Essay on Materialism and Consumerism in the 1920s
Money doesn’t buy happiness. Throughout history, this concept has been heard time and time again and has been proven to be true. People can continuously purchase material items, but in the end, those items can never satisfy a person’s innate need for love and connection. As people buy such objects, they are making a poor attempt at filling a missing void in their lives. In the 1920s, this idea began to lose its significance as society became swept up in consumerism. Shopping has become people’s favorite pastime and the ever-expanding consumption of goods began to set the standards for happiness. A rise in the sales market saw the negative influence that it had on society as consumerism began to dominate people’s lives; consequently, industries wrote Brave New World to depict an exaggeration of the world if society continued to participate in mass consumerism.
An assembly line that, rather than producing cars, produces human beings instead, making the principle of mass production at last applied to biology. Through the execution of Bokanovsky’s process on assembly lines, one single egg can become anything from eight to ninety-six embryos. In the World State, people continuously produce material items such as Ford’s Model T cars. The use of Ford’s technique on human reproduction dehumanizes the creation of life and turns it into a mechanical process rather than the personal and intimate experience that it is. As humans are created and start life in an unfeeling manner, they continue to live in the same manner, making the society of Brave New World emotionally stunted. The ability to make multiples of a single genetic being through Ford’s assembly line immensely diminishes the value of life. People are perceived as objects in the World State that society can use while they are alive and well functioning; however, when they are no longer of use, they are cast away and simply replaced by another engineered being.
In the 1920s, Henry Ford was the prime manufacturer in the automotive industry. His invention of the assembly line made the production of thousands of models possible. His ability to continuously produce the same product quickly and effectively was what inspired his version of an assembly line in Brave New World. Through his novel, industries depicted his notion that as technology and consumerism were thriving, society’s morality was diminishing. In the 1920s, people’s priority was to purchase new products and to contribute to the sales market.
As goods were being produced frequently, people began to shop incessantly, so much so that it became society’s favorite activity. Writer Sharon Beder described the increasing desire to shop, as a leisure activity provided an escape from real life 45. As consumerism flourished, it superseded familial obligations and friendships, as people chose to go shopping and being in their consumerist paradise, over spending time with their family and friends. Sentimentality lost its importance in civilization and materialism took over. Society in the 1920s wrongly fixated on the assembly line and consumerism, so much so that industries illustrated a world where the assembly line is the source of human life and consumerism is the foundation of their civilization, to caution people of the risks of consumerism. conditioning that molds them into the World State’s ideal citizens. To keep civilization in a structured manner, conditioning is used to keep the public under the command of the World Controllers. Children endure electric shocks to be taught to hate the country but also love all country sports requiring the use of elaborate apparatus that requires them to consume manufactured articles as well as transport industries 16. Conditioning is a form of manipulation to ensure that people continue to purchase goods and care for nothing other than consumerism. The conditioning is perceived to be justifiable to World Controllers, as society would unravel if the cycle of purchasing goods ceased. Since consumerism is practically instilled in the citizens since childhood and contributes to the stabilization of society, people do not realize the disadvantages. Therefore, the World Controllers use consumerism as a distraction to the public to ensure that people will not detach from societal norms. Instead of questioning the ethics and fairness of the World State, people are conditioned to focus on consumerism.
Corporations and producers made consumerism an endless cycle. In the 1920s, companies encouraged people to purchase goods—even when they did not have a sufficient amount of funds through the allowance of credit and installment plans. The notion of buy now, pay later enabled people to continuously buy items without any concerns of not being able to pay the full product price A Consumer Economy. With the ability to buy numerous goods using credit and payment plans, the population kept increasing the amount of money that they owed to manufacturers. Eventually, people’s recklessness caught up to them, as they could no longer pay off their goods and producers began to demand the amount that was owed. Corporations had allowed credit and installment plans to achieve their goal of trapping consumers in the world of consumption Spierings and Houtum 902. Companies deceived people by glamorizing credit and payment plans to better their product sales.
With Brave New World, industries depicted the lack of care that manufacturers in the 20s had for consumers and companies’ true intentions behind credit and payment plans. The use of credit and installment plans were forms of manipulation that compelled the public to continue purchasing goods. Credit and installment plans were created, not to help shoppers buy more products, but for shoppers to owe more money. People unknowingly fell under the thumb of manufacturers, all while under the pretense that corporations were providing advantageous opportunities to consumers. industries wanted people to stop wasting their funds buying unnecessary objects under the belief that credit and payment plans were made to be helpful systems. The use of credit and installment plans created a parasitic cycle, as corporations benefited from feeding off of consumers’ purchases and consumers suffered as they were eventually left with financial issues.
Another significant aspect of the World State that aids in sustaining social order is soma. Since consumerism is essential to the World States’ functionality, the World Controllers use soma to impel the public to continually purchase goods, ensuring that the civilization does not unravel. Soma induces pleasure in its users and assures that the public’s minds do not wander away from their fictional happy world. With soma, the World Controllers can render the population docile and secure the people’s obedience to their conditioning and society’s norms Hickman. As soma makes people more pliable and installs them in a world of comfort and pleasure, they heedlessly fulfill the stipulation to shop as nothing else is of consequence, Sawyer. People have no doubts as to why they are shopping or if they need to shop, rather their soma-induced minds make them susceptible to believing that shopping is what they have to do and is the only activity they should do other than having sex. The World Controllers manipulate the public through soma as the drug compels people to believe that buying goods is their purpose in life, but in actuality, soma is what allows the World Controllers to control their lives.
Money doesn’t buy happiness we cannot just assume that because we can buy what we want it is a good thing and we should focus on what we need to buy. The essentials in our life not just our wants. The things that will keep us alive and well instead of nice-looking and popular.