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Sun Jan 17 01:13:10 CET 2016

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As I have said in past writing on the origins of consumer culture, there is
nothing "hard wired" in our brains that makes us consume. I have been
working on this issue for more than 30 years, and I can tell you that the
majority of human societies on this planet, for the last 1.5 million years,
have not been consumer cultures. Any basic reading in anthropology will
show this. Looking at brain structure for an explanation is therefore
pointless. I have personally lived in a non-consumer culture of subsistence
farmers, and have documented how they started to become consumers. People
often like neurological explanations to problems because they can be less
=E2=80=9Cmessy=E2=80=9D than culture and society, but it is culture and soc=
ial organization
that we must focus on if we are to change consumerist behavior.

Richard Wilk

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Saturday, January 2, 2016