I have a hunch that if our new Minister for Middle Class Prosperity doesn't have a clue who the middle-class are, she's probably clueless about the meaning of "prosperity" as well.
That's not surprising. A lot of the middle class don't have a clue about prosperity either.
Whereas the word once implied a state of well-being, today it just means the ability to consume. If you can buy all the latest trendy gadgets and stylish fashions, you're prospering.
If you can't, you're not.
How did it come to this?
Somebody will no doubt wring a PhD thesis out of this question eventually, if they haven't already. We've been conditioned to believe that consumption for its own sake is a virtue. The more you consume, the more virtuous you are. A system based on perpetual economic growth via ever-growing consumption, in a finite world, needs a lot of powerful bullshit to get us to overlook its inherent contradictions.
And do we ever get the BS. Advertising and mass media have made us all suckers. Our suckerdom has exponentially increased over the last few years as Big Tech has sucked us all into its orbit.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Buy Nothing Day is coming up fast; November 29.
You can do it!
You can go a whole day without being a part of the consumer-driven capitalist culture that is destroying our planet.
Just remember to top up the gas tank and grab an extra six-pack on the 28th!
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