Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 258

A further aspect of modern consumerism is its pleasurable aspect. But why is it pleasurable? Some have argued that the pleasure of consumerism lies not in the use of products but in the anticipation of purchasing them. Colin Campbell (1992) argues that this is the most pleasurable part of the process – the wanting, the longing after, the seeking out and desiring of products, not the use of them. It is a ‘romantic ethic’ of consumption based on desire and longing. Marketing of products and services draws on this anticipatory consumerism in seductive ways to create and intensify people’s desires. That is why we keep going back for more and are never truly satisfied.

From an environmental perspective, the ‘romantic ethic’ of consumerism is disastrous. We constantly demand new products and more of them. That means more production, so the cycle of mass production and mass consumption continues to churn out pollution and wastes natural resources. At the input side of production, natural resources are used up in enormous quantities, and, at the output end in consumption, people throw away useful things not because they are use-less, but because they are no longer in fashion or fail to represent their status aspirations.

The sociology of consumption shows us that the combination of industrialization, capitalism and consumerism has transformed society–environment relations. Many environmentalists and more than a few social and natural scientists have concluded that continuous economic growth cannot carry on indefinitely. The resulting pollution might have been ecologically insignificant if it had been restricted to a small part of the global human population. However, when industrialization spreads across the planet, when a majority of people live in huge cities, and when capitalist companies become multinational and consumerism seduces people in all countries, then the natural environment’s capacity for recovery and resilience becomes severely weakened.

Although the rich are the world’s main consumers, the environmental damage caused by growing levels of consumption has the heaviest impact on the poor. As we saw in our discussion of global warming, the wealthy are in a better position to enjoy the many benefits of consumption while avoiding its negative effects. At the local level, affluent groups can usually afford to move away from problem areas, leaving the poor to bear the costs. Chemical plants, power stations, major roads, railways and airports are often sited close to low-income areas, and on a global level we can see a similar process at work: soil degradation, deforestation, water shortages, lead emissions and air pollution are all increasingly concentrated within the developing world. What is needed is a perspective which connects the developed and developing countries within a single project, and sustainable development aims to do exactly that.