Rise of consumerism

Consumerism is the social and economic order in which the purchase of goods and services in ever-greater amounts is encouraged. Historians trace its roots to the early modern period, and some speak of a consumer revolution in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, when goods such as sugar, tea, cotton cloth and ceramics became available to ordinary households. The Industrial Revolution allowed mass production, while department stores, advertising and, later, consumer credit encouraged people to buy more. Consumption became central to economic life in the affluent societies that emerged after the Second World War. Thinkers such as Thorstein Veblen, who coined the term conspicuous consumption, criticised the culture of display, and later critics have pointed to its environmental costs.

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