consumption (economics)

Fifteen essays debate issues regarding materialism in America, discussing such topics as children's materialism, the environment, the economy, happiness, self-improvement, the family, and community.

Offers insight into consumption in America and the pitfalls of a system that promotes obsolescence and replacing versus repairing consumer goods, revealing contributing economic theories while calling for environmentally responsible changes.

Presents a graphic novel about Winston and Julia, a couple living in a future world in which consumerism rules and the past no longer matters.

Explores the historical origins and world-wide appeal of societies' desire to acquire luxury goods and leisure services, relating consumerism to other issues in world history and reassessing common beliefs about consumerism and global history.

Explores the effects of capitalism on American culture and how consumer capitalism overproduces goods, targets children, and encourages adults to abandon self-restraint.

"Wall Street Journal" reporter Kevin Salwen recounts his family's efforts to stop their overconsumption and instead start giving back to the world, describing how they sold their mansion, moved into a house half its size, and gave half of the proceeds from the sale to charity.

This anthology explores the impact of consumerism on society, describing how consumerism affects health, how capitalist countries grow older chronologically but younger in their behavior, how media contributes to a "buying mood," and how the invisible costs of development destroy nature's processes.

With the ten secrets for wise spending revealed in this book, readers gain the tools to both afford their expenses and save more cash. In addition to budgeting, teens learn to shop smart, accurately judging affordability, discerning needs vs. wants, identifying value, and calculating the true cost of an item.