r/Anticonsumption • u/Hot-Line8675309 • 2d 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/PixelatedFixture 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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/FlashYogi 2d 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 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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".