Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island hosted our third salon on December 9, 2024. Nine people joined the call to share some thoughts (and concerns) around consumer culture. Collectively, we have a long history in activism and the climate movement. We also live and work in different parts of the continent, from Oregon to Massachusetts, Toronto to San Francisco.
Our working definition of consumerism: an economic theory and social order that encourages people to buy more goods and services than they need for survival or status, based on the idea that consumer spending is the key to economic growth and individual well-being.

The co-facilitators devised a question and response-style format, with discussion strongly encouraged!
Does your family have winter holiday traditions and how do you feel about them?

Most of us definitely feel pressure from loved ones to travel and/or give gifts during holidays. Many of us prefer to make gifts or give useful (CFLs!) or needed gifts (socks and hats and mittens) rather than purchasing a lot of new, unnecessary products. We also support alternative strategies to one-to-one gift exchanges; for example, a Secret Santa or Yankee Swap, because they greatly reduce the number of gifts, especially new objects generated. Another thing we really like is re-gifting or thrifting for gifts or giving consumables – food (always a win) or tickets to an event or museum – or plants. Some of us gift donations to charities in the name of our relatives or friends. Many of us want to retain the gathering and sharing of food, while giving up the gifting part. Rather than supporting the traditional holidays, several of us have created new celebrations or choose to celebrate more ancient traditions like the solstice or Kwanzaa. The acts can be liberating once our loved ones get used to it!
How have you changed your consumer habits, and how has that helped the environment and its people?
Every one of us does our best to reduce giving plastic objects. We also do our best to avoid plastic packaging by buying less, looking for more durable goods, and pausing prior to purchasing to disrupt the shopper/gatherer pleasure cycle. During that pause, we ask ourselves if we really need this object. We shop secondhand, and we make food from fresh food purchased locally, especially at farmers markets. We participate in our local Buy Nothing groups or borrow or share when we can. We all feel very strongly about avoiding online shopping – especially Amazon!
What consumer habits would you like to change in your own life, and how could you go about doing so?
We’re downsizing our homes; we use the things we buy and make or give them to someone who can; we bring our own flatware, cups, and even plates; we use things up; we buy local; we’re mindful shoppers and avoid impulse purchases; we take regular household inventories and donate or share excess stuff. This can all feel a bit punishing while we’re doing it, but it’s incredibly liberating to see an unneeded object go to a good home that wants or needs it! The site ridwell.com can be very helpful.

Ultimately, we are working to change the system so that consumer culture goes extinct, and we can focus on the important stuff – relationships, ideas, knowledge, beauty, …
What makes it hard to change individually?

This question brought up some interesting responses. Of course, we all know it feels good to buy – retail therapy is real! As scientists, we know that the desire for novelty is an ancient and adaptive strategy hardwired into our beings. We can’t change that, but our culture has also added the social pressure to compete and buy affection from our kids and partners. The advertising industry manufactures desire, and the business community takes full advantage of our need for new.
In addition, our culture stigmatizes using secondhand goods and makes it really difficult to find tribes that don’t feel that way. In the U.S., we also have a subculture of “rugged individualism” that stigmatizes asking for help or displaying anything other than total independence from others.
Capitalist economies depend absolutely on the growth of consumption. This need comes from the towering pyramid scheme of the banking and finance sector, where interest must be paid over time.
What changes would we like to see in our society?
We have to remember that, given the system we live in, many people don’t have the privilege to choose some of these options because they don’t have the time or psychological capacity to do more than just survive in our consumer culture.
Some actions we could take with our community:
- Let’s redefine “luxury” to mean connection and relationship.
- Let’s ask ourselves if bigger (or more) is better?
- Let’s refuse to participate in the financial system by going cash-only – it’s not so hard, it saves money, and it’s anonymous!
- Let’s build networks for finding stuff that’s produced locally.
- Let’s join slow movements based on trade and relationship.
- Let’s advocate for the four day workweek, universal basic income, and universal housing and healthcare.
- Let’s advocate for taking back from the highest consumers and re-distributing the common wealth.
What can SR do about this?

Campaign ideas
- Bird-dogging predatory consumers (aka: the ultra-wealthy) and the individuals working to perpetuate the current system
- Don’t Look Away action
- Guerilla labeling at grocery stores (the environmental costs of food production, for example) or clothing stores with information about local thrifting opportunities
- Online campaigns attacking bad actors (banks, etc.)
Create a space so people can imagine an alternative world!
Resources
- Consumerism as an Ideology: A Critical Theory Perspective https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4521075
- So Much Stuff: How Humans Discovered Tools, Invented Meaning, and Made More of Everything, Chip Colwell
- Ethical Consumerism in Emerging Markets: Opportunities and Challenges https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-024-05657-4
- How overconsumption affects the Environment and Health, Explained https://sentientmedia.org/overconsumption/
- Too much stuff: Can we solve our addiction to consumerism https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/28/too-much-stuff-can-we-solve-our-addiction-to-consumerism
- Buy Now! A documentary film available on Netflix