ABSTRACT
The marketplace of consumption is no longer predominantly an advanced industrial phenomenon as was the case a century ago. It is truly global, but it is also very unequally proportioned. To take a global perspective, as we must, suggests that there are two issues concerning consumption and consumerism: (1) the haves of the world are overconsuming, that is, consuming too much, while (2) the have-nots of our world are consuming too little. The overconsumption of the world’s haves is threatening the earth’s habitability by overusing its resources, polluting its biosphere, and ultimately undermining the earth’s carrying capacity and sustainability. Their destructive patterns of consumerism and insatiable appetites for more of everything desirable are exhausting the earth. This type of overconsumption, or what has been labeled “affluenza” is a product in part of the worsening inequalities in wealth and income (de Graaf et al. 2001). The rich of the world consume too much, and although this might not have been an environmental problem in the previous century, it is today. The earth cannot sustain such insatiability.
