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In A Neoliberal World: Self-Actualization As Consumerism
What does a happy person look like?
What does a happy person look like? Someone with a good job, nice car, big house, hot spouse, maybe prodigious kids?
At what point did the material possessions associated with happiness become more important than the reasons those things make us happy?
Neoliberalism is responsible for this shift towards hyper-materialism. Neoliberalism is an ideology that encourages privatization, profit-maximization, uncompromising competition, and self-actualization through consumerism.
Consumerism is not just about spending money. It’s also about participating in the traditional 8–5 workforce. In a capitalist economy you can make money two ways: either you own assets that increase in value, or you sell your labor for some wage. Consumerism is the cyclical process of working for money and spending it on things that enrich capitalists. If you’re not a capitalist, you’re a consumer.
Self-actualization is a relatively modern, Western version of enlightenment. Our idea of “self-actualization” comes from Abraham Maslow and his “hierarchy of needs.” Maslow argues that humans’ happiness is related to their needs being met along this pyramid. Our most basic needs are food, water, security, and sleep. The highest tier of happiness is self-actualization: our ability to imagine an ideal identity and then make it a reality.
Ironically, the neoliberal West promises the “higher-need” of self-actualization through hard work and dedication to the “American Dream”, yet withholds people’s basic needs.
The number of people in the US who experience food insecurity hasn’t changed since the 2008 financial crisis. 13 years and 1 more recession later, we’ve shown we still aren’t interested in satisfying people’s basic needs by sinking a bill that would make prescription medicine more affordable. In the healthcare, housing, and food industries we can clearly see how neoliberalism has pushed profitability ahead of humanity.
