We buy a lot of stuff

About 60 percent of the world economy is made up of the stuff people buy every day (private consumer spending). Every year we buy stuff worth 44 trillion USD or 1.4 million USD per second.

What do we buy?

Basically, we buy three different types of consumer goods: durable goods (like cars), nondurable goods (food & drinks) and services (like haircuts). 

The most popular consumer goods in history are: 

1. Coca-Cola
2. Lay’s Chips
3. Sony PlayStation
4. The iPad
5. Star Wars tickets
6. Toyota Corolla
7. Angry Birds game
8. Rubik’s Cube
9. Michael Jackson “Thriller” album
10. Harry Potter books

Largest consumer goods companies

So who is producing all these products we buy? 

The largest consumer companies are: 

1. Nestle (Swiss transnational food and drink company)
2. Procter & Gamble (American consumer goods corporation)
3. PepsiCo (American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation)
4. Unilever (Dutch-British transnational consumer goods company)
5. JBS SA (Brazilian meat processing company)
6. Coca Cola Company (American multinational beverage corporation)
7. AB Inbev (Belgian–Brazilian beverage and brewing company)
8. Tyson Foods (American multinational food corporation)
9. Mondelez (American multinational confectionery, food, and beverage)
10. L'Oreal (French cosmetics company)

Major countries of the consumer society

The largest consumer markets are the US, China, Japan, Germany and the UK making up about half of the global consumer economy. The US consumer market alone makes up almost 29 % of global consumer spending. 

Consumption as the way of life?

As a results of the developments of the consumer society economist Victor Lebow stated in 1955: 

"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate".

Is this really what it‘s all about? Consumption as the way of life? No. Consumption is not, or should not be, the way of life. The global consumer economy is not sustainable - especially with more than 2 billion more people joining the consumer class by 2030. 

Last chance for humanity

According to the American ecologist, professor Jared Diamond, we have one generation to save the Earth’s ecosystems from collapse. We are approaching a tipping point beyond which it will be impossible to restore the damage done.

50/50 chance to save the planet

Mr Diamond predicts Earth will reach the tipping point no later than 2050 and gives humanity a 50 % chance of success. Or 51 % to be precise. He likes to be an optimist.

Consumption does not make us happy

In addition to the damage on the planet, research shows that consumption and a focus on consumerist values does not make us happy. Quite the contrary. Research consistently finds that fixation on wealth and material possessions reduce our level of well-being.

Is “green growth” the solution?

Ideally, we would be able to enjoy the benefits of the modern consumer society without destroying the planet. But is this possible? Is it possible to combine economic growth with environmental sustainability? 

According to a 2019 report from The European Environmental Bureau, there is no empirical evidence that a decoupling of economic growth from critical environmental pressures is currently happening. And the report is very critical towards the idea that this will ever be possible. Instead, it argues that we have to acknowledge the fact that:

“Addressing environmental breakdown may require a direct downscaling of economic production and consumption in the wealthiest countries”.