Too much stuff: can we solve our addiction to consumerism?

This is where pandemic-induced reductions in spending, decadelong resentment over income inequality, the resurgent progressive and labor movements, sustained millennial/Gen X burnoutand precarity, and burgeoning Gen Z idealism collide. What if we decided that things didn’t have to be the way they were before all of this happened? Part of that shift... See more

We are formed by the structures of modern society to be insatiable consumers of an increasing range of commodified things and experiences and services. There is no art in this, because the tacit assumption that we must buy into along the way is that there is no limit to what we can consume.

Elsewhere, fashion is betting on the impact of circular business models as a way to decouple revenue streams from production and resource use. According to the Ellen McArthur Foundation, clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2015 while during the same period, utilisation of those clothes decreased by 36%.

In many ways, modern society seems to be using a slightly more complicated version of a Keynesian economic stimulus scheme where the economy is stimulated by having some people dig a hole, then having others fill it back in the next day. We create problems, spend the next day solving them, and then claim we have made progress. We're even following

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