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Rampant Consumerism And The Looting Of London
We live in a consumer economy where our fortune is more dependent on what we consume more than what we make. Is this the real reason behind the riots?
As Londoners come to terms with the third night of rioting, the general reaction seems to be anger at the mindlessness of it all. This is clearly nothing like the Arab Spring and nobody is occupying Trafalgar Square. The prevailing view is that it is all an excuse for looting and that the rioters’ main motivation is only greed. Which is absolutely right, except there is no ‘only’ about it.
These are consumer riots and consumerism explains just about everything about what is happening. We live in a consumer economy where our fortune is more dependent on what we consume more than what we make. We live in consumer society where status to a great extent comes from the things we own. We live in a consumer culture where we grow up believing that individuality and personality can come from brands and these brands are ideas to live by, more relevant than politics or religion.
The looters grew up immersed in consumption.
In 2008, when the global markets crashed, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged people to keep shopping. Our spending, we were told, could save the world economy and if we stopped shopping, we would destroy that economy. We were told we had a duty to consume.
Unfortunately, after the economy crashed, many people lost their jobs and thus the right to shop.
And now people from the poorest and hardest estates in London take to the streets and go straight to the very places they have recently found themselves excluded from, Curry’s, Argos and JD Sports and clean them out.
And now people from the poorest and hardest estates in London take to the streets and go straight to the very places they have recently found themselves excluded from, Curry’s, Argos and JD Sports and clean them out. They don’t go to Harrods’s or Selfridges, they went to their own high streets, to the shops they knew and stole from the brands they recognize.
Reported on the BBC news website a Hackney resident called Catherine Holmes did something that few proper journalists seem to have done, and spoke to some of the rioters:
“We spoke to looters trying to get home, the only explanation they gave for their behaviour was that they had no money today.
“It is sad to think that these people are thinking of only the next moment, and the moment they have created is a nightmare.”
Back at the start of the twentieth century, in the early days of the advertising industry, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, worked on Madison Avenue working out ways of connecting unconscious drives like aggression and sexuality to brands. His legacy is a way of thinking deeply embedded in marketing and expressed in everyday concepts like brand image and personality. Perhaps what we are seeing on the streets of London is the consequence of all that aggression no longer being channeled through consumption.
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COMMENTS
Exactly, worshiping at the altar of consumerism. Once, I think we loosely defined ourselves as a Christian, but tolerant, (?) country. The monarchy, which we fund are Christians (?) and yet we have Sunday opening. Religious or not, Sunday used to be the day that many families were able to spend time together without shopping. Now vast hoardes swamp the shopping centres and supermarkets, which, in the main, are staffed by peole working at minimum wage. Furthermore how many of the top earners
are obliged to work on Sunday?
So they didn't have any control over their actions - what a cop out...
Spot on Jack. The rampant consumerism argument (as well as many of the other arguments thats have surfaced in the aftermath) is being used an excuse for other looting scums actions. It really is a (damning) sign of the times when experts and analysts alike, discuss all other possibilities but ignore the ideas of individual responsibility and simply know to do right from wrong. Makes me sick.
Totally agree with Jack and Mazza. The only thing more disturbing than the riots themselves are the hordes of intelligent people who are unable to grasp a very simple concept. The people that rioted and looted are criminals and need to be treated as such. Unfortunately society is so soft on crime these days that punishment equals a night in the cells or a jolly up at a detention centre. The court system needs a top down review and restructuring programme - the laws and mandatory sentences attached to those laws, if broken, need a full review. If a person commits a crime they need to know before hand that the risk they face if caught is more than a slap on the wrist or a night in jail. Here is an idea. If you are caught and proven to be guilty, you get 1000 hours community service and must pay a fine equal to the amount of damaged caused. So when a teenage scrote sees an opportunity to rob they know in advance they are likely to be picking up dogshit for 1000 hours and will have to forfeit any games console, jewellery, mobiles, etc they have to cover the costs. Really if I can think of that in 2 seconds, surely the government with its resources can sort the judicial system out and give us tax paying citizens a system to have faith in.
AARRRGGGHHH!!! These stupid, piss minded people, who disagree with the fact that the environment and society people live in will affect their behaviours and actions is slowly melting my fucking brain! Of course the looting and rioting is unacceptable and anyone involved will need to be dealt with accordingly. Not by giving 1000 community service and making them pay a fine! - What happens if they cant afford to pay it? Do they steal again to repay or move on to pushing drugs? What if they have kids? Should they go without? Society will then have let them down aswell!! And I know people will be saying "well they should have thought about that before" BOLLOCKS - everyone, including me a you, has done something without thinking about the consequences! Community service and being locked up in a hole does not work! These people need to be rehabilitated not segregated! We all need to accept the things that have happened, try and understand why they occurred and rebuild our society accordingly. Again, the rioting and looting was completely wrong but their mindsets have been formed from the last 30 years of wank this country has been put through! Good article by the way
Connal with all due respect you're not helping yourself by referring to those who disagree with you as "stupid" and "piss-minded" could it just be that people don't have the same worldview as you? I'm not going to get into and argument with you over the ins and outs of societies ills but if it's a simple case of society then why weren't youths in Glasgow rioting, or Greenock, or any other post-industrial hell hole? The gang culture that has infested England's inner cities is in my view one of the biggest problems alongside the rampant victim culture that's been developing amongst young people. It pains me to agree with a Tory like David Cameron but these people truly do have rights without responsibilities
What a load of tripe. This generation do what they do because they know they can get away with it. Teachers can't teach because they are not allowed to discipline, Police can't Police 'cos they aren't allowed to discipline. Parents can't parent 'cos they're not allowed to discipline. We have over the last 30-40 years eroded the act of responsibility and given ourselves a blameless me, me, me culture. If you stand up to this feral society you can bet your bottom dollar that you'll get no backing because we have become scared of the recriminations if you try to do good or the right thing.
FFS people, “this is simply criminality” = no further analysis necessary and no requirement to try to develop a fuller understanding of why this happened. If I want a superficial ‘analysis’ of the riots, I’ll read the sun or the mail. Phil on the other hand makes a very interesting and timely point about consumerism and society. Good article. Keep ‘em coming.
"And now people from the poorest and hardest estates in London take to the streets and go straight to the very places they have recently found themselves excluded from, Curry’s, Argos and JD Sports and clean them out." Excluded? They all look like they live in those shops - hence they were the first places they raided. They knew exactly where to find the grey trackie bottoms. Chavs need boundaries. Be they in the form of uniformed security personnel or steel shutters. Take either away and it's a free for all, combined with the added rush of mob power it's all a big laugh, especially when the beak give you a ticking off and a two week course in table tennis. Poke 'em with a stick.
Cameron we got born with brains to think for ourselves and weren't born with wool about our bodies.There are many reasons this happened but consumerism is a tiny part of it.
Consumerism is a part - tiny or otherwise, accroding to your point of view. The article did not make the point that Jack accused it of. Ditto Mazza, Kane. The views expressed following this article, along with the article itself, are not mutually exclusive. It seems however that exploring this aspect of the situation, consumerism, invariably invites derision. I for one welcome any attempt to honestly explore issues other than criminality. That isn't a cop out, nor an excuse for what happened and If I were the author, I'd probably resent any such suggestion.
It is somehow natural to cut off facts from the whole picture moved by their local semantics and dynamism. But if you step back you'll see a EU sinking in the deep waters of economic depression, along with the recently downgraded United States. The lucky winner of the Cold War is now facing grave problems. Meanwhile the trust of the public to the institutions, the administrations and the political parties have significantly diminished. It is obvious that looting a shop will not solve anyone's problem on improving his living standards. It would be a better choice to rob a bank. But this riots are not nether a criminal gang's execution of a well studied plan nor a political uprising although they do carry a social dimension as they appear collectively. Such like they also inherit the quality of clashing with the authorities and of coarse breaking intentionally the law. And this abstract melting of distrusting the mainstream political system, the action of looting, violence and clashes with authority, combined with the absence of any organization or hierarchy can be seen as by - products of the political failure of the Post - Cold War West. Decadence from the top to bottom...
Cameron ok I can accept what your saying to a degree :-) but I think this article pretty much nails it http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100100708/the-moral-decay-of-our-society-is-as-bad-at-the-top-as-the-bottom/
For the past few years young people have watched bankers playing fast and loose with our money, and then being bailed out by the taxpayer when they fuck up, yet still manage to collect their huge bonuses. What signal does that send out? If people are told it's a grab what you can society, and fuck everyone else, then is it any wonder that some kids decide to join the free for all? This doesn't excuse criminality, but unless we start to try to understand the actions of others we may as well all give up and read The Daily Mail.
@Stewie Mac. Right on brother!
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