In my last post I wrote about how the argument around the
minimum wage is tied to our consumption habits. I argued that paying less for
stuff isn’t as inherent as we might think. This post, let’s look at the story
behind why we want to pay less.
One of the fundamental reasons we want to pay less for what
we buy is that we want to be able to buy more with what we have. We are
constantly barraged with media pushing us to buy more. From television
commercials, to ads on Facebook (and now Twitter), to the billboards along the
freeway and in our bus shelters, and to the Coke machines in our children’s
schools, we are encouraged to spend money; to consume. We are constantly, and
continuously, barraged with messages about consumption. And consume we do.
To better understand how we consume, look at the
self-storage industry. According to the
Self-Storage Association, self-storage businesses like Public Storage generated
over $24 billion in revenue in 2013. We consume and accumulate so much stuff
that we have propelled a whole industry as the things we have accumulated
overflows our homes and garages. To put this in perspective, the self-storage
industry generates more revenue than the national economies of 88 of the
poorest countries in the world. It is quite apparent that we are a nation of
consumers. Coupled with the fact that most of us, as employees of someone else,
have relatively finite financial resources, spending less on what we buy in
order to buy more has a certain kind of logic. But what if we choose a
different path? What if we choose relationships and nature and experiences over
consumption? What if we choose to value something other than more consumption
in our purchasing decision?
