The advent of international advertising, electronic communications and wide access to the mass media have fed a worldwide public appetite for new and more products, and for travel. Rising affluence has fueled the 'Western' model of consumption, and its emulation all over the world. And, though developing countries still account for less than 20 per cent of global GDP, many of their people are joining the consumer society. Per capita incomes are rising, and habits of diet, mobility and resource consumption are changing to reflect industrial country patterns.
In the 1920s, two men planned to identify people’s deeply buried needs and use subtle messaging to manipulate them into doing whatever they wanted without realizing it—even at the cost of their health and well-being. One of them, Edward Bernays, was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and used his uncle’s insights into the subconscious to develop his new methods. Their goal was to turn normal working Americans into manic consumers, training them to desire an ever-increasing amount of goods, and thereby converting their life’s energy into profit for American corporations. “We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture,” declared Bernays’ partner, Paul Mazur. “People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”
Alongside the consumer culture, the world has other value systems and lifestyles which may be less visible and invasive but which represent the rich diversity of human experience and fulfilment. Many of these are more respectful of the environment, and provide options worth considering in the move towards more sustainable forms of society. The poor are also cut off from the consumer society, which is still largely irrelevant to their struggle for existence. A lifestyle that excludes one-third of the world's population, however dominant it may appear at the moment, should not be regarded as the supreme achievement of 20th-century civilization.