READ STORIES BELOW TO ANSWER QUESTIONS

Two curious news stories. The first comes from the BBC and tells of a

shopaholic, a woman who purchased so much she could hardly fit it all in her

apartment. When she passed away from pneumonia, it took more than a day to

find her body underneath all the purchases. A friend commented, "It gave her

pleasure to buy things, she only bought things she really liked.""Shopaholic

Died under Purchases," BBC, July 28, 2009, accessed June 2, 2011,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8173271.stm.

The second story relates that in India, according to a UN report, there are about

560 million cell phone users, but only 360 million people have access to

toilets."India Has More Mobile Phones Than Toilets: UN report," Telegraph,

April 15, 2010, accessed June 2, 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

worldnews/asia/india/7593567/India-has-more-mobile-phones-than-toilets-

UN-report.html.

ANSWER QUESTIONS BELOW

1. Consumerism replaces the model of the consumer as someone who buys

necessities in order to get on with their lives, with the model of the

consumer as someone who buys in order to live. Can you put that in a simple

definition.

2. How could the story of a woman buried and dead underneath her

endless purchases be construed as an example of consumerism?

3. How could the story of India having more cell phones than toilets be

construed as an example of consumerism?

4. One way of characterizing much of the work of advertising agencies is as

nurturing consumerism. Can you make the ethical case that advertising

agencies should be banned from society?

5. In ethical terms, make the case that consumerism is good.