Responsible Consumption — A book preview

Unchanneled and unchecked, consumerism has led to the exploitation of everything on this planet — man, animals, and nature. Conferences of the elite behind closed doors and open forums are warning against calamities like global warming, species extinction, human rights violations. There have also been suggestions of high tech solutions — solar energy, bioenergy, mock meats, genetic engineering, even colonization of another planet.

Acharya Prashant’s book Responsible Consumption takes us back to the root of the problem. Consumerism. What is behind this tendency? We are all aware of the justification that consumerism drives the Economy. The book ventures a follow-up question — What is the purpose of economic growth, who will gain, and what?

Starting from the gross manifestation of consumerist attitude in the world we live in, the book takes us back another step. It reveals that consumerism is not a phenomenon apt only to be discussed in the political arena or “intellectual” house parties. It is a tendency that is deep-seated in individual personality. And thus, more than a debate, we need personal introspection. The book inspires us, even dares us to ask ourselves those questions.

The book intends to speak to the youth, the millennials. It’s the millennials who enquire, who rebel, and who will set the stage for any development that progresses from here. In his many interviews and discourses with young professionals, students, and entrepreneurs, Acharya Prashant has emphasised the fundamental principle behind consumption — a lack, or emptiness. He has drawn a clear distinction between physiological paucity and psychological paucity. Physiological lack has solutions. But the insufficiency of the consciousness is sneaky. Rarely, if ever, content.

The youth is also who will benefit the most from this book. The age we live in has seen wealth like never before. The generation before, the baby boomers, struggled hard to reach a point way later in their lives when they could say that they have found financial freedom. But the Millennials inherited that financial security. Given a head start, they have achieved much more in a very short span of time. And yet, the millennials are the disgruntled ones, skipping mobile phones, diets, jobs, partners, countries, belief systems. All this accumulation and yet something does not add up. Is accumulation the real need, or is it a way to conceal our hollow inner world?

Some of the questions one needs to answer to understand their consumer behaviour is

–> How much of our consumption actually do us any good?

–> What is our need, and what is our desire?

–> What attracts us in the market?

–> How do we define success?

No, this is not a book pitting capitalism against socialism or culturalism or any other ‘ism’s out there. The book is not going about brandishing businesses that market themselves with the aim to sell and make a profit. As long as we live we are going to consume. Someone will be manufacturing the consumables, and it will be possible only if it is profitable in some sense, in any sense.

The book focuses on the centre from which economic games are played. Does it stop at profit booking? Or is there a higher purpose? Is it for inclusive welfare?

The book offers simple criteria for us to understand what is responsible consumption, and equally, what is responsible production. That is, to objectively see the actor– the consumer and the producer, in relation to that which is consumed or produced; to question whether that which is consumed has really benefited the consumer and not falling prey to the ever so alluring object so that only the object remains and the actor is forgotten.

With each chapter, the book offers an assertion that all the human misery, despite the accumulation, is an indication that at the core man does not agree to mere carnal existence.

The inquiry will eventually diminish the compulsion to consume. When a person starts operating from the centre of immutable fullness, they start working towards the fullness of others. This will have a ripple effect on the economy. When the economy works for the fulness of others, consumerism will lose the black mark it carries.