Often when watching the news, we meet with a term such as the index of consumer activity of the population. What is this indicator of consumer activity? How to measure it? And why is it needed?
Consumer activity is one of the most important indicators of the economy, it is sometimes called the consumption economy. Consumer activity shows how much, the population spends money. The more people spend money, the more intensively the economy develops, the better all of us - a high standard of living, many jobs, shops full of goods. In general, from which side do not look at all well. But if consumer activity starts to decline, then the goods turn out to be unnecessary, manufacturers start to produce fewer goods, to reduce jobs in general to reduce costs. So, for example, it happened in the crisis of 2008.
When does consumer activity decline?
Naturally, consumer activity is subject to the influence of many factors, it does not make much sense to list them. The main thing for stable consumer activity is the confidence of the society in its future. As soon as the preconditions for instability appear, people begin to worry and start saving money, taking less credits, buying the most necessary things. There is a chain reaction and the market goes down sharply.
In fact, everything is quite simple, the consumer learns about news from the TV, the Internet and newspapers and while they write that everything is good, the consumer spends money. These are the fundamental laws of capitalist society.
The essence of consumer society
It is very difficult to calculate when the consumer society appeared. But there is a clear understanding that this happened with the advent of industrial production, increasing competition. An important step towards the consumer society was the emergence of marketing. The fact is that the media and advertising enabled the population to see how others live, people have a desire to live better. If earlier, a person satisfied his basic needs for food and shelter, now he wants to eat expensive products, ride an expensive car. For many people, things have become a stimulus in life, which sometimes people do not need. You are ready to take a loan on unfavorable terms, just to drive an expensive car or buy an expensive TV. It can be safely said that the consumer society is based on human greed and envy. Only this can explain sometimes the shocking actions of people, for example, in China, the boy sold the kidney to buy an iPhone. In fact, this act is not much different in order to take this product on credit. Since the phone itself for such money serves only to satisfy its self-esteem and greed.
Lending is the main engine of consumer activity
Credits are the most basic tool for stimulating consumer activity. It is much easier to take the goods on credit than to save on it. And the very idea of saving money will teach people "bad." In a capitalist society, money must work, and quickly turn around. Here, in fact, everything is simple - the poor spend money, the rich invest. The poor work for money, the rich have money for work. It is beneficial for the capitalists that the population take out loans. The loan not only helps sell the goods, but also forces people to work hard. Immediately remember the Europeans, exchanging for the beautiful glass and alcohol from the natives gold. So now, we give up our strength and life, for smartphones and beautiful clothes.
How Capitalists Encourage Purchasing Activity
For manufacturers, it is very important that consumer activity does not decline. But the problem is that if a person purchases a product, he can use it for a long time before he needs a new one. What an outlet, because you need to sell the goods constantly and if the demand is met once, then the plants will be idle. Many manufacturers of household appliances collided with this in the 70's. The client could use the refrigerator for 20-40 years and he did not have to buy a new one, since the old one still worked. To solve this problem, manufacturers came up creatively. The first period of the life of the goods began to artificially decrease, the product is initially laid down with a low service life, since long-serving goods are not profitable for the manufacturer. In addition, the goods began to be constantly made insignificant changes and change the design. A newer model looks better, more fresh and you want to buy it.
This gave rise to a culture of using goods. For example, the fact that the car needs to be changed every three years, the furniture every 5-7 years, the mobile phone at least once a year. During this time, the technique becomes obsolete, and if the customer still does not follow the new one, it will simply break down.
What will happen to the consumer society?
Pessimists and socialists frighten the population with the inevitable collapse of the consumer society. The most popular theory is that now only 1 billion out of 7 live in a consumption society, the so-called "golden billion", but if the entire planet starts to consume actively, this will lead to a rapid depletion of natural resources, pollution of the planet and other problems. Well, such things usually end in war. This development is most likely if society does not cease to consume it.
There is another hypothesis, in my opinion, the most probable one. The essence of it is that the population will get bored with consuming and the values will change. After several generations, people in developed countries will forget about what is a lack of food. The population will get tired of playing games, watching movies, etc. Several generations of well-educated people will grow up and new "entertainment" will be needed for these generations. On the logic of this turn of events says the theory of motivation Anthony Robins. In the coming decades, a sharp outflow of residents from major cities to villages and villages is projected. Now there is a reverse situation, real estate far from the city is becoming much cheaper. But according to the laws of life "a holy place is empty, there is no such thing," the rich are already leaving the cities. Soon the middle class will pick up this tendency, after that it will become a "new trend". Perhaps, already our children will begin to appreciate the nature in a pristine form, rather than a TV and a computer.