Consumption ( in general )

What do you think about consumption?
Is it good? Is it bad?
If there are two possible answers, normally both have an element of truth, so it is here.

But of course at first the definition so that we won't talk at cross purposes!
Even though I do not think that would be to difficult or misunderstandable.

Consumption is usually seen as the usage of goods.

But as in every definiton there are words which need deeper understanding or where there is something that stands behind them. To me in this definition there are two: 'usage' and 'goods'.


Let us start with goods because they are the basis of consumption: No goods, no consumption!

How are goods created?
This is the question we have to answer if we want to know if goods at all can be good and afterwards if consuming makes it better...or worse.

Well I think everyone of you knows that beef comes from cows, cars from factories etc.
But did you ever think about what a cow needs until she is butchered and utilised?
Men form their birthday on are feeded, they are educated, they are cured and all that you can imagine what he did or what was did to him so that he finally gives the community something back when he starts working.
Nobody should or would question that.

But the cow needs to be treated the same! It needs food, it needs land therefore machines to melk her and in the end to cut her throat. All these factors are checked, evaluated and split up on a single kilogramme of beef in the ecological footprint. Interesting is that to produce for example one kg of beef 4000 litres of water are wasted, for a car it is a hundred times as much: 400 000 litres! Where do these huge amounts come from?

For the cow the most part goes to the watering of the crops animal feed is made of and the car production uses most of the water for cooling his metal parts when they are prepared. If you would tell that to some african guy who has no car and no water at all...

So the production of goods does not have the best of it after all.
Our luxury-lovers and gourmets should not only think about how big they like it and how to afford it but they should ask themselves whether it is even necessary to spend money on it!


Now let us switch over to consuming the goods.

In spite of everything, is it not good for the economy to consume?
What would all the workers say if you stop buying cars because you do not want an african peasant to suffer?
There is our society's advantage, or problem depending on how you want to see it.
We, the first world can live in this high standards because we live on the third world's disadvantages and we prosper! Some countries for example Uganda uses 95% of its export volume for coffee! But they do not even drink it! That means that they actually waste hectares of land which could be used to feed their own population but instead is used for waking up europeans after a boozy night.


So both goods and consuming them has important negative aspects that affect so many people's life with us not even noticing it.

But a free market needs its consumption to survive!

How can we solve this problem? Let me hear your ideas!

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'So long as there are men, there will be wars.'
-Albert Einstein