our heads." We suppose that, since we are free to buy what we like or not at all, commercial interests should supply us what we want. This is the stance that commercial interests encourage us to take. Could this habit of thought be so ingrained that we carry it over to other, non-economic areas of life where it could be a problem? For example, it might be good for a young woman to have a consumer's choice of several suitors, among whom she will quite normally choose the one that offers her most, according to what she thinks "most" is. Fine. But once married, suppose she gets an even better offer? There consumerism should end. Or as a father, I try to be responsive to my children. But what if I hesitate to discipline them, fearing their "consumeristic" response of taking their business (affection) to my wife? Or, conversely, what if I think of myself as the consumer of my children's affection, and "patronize" the child that I like better?

In fact we have carried this consumeristic thinking into other arenas of life. This approach is part of our partisan politics. Both parties have the most sophisticated ways of understanding what voters want, so that they can put forward candidates who approximate that appetite (so that they will be elected) and at the same time carry the party's coalition of values pertaining to policy (so that, once elected, they can do the party's will). At the same time, the policies themselves are "packaged" or "styled" to sound good to voters. (This is essential democracy. The theory is that elected officers are to represent the will of the people, on the faith that what is best for the people they themselves know best. Or at least, where they err, they can learn from bitter experience and not elect, for example, Joe McCarthy again.)

Even medicine, that profession that seems to have maintained its dignity and its professional independence from public will much longer than the bar or the ministry has done, is being consumerized by preferred-provider negotiations on price. Also, the previously illegal and immoral direct advertising of drugs to the public is well underway. Again, for-profit medical corporations are erecting hospitals as competitors to existing ones, where communities do not need more beds, in cut-throat competition.

This is the culture in which the Church of Jesus Christ in America finds itself. How is it affected thereby?