Many people say that we now live in 'consumer societies' where money and possessions are given too much importance. Others believe that consumer culture has played a vital role in improving our lives. Discuss both views and give your opinion.

Recently there have been numerous debates about consumerism being harmful to humans. Some people believe that consumerism is necessary for countries wealth and development, while others state that money is receiving too much attention. Additionally, this essay will discuss both points of view. Consumer culture is highly effective in achieving prosperity in developing countries. When businesses are creating workplaces in developing countries, competition increases, people get comparably well-paid jobs and the young generation gets the possibility to become educated to improve their qualifications. Additionally, the country can export their products or sell them within their economy and the whole population gets richer. For example, the improvement has been highly visible in East Asia countries, such as China or South Korea, when they changed their economic systems to capitalism. In 1980 they were poor economies and within the next 20 years, China and Korea boomed, today they are one of the richest countries in the world. So, consumerism is a very advantageous tool to reach prosperity for developing countries. Nevertheless, materialist mindset is not as effective and brings environmental problems when countries become developed. When high prosperity is achieved, people’s comfort and wealth within countries starts to stagnate, which has already happened in the USA or Europe. Additionally, people still want to achieve a higher level of wealth and increase their income, they are too focused on money and tend to work and spend more on the goods that are not necessary. Furthermore, the biggest amount of waste or carbon footprint per capita has been left not by the developing countries such as India or China. Mostly it is the responsibility of the well-developed countries, where people consume more than they need to survive or to have an averagely comfortable life. So, after a county has a well-developed economy, consumeristic mindset does not create such a big difference for peoples’ comfort compared to developing countries, population spend more money and have a highly negative effect on the environment. To conclude consumerism can be very beneficial to expand poor country’s economy. Thus, spending on unnecessary and luxury goods is more harmful for the whole population and that mostly happens in the developed part of the world. To achieve the best outcomes and prevent environmental tragedy the whole population should be more mindful and thoughtful about where and how much do they spend or invest.