There is one fundamental hoax that should be set straight for once and for all.

Global society does NOT suffer from "Consumerism",

it is suffering " Productionism ".

Consumerism is the distracting term that they use to make one think that it is the people who have this WANT or NEED to consume stuff and that for that reason Industry makes the effort to produce and innovate. This is absolutely misleading. In fact, it is exactly the other way around.

It is Large Industry that explicitely, implicitely, consciously and sub-consciously strives to impose, force or at least raise this want/need to consume upon the people without ceasing, be it to have us buy a specific product or just to "have us buying". The Corporations bombard us continuously with explicit and subliminal messages. The individual messages may tell us we want/need a specific product, but all messages together tell us we want/need to buy at least something! Any time, any place, anywhere.

And even if you (think you) are avoiding most publicity and other manipulative messages or consider you are not sensitive to them, don't forget that ALL people around you also receive those same efforts of manipulation and could very well be passing it on to you anyway, without either one being aware of it.

Now the concept is very simple, but their ways are elaborated and the implications are huge!

Profit, profit, profit

The three main concerns of Corporations/Large Industry/those "Markets".

What do Corporations NEED to obtain that profit they so yearn for?

They need you and me and everybody to always buy as much and as frequent as possible.

In other words it is THEY who actually NEED something, and they need it from us. They need us to buy and if we don't do so by our own initiative, they'll do everything within their means to MAKE us buy. How do they MAKE us consume?

It would need an independent website to expose the full range of investigations, inquiries, strategies, tactics, systems, methods, models, plans, ideas, concepts, calculations, creations, etcetera put to work by the Corporations just to MAKE us consume (which has a far wider meaning than just "buy"!). They actually go through real profound efforts, because, on top of everything, they want to do it in a way that we won't be (too) aware that they MADE us consume and actually try to manipulate us into thinking we WANTED to ourselves. That's why for example they don't just tell you that their hamburger or their cola tastes good or other objective and factual information, no, they invent and create a whole life-style "experience" around it that YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE.

This "experience" always includes either happiness, friends, happy family, having succes, getting/having sex or being "cool"/young/loved/beautiful/attractive/special/popular in some way. All fake of course, but it does seem to work. Legions of psychologists, sociologists, scientists and publicist join together in huge teams to determine (y)our deepest psycological needs, desires and emotions (be loved, feel attractive, sexy, that kind of stuff) to then find the strongest but sneakiest association with their products and brands. This way they can simply promise you that "experience", instead of having to talk about how much fat is in their hamburger, how much sugar in their cola or that this car has got four wheels.

So then on one hand they over-expose us to their publicity, comercials and advertisments as the open and, in fact, sincere expression of the Corporations that THEY WANT/NEED YOU to buy their products and brands (consume, spend your money on, generate income for them). On the other hand they apply a bunch of subliminal, not so open and sincere expressions, some of which give rise to authentic conspiracy-like theories that may or not be true, while others are better known, like the use of specific products, brands or logos in tv-shows, movies, sport and music events. But it doesn't stop there. Also through the settings they already determinate a certain pre-disposition. The happy family homes in certain series, the decoration, the generalized overvaluation of beauty, success, luxury, white teeth, large breasts, big house, slick cars, exotic travel... They are all expression of one and the same message: first make a lot of money, next spend it on fashionable stuff and then (if you play their game) show it off, so you engage as many people around you! Fashion, design and luxury are the most sensible goods to this mutual influence amongst people.

The initial "NEED" lies with the Corporations

Corporations WANT to make as much profit as possible, so they NEED to sell as much as possible. But then, they do not simply produce as much as they sell, no, they want to sell as much as they can produce. And here is where the cycle starts that completely determines modern society: Corporations' insatiable "NEED" to sell as much as they can produce.

Ergo: Productionism!

A comparable view by Rupert Read can be found at oneworldcolumn, he calls it Producerism: "I say that ‘consumerism’ is a piece of false consciousness, and indeed a tool for our continued and growing enslavement. The real push for us to be ‘consumers’ comes from producers. It is producers who need to sell us stuff, in order to profit – and the most effective way that they can do is to artificially create in us ever-growing ‘needs’."

May it be clear that all this insatiable NEED to sell as much as possible, to have as much PROFIT as possible, this OBSESSION, increases exponentially due to the existence of Tax Havens. They worsen this obsession in several ways:

To begin with, the possibility to hide the money, obviously stimulates the GREED of the already greedy Financial Pirates. It also stimulates the existence of more additional Financial Pirates, for all the work this hiding of money generates.

So it delivers a bigger number of Financial Pirates, who each, individually, are more greedy. Next, this hidden money is then used to bribe and lead to Corruption politicians, law-makers, law-enforcement, lawyers, lobbyists and some of those few corporate directors, that still might have some sense of ethics and initially would not pass certain limits.

This increases even more the possibilities and the power in favor of the corporations. Finally, the hidden black money on the Treasure Islands also gives them more capacity to manipulate the masses (publicity, MSM) or to buy out smaller competition to increase their monopoly in certain countries or in certain business sectors. Ah no, yet another point is that governments have less money to invest in infrastructure or services for their country and their people, which increases the need for privatization, while, at the same time, they stand weaker against the corporate empires.

Without the existence of the Treasure Islands, worldwide production-need/greed might be expected to drop as much as by half in only ten years, just because the hassle is not worth while anymore for a great number of those Financial Pirates, who might just have to start looking for a real job (that is: having at least some added value for society as a whole).

Great documentary, although it's title should be:

Consumed - Is our PRODUCTIONIST culture leading to disaster?

Another great documentary from "Big Ideas that changed the world"

But the title should have been: Productionism (not 'consumerism') in four parts:

Additional references