Consumerism is sooo over

Here is an article on how consumers no longer look to buying stuff for their happiness.

The Good Life: Consumerism is so-o-o ‘90s
by Holly Dressel

Advertisers spend billions to convince us that buying more stuff leads to the good life. But millions of us have quit buying it.

LIVING THE GOOD LIFE is a subject that has been featured often in YES! stories since the magazine’s first issue, for the simple reason that this issue is so central to human culture.

In the first book I wrote with David Suzuki, back in 1999, we had a chapter called “Complex Pleasures” that tried to analyze what it is that we humans really want. Today there are even more studies, polls and surveys that attempt to answer this most compelling of questions. And what they’ve uncovered has been a little surprising, in that it has been repeatedly demonstrated that once basic human needs for shelter and food are met, people are not made very much happier by even vastly larger quantities of material goods. In fact, decently nourished villagers in India or U.S. blue-collar workers are often just as happy with their lives as society matrons and rich businessmen.

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