Objects purchased in the West are ephemeral.  People merely make use of them, and they no longer impose any patrimonial responsibility on the purchaser.  They are bequeathed by nobody and the owner in turn, shall bequeath them to nobody. They do, however, exert another kind of constraint, for they hang over the owner as debts as yet unsettled. They no longer locate the individual in a relationship to a family or customary group, but the owner is nevertheless brought into relation through them with society at large and its agencies (the economic and financial order, the fluctuations of fashion, and so forth). They have to be paid for over and over again, month by month, or replaced every year.

The imperatives of personalization and mass production combined cause a proliferation of accessory features to the detriment of strict use value. The first effect of all the innovations and all the vagaries of fashion is to render objects more shoddy and ephemeral. Vance Packard points to this tendency, listing 'three different ways that products can be made obsolescent':

The first type of obsolescence - the functional type -  is certainly laudable. . . .

The last two aspects of this scheme work together to promote accelerated replacement of an object that itself affects the object's quality. Thus stockings may now come in all colours, but their quality will have declined (or perhaps research and development will have been cut back to finance an advertising campaign).

This means that everything has changed: the significance these objects have for the owner, the projects they embody, their objective future, and the future of the owner.. It is worth pondering the fact that for centuries generations of people succeeded one another in an unchanging decor of objects which were longer-lived than they, whereas now many generations of objects will follow upon one another at an ever-accelerating pace during a single human lifetime. Where once man imposed his rhythm upon objects, now objects impose their disjointed rhythm - their unpredictable and sudden manner of being present, of breaking down or replacing one another without ever aging - upon human beings. Thus the status of a whole civilization changes along with the way in which its everyday objects make themselves present and the way in which they are enjoyed. In a patriarchal domestic economy founded on inheritance and stable rents, consumption could never conceivably precede production. Work preceded its fruit as cause precedes effect. That ascetic mode of accumulation, rooted in forethought, in sacrifice was the foundation of a whole civilization of thrift which enjoyed its own heroic period before expiring in the anachronistic figure of the rentier.

The beginning of the twentieth century marked the arrival of a new culture unprecedented in the history of human civilization. About a hundred years ago, America arrived at a turning point that led to the gradual but persistent metamorphosis of the long- standing ideals and values that had reigned over society. The beginning of the twentieth century saw the rise of what is commonly referred to as the consumer culture.

Consumerism is the tendency of people to identify strongly with products or services they consume, especially those with commercial brand names and obvious status- enhancing appeal, e.g. an expensive automobile, rich jewellery. It is a pejorative term which most people deny, having some more specific excuse or rationale for consumption than the idea that they are "compelled to consume".

To those who accept the idea of consumerism, these products are not seen as valuable in themselves, but rather as social signals or a reducer of anxiety about belonging. The older term "conspicuous consumption" spread to describe this in the United States in the 1960s.

Capitalism dictated that only firms utilizing the most efficient production processes and divisions of labour would survive in the free marketplace. The superiority of factories to agrarian craft in this regard forced people to abandon traditional homesteads, production processes and ideals. The concentration of population in America shifted increasingly from rural to urban areas during the industrial revolution. In 1870 almost seventy percent of the active labour force worked on farms and by 1917 the figure had dipped to less than thirty percent. Individually constructed crafts were drowned out of the marketplace by cheap, mass produced factory goods. As Adam Smith foresaw in 1776 when he wrote the 'Wealth of Nations'. 

In essence these productive and self sustaining Agrarian communities could not compete on the national scale with manufactured goods. In order to survive amid the destruction of their way of life, farm workers and their families were left with no choice but to flee to the city where labour was in greater demand. The move to city life affected people in more than economic or geographic terms. Because the self was defined by one's work and one's community in the producer culture, the traditional ideals of diligence, craftsmanship and moderation were given no social support and quickly dissolved in the foreignness of city life. William Leiss contends that

Traditional values gave no cues to people on how to conduct themselves in their new environment nor did they clearly define social status. Karl Marx, critical of this change in lifestyle says in the Communist Manifesto that capitalism "has drowned out the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation." He claims that with the swift changes caused by rapid revolutions in production

The constant changes in production and their accompanying changes in social relations never lasted long enough for people to adapt and create value systems to regulate them. People were perpetually left with a void in their lives that tradition had once filled.

Consumption quickly filled the void left by tradition. Success and pride in ones work was replaced with the instant and fleeting gratification of material goods. No longer was one's work the measure of social worth and satisfaction. Instead the amount and types of goods one owned dictated social status and our general level of well being. TJ Lears essay "From Salvation to Self Realization" documents this change, he says "the crucial moral change was the beginning of a shift from a Protestant ethos of salvation through self-denial toward a therapeutic ethos stressing self realization in this world-an ethos characterized by an almost obsessive concern with psychic and physical health defined in sweeping terms." People began to feel that goods could replace the less tangible missing parts of their lives like love, friendship or community. Barry Lopez, sickened by the consumption ethic in America states in a tribute to Wallace Stegner "Perhaps the saddest aspect of this imperative to consume in the West is that we're asked to accept a certifiable piece of rubbish: more satisfaction is ultimately to be found in a product -- a style of trouser, a personally tailored system of electronic communication, an exercise regimen, a career -- than in another human being." The consumer culture has not only disconnected us from the processes of production, it has also disconnected us from one another. So much that the easiest way for us to communicate and identify with each other is through what we own and their accompanying symbols. Lopez says "To an outsider, it might also appear that psychologically if not actually, many of us live in isolation; and that separated from a continuous stream of stimulation derived from our purchases we become anxious." Consumption is like a drug that offers us only temporary satisfaction. An increased quantity and frequency of consumption is needed for people to achieve the same level of gratification.

Advertising was a key culprit in the advent of the consumer culture. It took over the role of tradition central to the producer culture by directing people's marketplace and social actions. The separation of the arenas of work and personal life coupled with increased disposable income permitted people to devote more time and money to leisure and luxury. The efficiency of capitalism generated a surplus beyond necessity and advertising was an attempt to unite that surplus with people's excess income. Often this was only feasible by creating a demand for goods that people did not necessarily need to subsist. Through fostering overconsumption (consumption exceeding the level necessary to live comfortably) in the populace, capitalists were able to expand markets to products people generally had never heard of or needed. Where previous economies had let supply dictate the level of demand, advertising enabled the opposite be true.

The origins of mass advertising can be traced to the origin of brand names. Manufacturers created brand names to both distinguish their products and to avoid low price competition. By touting the advantages of their product through advertising manufacturers were able to create demand and brand loyalty. Early forms of advertising primarily constituted magazine ads and catalogues. They gave detailed and sometimes lengthy descriptions of the workings and qualities of their products. However, many firms realized the potential benefit of advertising and competition became intense quickly spawning professional agencies. Many magazines in the early twentieth century devoted almost a quarter of their pages to ads. This required that ads be eye-catching and creative in order to distinguish themselves to the casual magazine reader. The first important evolution ads undertook was becoming less copy and more visual. Through the incorporation of art and the availability of colour in magazines, ads became exciting, diverse and creative. Lengthy product descriptions were replaced by images of the product in a variety of situations and uses. Not only did the increased visualness of ads increase their distinction, it also enabled their content to be more abstract. More abstract ads meant that influence could be exerted over a larger market segment and that advertisers were given a wider palette of ideas with which to work. The deeper meanings of ads became subtler and harder to pinpoint causing them to influence more than our marketplace decisions.

The second evolution of ads was their increased nonrationality.

William Leiss suggests that "advertising works much as mythology does in primitive societies, providing simple, anxiety reducing answers to the complex problems of modern life by playing on the deep symbolic structures of the human imagination." 

Advertising contended that simply consuming certain goods one could win friends, find a spouse or even transcend social status. During this evolution rational arguments for buying a product were beginning to be replaced with either subtle or direct persuasion. The majority of rational arguments remaining in ads were either testimonials or outrageous claims,often  as deceptive as nonrational arguments.

Instead of informing consumers about goods, ads sought to change the very way people felt about them. By surrounding unfamiliar products with familiar situations, ads could rub the emotional content of one onto another. The variety of different persuasions this entailed, gave ads an unlimited creative license.

In the 1990's for example sex is frequently used to sell beer and cigarettes, two of the least sexy products around. Ironically, moral objections prevent sex from being used to advertise condoms. Familiar emotions and situations surrounding unfamiliar products transfer the meaning of the one onto the other.

The constant bombardment of ads in our home, in our entertainment and on the roads instill false representations of well being by playing on our basic human emotions. Whether or not advertisers intend to influence this way is not important. The fact is that ads have been a primary agent in defining American culture in the twentieth century. Many people feel the question we should now be asking is:

Was the destruction of traditional and natural human characteristics and century old ideals worth the extra profit to our firms and the added luxury to ourselves. Unless a revolution of ideals takes place in the next century, our exponentially increasing population coupled with this culture of overconsumption is going to bring death to our race and our planet?'