r/Anticonsumption • u/Hot-Line8675309 • 1d ago
Psychological I stopped buying sh*t I don’t need
I need food, gas and California distilled bourbon. I shop from farmers markets, local non-MAGA stores, Costco and independent gas stations. I stopped buying from Amazon and Target and products from tariffed countries because it only adds to the mango doofus coffers. #resist #fuckelon #fuckbezos #fucktrump
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u/Imstilllost2024 23h ago
To help avoid local MAGA companies, you can use https://www.publicsquare.com/marketplace They register their own businesses on there to lure in other MAGAs but we can all use it to avoid them.
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u/bekarene1 14h ago
I love that there are virtually zero listings in my left-leaning county and then like a billion as soon as you cross the river into the next county. Lol. Noted.
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u/glyptodontown 11h ago
Luckily, I'm already boycotting every Crossfit gym and Chiropractor in the county.
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u/skool_uv_hard_nox 14h ago
Is there something like those for the rest of us? I wouldn't mind finding companies easily like this to actively support. But you know, not cults.
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11h ago edited 11h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Anticonsumption-ModTeam 11h ago
Recommending or soliciting recommendations for specific brands and products is not appropriate in this subreddit.
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u/Worried-Ebb-1699 14h ago
How can we be so sure it’s a pro maga platform? I’d hate for it to not be and boycott blue businesses
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u/Curious-Director5042 1d ago
The U.S. isn’t ready for the convo about how toxic alcohol is but times are tough and we all need a vice so carry on
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u/Hot-Line8675309 1d ago
Fair
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u/R-K-Tekt 1d ago
Hey OP thanks for this post, I too am resisting by only buying essentials. I don’t live a fancy life and I enjoy the simple things in life so I imagine it’s easier for me than most. Anyways, always uplifting to know others are doing the same thing.
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u/Ok-Try-857 16h ago
Congratulations! I don’t think people realize how hard it is psychologically to do this. Then you find yourself thinking about how good it feels to not be bothered by advertising.
You should check out buy nothing groups near you and BYOC stores. Don’t sleep on thrift stores!
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u/Eisenthorne 17h ago
I’ve done this and mostly given up alcohol. My vice is buying native plants and local art, at least those won’t be tariffed.
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u/Hot-Line8675309 1d ago edited 1d ago
To the person that commented that there is no such thing as California bourbon https://lostrepub.com/. Sold at Costco
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u/oldcreaker 14h ago
We should be getting a consumer strike going. Rather than get reamed by tariffs we should be making it clear to corporations they no longer have customers until they get their lackeys in Washington to reign in Trump.
Save your money, you'll need it when you're laid off, or your 401k dries up, or your SS checks stop. If you have to buy something, buy used from your neighbors, they'll also be desperate for cash.
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u/AuntRhubarb 15h ago
I like the part about independent gas stations. I drive a lot of miles, and only use the big chain 'travel centers' in an emergency or when there is absolutely no other choice. They've already killed off as many small grocers as they could, now they're coming for the local gas station. The money you put in that Pilot pump gets whisked off to Wall Street instantly, to make Warren Buffett a few more shekels, because his $300 billion cash hoard isn't enough. Stop it, just stop it. I don't give a fuck if they have bigger restrooms.
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u/DrawingGrouchy1947 12h ago
For those of us who have to drive some amount, is there a good way to identify which are independently owned?
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u/Fluid-Signal-654 22h ago
Costco's entire business model is based on getting people to overconsume.
It's hardly the virtuous corporation people think.
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u/PixelatedFixture 1d ago edited 1d ago
God this sub fucking sucks now.
Nobody reads the fucking about section and it's just constant posts about how to be a good consumer instead of being you know, a sub about how consumerism is actually bad.
Edited to add:
Downvote me all you want consumerists. Look at how actual members of this sub posted about costco even just months ago, not even years. The fact that anyone thinks that it's good to shop at costco means this subreddit has lost complete focus on what it's about.
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u/betteroffdad23 1d ago
Dang, sorry im not raising my own chickens and setting up rain barrels just yet. Thought I was helping by only buying essentials and shopping local now.
This is arguably the biggest leap for your movement in years and you're snubbing it out instead of giving it air.
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u/PixelatedFixture 1d ago
This is arguably the biggest leap for your movement in years and you're snubbing it out instead of giving it air.
Leap in what movement? You're not doing anything quite literally. Shopping local is what created every large business that exists. That's how capitalism operates. Unless you're going to end capitalism you're not going to end consumerism. Capitalism gives rise to consumerism short of the collapse of industrial capitalism or the transition into socialism you're not doing anything to the global capitalism system.
Consumerism is the Core Ideology of the Capitalism http://ijbhtnet.com/journals/Vol_7_No_4_December_2017/8.pdf
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u/betteroffdad23 15h ago
It sounds as though you want an end to consumerism completely and an end to capitalism as well. (I hope that doesn't sound like an AI wrote it, I'm learning validation in therapy). Which, realistically, very unlikely. But if possible: do you think that it happens, say, overnight? Or does it start with incremental change that grows in scope through the population. Youre witnessing a complete shift in American consciousness on their consumerist habits and what they're supporting. It's literally a step in the direction that you want, and instead of monopolizing on the opportunity you just made everyone here feel like it's pointless and that they should say "fuck it" and buy the toys they want after all.
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u/PixelatedFixture 10h ago
Which, realistically, very unlikely
Global consumerism is less than 150 years old.
do you think that it happens, say, overnight?
No.
Or does it start with incremental change that grows in scope through the population.
Change is only possible when you change the economic and social relations that produce consumerism. The most important ones being the economic organization of production for profit into production for use, the abolition of the law of capital accumulation, and abolition of private ownership of the means of production.
Youre witnessing a complete shift in American consciousness on their consumerist habits and what they're supporting
No, this is not happening at all, you're in a reddit bubble.
It's literally a step in the direction that you want, and instead of monopolizing on the opportunity you just made everyone here feel like it's pointless and that they should say "fuck it" and buy the toys they want after all.
There is literally no step in any direction. You're just changing which bourgeoisie you're helping to accumulate capital. This happens periodically under capitalism.
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u/betteroffdad23 9h ago
My desire was to consume less in general and spend my CaPiTaL in more ethical businesses as it's kind of the best I can do without blowing up my entire life. But if you're telling me my actions are pointless then I really don't know why I should bother at all.
It is bizarre how you paint yoursself so holier than thou whilst participating in capitalism to access the Internet. Your logic was it doesn't matter how little you participate, you still participate and it changes"Nothing." Like clearly you're as much a part of the system as us posers are. Are you part of a Collective or something?
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u/PixelatedFixture 9h ago
It is bizarre how you paint yoursself so holier than thou whilst participating in capitalism to access the Internet.
I'm not doing this at all lmao. You just have oppositional defiance because I'm saying that you can't defeat consumerism by just being a conscientious consumer. Which you reject because you want to believe that being a good consumer makes you good. I'm saying being a "good" consumer doesn't matter, there is no such thing as a "good consumer" and there's no existence outside of a consumerist society. You either change society and the economic organization behind it, or you're still stuck in it.
I'm spelling it out quite simply and it's either continuously going over you head because you're stuck on moralizing this, or you simply can't read.
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u/Hot-Line8675309 1d ago
Consumerism is bad, buying things you don’t need is bad. It’s a learning curve, we’ve been brainwashed into buying things we don’t need, we’ve become a want society, our neighbors have it so we need it too. Guilty! But we can change by (no pun intended) supporting local, noncorporate or socially conscious businesses. I appreciate your comment.
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u/PixelatedFixture 1d ago
But we can change by (no pun intended) supporting local, noncorporate or socially conscious businesses. I appreciate your comment
No. You literally can't. First the concept that local businesses are "non corporate" is false. Almost every store you shop at local or not is a corporation. Every LARGE corporation started as a small corporation. They eventually got larger because they accumulated capital and grew. The economic system we live under tries to consolidate capital so it's in every business's interest to continuously grow in some fashion. Almost every small business follows along one of the paths of becoming a large business, are bought by large businesses, fail to compete with larger businesses who outcompete the smaller businesses and close, or they eventually just close after the propreiter dies and nobody takes it over.
You are not going to change capitalism by being a "conscientious consumer".
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u/Hot-Line8675309 1d ago
I suppose in your world altruism reigns, in the real world, commerce exists because people produce to sell their goods in order to buy goods they can’t produce. So I can support the local farmer or retailer that produces a good I need vs. buying from a national chain.
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u/PixelatedFixture 23h ago
local farmer or retailer
I hate that I have to give someone a YouTube video at all especially because it's from "Business School 101" but again...Wal Mart was once a small local retailer in podunk Arkansas. It grew from a local retailer to a global powerhouse because well. PEOPLE BOUGHT LOCAL. Cargill started as a single grain warehouse (and is still a family business) and it's now known as one of the worst agri-business companies in the world engaging in everything from child labor and trafficking to union busting and negligent food contamination.
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u/Hot-Line8675309 23h ago
So if I don’t support a local farmer or retailer, what do I do, grow my own crops and livestock, make my own clothes? Sure, I can live like a cavemen but why would I want to?
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u/PixelatedFixture 23h ago
The answer is to advocate for the change in how the economy and its relations are organized. People are not going to change the economic organization of society through simply moving their money from one member of the bourgeoisie to another. You with millions of other utilizing your labor power and organization and changing social and economic relations through cohesive action can. As Rosa Luxemburg once paraphrased Friedrich Engels: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism" with ecological collapse brought on by a globalized consumerist society, a potential war being global powers of China, the US, EU, and Russia fought over economic power and national might, that moment of global barbarism is coming closer and buying from costco isn't going to stop it.
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u/FlashYogi 15h ago
This is ridiculous. You're basically advocating for people to not support smaller local business because they might turn into evil corporate over lords.
Where do you get your food? Your phone or laptop or whatever device you're getting onto reddit from? Your clothing? I highly doubt you're growing and raising 100% of your food, making your own soap and textiles.
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u/PixelatedFixture 10h ago
You're basically advocating for people to not support smaller local business because they might turn into evil corporate over lords.
You shouldn't be "supporting" any business that's correct. It's completely ridiculous to "support" any business. How you spend your money doesn't precipitate crisis in capitalism. It mainly just shifts your capital from one member of the bourgeoisie to another. Which does not change the laws and social or economic relations that create and maintain capitalism. Amazon.com was a local small business in the mid 90s and turned into what it is today within a decade. It's completely corny to look at the entirety of the history of capitalism and think that "supporting small businesses" is the solution to capitalism.
Where do you get your food? Your phone or laptop or whatever device you're getting onto reddit from? Your clothing? I highly doubt you're growing and raising 100% of your food, making your own soap and textiles.
You have an infantile understanding of what I'm describing. You cannot exist outside capitalism in a capitalist society. You can also not change capitalism by literally following it's laws. The only way out is through the abolition of the system itself. Only through a collective action to eliminate production for profit, the Money-Commodity-Money' cycle/capital accumulation, private ownership of the means of production, and other features of capitalism and bourgeoisie society, will you end consumerism.
Shopping at Costco or small businesses does not change any of these. It's just the same exact thing people were doing before now, but again, with a different section of the bourgeoisie profiting and accumulating capital. The class relations and production relations remain unchanged.
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u/FlashYogi 9h ago
Where do you get your food and your clothing? Your toothpaste and soap? Shoes? Do you drive? Ride a bike? Where did that stuff come from?
I think it's very interesting that you refuse to answer those basic questions.
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u/PixelatedFixture 9h ago
Where do you get your food and your clothing? Your toothpaste and soap? Shoes? Do you drive? Ride a bike? Where did that stuff come from?
I think it's very interesting that you refuse to answer those basic questions.
You're attempting to moralize consumption, I'm not. You're angry that I'm saying that there is no such as "good consumerism". These questions are meaningless because there is no existence outside of M-C-M' and capitalist production and commodity exchange. I'm saying we need to change the ENTIRE SYSTEM. Changing that entire system is not done through chosing with what person or business you're engaging with to spend money. It's only done by doing away with the economic laws and social relations that dictate the system.
To vulgarize it, you're doing the Mister gotcha when I'm saying that the system as a whole needs to be replaced with a new economic and social organization of production and it can't be replaced by simply believing that "good capitalism" can exist and that one can practice "good capitalism".
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u/bekarene1 23h ago
This is the way 👏 Husband and I were joking tonight that the tarrifs are going to kill our fancy cocktail nights. But then I remembered that Oregon distilleries make great gin and bourbon, so that's sorted 😅
Meet your local farmers, kids. Those folks will be your best friends if groceries become pricey or in short supply.