Idea of progress : is the consumer society related to a form of progress for the people?

Idea of progress

I'm going to talk about the notion of progress. First of all, I would like to give you a definition of this notion : the idea of progress can be defined as an improvement, q development or a change. A technical, scientific or social advance which contributes to make the world a better place to live.

The question is : is the consumer society related to a form of progress for the people?

First we will see that the actual consumer society has created many excesses and secondly we will show it has created at the same time a strong movement of resistance against overconsumption and it now offers an alternative to frenzy shopping. I'll first rely on the document about black Friday and mega Monday, then on the cashless society and eventually on the freeganism.

First of all, we get to see on this " Black Friday " and " Mega Monday " picture many people waiting in line, carts full of toys and TV screens. Black Friday refers the busiest shopping day in the USA Mega Monday has to do with the busiest online shopping day of the year before christmas.

We get the feeling when we look at this picture that consumerism has its r als and its holy days. People can't refrain themseves from buying all together when they see some products for a so called good price. They are incited by the marketing people, publicity and society in general to endure endless queues for Black Friday or to shop online for Mega Monday.

However, this frenzied desire to buy consumer goods has generated struggle movements. Indeed, many people started to realize they didn't want to be involved with this al-consuming society. They wanted to be part of a more socializing and sharing attitude: they decided to create websites for people who were interested in borrowing exchanging goods or buying used ones instead of new. This was the beginning of the collaborative consumption which might lead to a cashless society

Some well educated articulate people have been even further on the road against over consumption. They ve come up with a new trend : Freeganism which is a contraction of the words Free and Vegan. They were so fed up with the people throwing away enough food to feed a small country that they decided to do raids on supermarkets bins to collect all the wasted food.

As a conclusion, I wouldn't say that this consumption society has anything to do with the notion of progress for the people. Indeed, we have millions of unemployed people, many homeless people living on the street and the planet is being poisoned by industrial pollution. The good thing with the emergence of internet is that it's not only a way to push the people to buy goods but it has also created struggle movements who fight the societal norms and try to find an altermative and more respectful way to consume.

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