Consumerism with Barbara Ehrenreich and Henry David Thoreau

Plagued by its effects, Barbara Ehrenreich and Henry David Thoreau offer readers their insight on Consumerism. Consumerism is one of the most debatable theories that have valid arguments from all sides. Both Ehrenreich and Thoreau are anxious about the concept of Consumerism. In Walden, Thoreau condemns it, feeling that Consumerism controls one’s life, with his emphasis on self-reliance; in Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich, conveyed how Consumerism created jobs that degraded people and caused them dissatisfaction.
Consumerism is the never-ending purchasing of new goods and services, without paying attention to their true need, durability, origin, and its harm to the environment. It is set into our minds by the immense advertising designed to attract people to follow certain trends. It hampers with the idea that instead of society working for an adequate supply of life’s necessities, it replaces it with a created artificial life, always wanting things, and have little or no conc...