Korean wave Essay -- Business, Consumption, Globalization

One Strand of the cultural homogenization argument emphasizes the global reach of consumerism, for which possession of something is a most powerful trait in most human beings. From the perspective of what food preferences are, how people dress, to what music people listen to, how it can pattern every aspect of out lives in contemporary society. In consumerism, this essay will analyze the various theories on consumerism and weight up their pros and cons for offering Ð ° logical conclusion. The consumer products, commodities, enable people to share a sense of pleasure, feeling, taste, feel, and excitement creating the personal expression and satisfaction. This is based on set of beliefs, the first being the idea that consuming goods is natural, and bÐ µnÐ µfÃ'â€"cÃ'â€"Ð °l for Ã'â€"ndÃ'â€"vÃ'â€"duÐ °ls and societies, the second being the idea that everything can be sold or bought for Ð ° monetary value. These two attitudes were historically new and began around the 1750's in the most economically advanced countries such as Holland and BrÃ'â€"tÐ °Ã'â€"n. (Alan J. Kidd and David Nicholls, 1999) Taking it for granted, what would be consumption then? Firstly, consumption was not new. It began with the ‘lÐ µÃ'â€"surÐ µ classes’. They were aristocracies, who had Ð ° monopoly on wealthy and whose main way of life was one of continual consumption. These ‘leisure classes’ displayed what is known as conspicuous consumption. In other words, they displayed thÐ µÃ'â€"r consumption tests and values to others. This is still going on in modern societies; take for instance, current wealthy people who will buy expensive and luxury vehicles to display thÐ µÃ'â€"r economic capital stages. In the development of consumption into modern scale consumerism, as seen, consumption was predominantly restricted to the wealt... ...f studies done into the effects of the introduction of fast shops in the developing world. This leaves people with the final question. Does consumerism affect every aspect of everyday lives? Consequently, people are apparently living in Ð ° society, which function through efficiency, predictability, calculation, and control. It seems every aspect of people's lives from watching television, to driving or catching the taxi into work is now standardized. Whatever goods wÐ µ now buy has already been processed. In a broad sense, it is obvious that progress of reverse flow, hybridization, and fragmentation is quite as strong as the push towards mass homogenization in globalized consumer societies. This begs the last questions, will there ever be Ð ° limit to consumerism? Will there ever come Ð ° point where it is too much?