Affluenza

Affluenza

Ryan Wulpi S161 Prof. Iadicola November 2004

Affluenza as a Disease The disease of affluenza is an infection that is inherently tied to capitalism. On the micro level it is defined as constant consumption, a drive of more, more, more. On the macro level it is governments and multinational corporations looking for new markets to exploit and consume.

Causes of Affluenza The causes of affluenza are greed and consumption, the greed by the owners of capital to maximize their profit and the push that they put on consumers to devour more and more. The corporations have to constantly push into new markets to find people to consume more and more. The contradictions associated with the disease are that sometimes the market becomes saturated with supply exceeding demand. This results in owners of production not being able to realize a profit, which in turn forces them to cut back in terms of employment which then limits consumption by the workers. The system is constantly unstable. Our political leaders and our political system perpetuate this disease because the owners of production exert a tremendous amount of pressure on them. When special interests fund your campaign and they then come calling after you’re elected you tend to listen. It is an unfortunate evil to our political and economic system. The education system plays right along because it is funded by our legislature which is in turn funded by the owners of production and special interest groups. The mass media also enable this disease to live and spread because they too are out to maximize their profit. They are in the chase for the almighty dollar and will defend the current system.

Symptoms of the Disease There are many symptoms of this disease. Swollen expectations are one, the expectation that bigger is better, that having everything right now and the best can fulfill your wildest dreams. Another symptom is shopping fever, the drive for more, more, more, the constant consumption of goods. Hyper commercialism is another symptom; the steady barrage of ads, billboards, and commercials that we inundated with on a daily, even hourly, basis is astonishing. Chronic stress and the rash of bankruptcies are also symptoms of this dreaded disease. Credit card debt tripled in the 80’s and is probably growing. Recently the economy has been growing at a slower pace than it was in the late 90’s, but as I read recently in the Economist magazine: So far, America’s consumers have saved the day, spending big even through recession, high oil prices and a costly war in Iraq. But to do so, they have taken on a lot of debt, drawing down home equity and piling into credit cards. Low interest rates have kept their monthly payments modest, even as their debt has shot up. But as interest rates rise, this well of consumer demand seems to be running dry. Moreover, payments on credit-card debt and adjustable-rate mortgages will squeeze consumers when interest rates increase further, as most economists reckon they will.

Who is afflicted? Everyone is affected by this system. The rich are affected and are getting richer, but it is the workers that are afflicted by the capitalist system. They are producing the goods that they are driven to consume by the very corporations that they work for. The consequences are that at some point the resources of our precious earth are going to dry up and then what? Where will the new markets be? Where will we get new workers and

consumers to exploit? Imperialism is directly related to this disease, it has to be. We place armies in bases around the world to protect our interests which we conveniently refer to as multinational corporations. We declare that we are out to spread democracy, which is itself a noble deed, but we handily leave out the real reason for our wanting to spread democracy: the greed of new markets to consume. The Cure The cure, if there is one, would have to lie in the voice of the people. I don’t think that capitalism is inherently wrong, just as I don’t think that socialism is inherently correct. There has to be some kind of balance between the two, some middle ground between the two poles. First, there needs to be a breakup of the largest corporations, but that is unlikely to happen given the nature of our political system. Some people believe that co-housing and co-operatives are one way to prevent the spread of this disease. We have to learn to live a little more simply and realize that we don’t always need the newest and best goods on the market. Another thing that needs to be learned is that we cannot throw money at our problems, that money doesn’t buy happiness.