Soon, the media blitz of the feel-good Buy Nothing Day will be upon us. (It's the first shopping day of the winter holiday season). Like the buy no gas campaigns, I feel it falls far short of its own idealism. ONE DAY means nothing except that some news analysts will attempt to chart the "christmas" buying season off that day. Companies will see it as a tiny wobble. So, I offer a week, or a month, or exempting from any purchases at all for the holidays that have not been made by, say, Halloween. A longer span of time will actually apply pressure to retailers as the drop becomes a trend. get the yarns, the fabric, the wood, the glue the gems and chains for all the things we can MAKE either as gifts or to trade for what our recipients would want. I'll be printing the photos, getting the last book (secondhand but not spine broken or written on) and a stash of canvases for paintings. Would you personally be willing to be part of a month where you bought NOTHING aside from food and paid for transportation (be that car expenses, tickets, or bike expenses) or no corprate stores, or whatever works with your life? Would you be willing to make that month Nov. 26-Dec. 25? I think it could be a new grassroots movement: and we are the grass.... shall we respect the roots?
hey lets try it for a year or maybe make a lifestyle out of it.......oh wait... that already exists its called simple living..... so do you normally spend alot during this time? or are you normally a frugal shopper? i am a frugal shopper so for me to not shop during this period would not affect much ......and i have a feeling that most people who would be interested in doing this also do not shop as much as the norm.... for the corps to feel it you would need to get those that normally spend large amounts this time of year to join in and i think i would be easier to ride a moped to the moon first before the norms would do that.....
Day/week/month boycotts mean absolutely nothing to corporations, particularly if you "stock up" beforehand and "catch up" afterward. At worse it means a blip in the monthly profit & loss report, and since you've announced your intentions then upper management gets handed a neat, public reason for the blip. Trust me, I've been a corporate whore ... err, financial analyst. Corporations are most influenced by their own fears. McDonald's didn't start adding healthier items because they were losing sales, they added them because they feared they would lose sales. If you want to influence the big boys, start a targeted campaign for improvement. It does no good to say "we hate WalMart", but "we hate the lack of medical benefits for WalMart employees and we propose a tax on WalMart so the state can furnish them" can be very effective. There you have a specific complaint, and a specific cost of non-compliance, and they can wrap their minds around it. There are no Zen corporations, you have to keep it simple and direct. I think that once Fair Trade items are readily available for most daily needs, we may have a stick with which to beat the big corps.
I agree, if you stocked up with the stuff you were going to buy in that month beforehand, then it's not really abstaining from buying. You're still buying it. But doing it more than a day is definitely a good idea!
frugal and mostly second hand aside from art supplies...but I work in local media in an upscale community (loads of fun, that). If this were to start gaining momentum, instant coverage, instant audience. Simple living means so much to so many people. For one person it means changing from working at the office to telecommuniting. For another it is selling the BMW and buying a Prius. It isn't always frugal. It can be about quality of life. What I'm suggesting is take the consumerist culture and give it a vacation. At a time when companies will panic. Even those who make from scratch have to get scratch, and for most of the people on this board, let's face it. they buy stuff. Lots of stuff. Sure, Buy nothing DAY is a feel-good move but it is as significant as blowing one's nose. No company cares. (as Gaston reiterated, corporate whore indeedy) At what level could this concept work? Say if 10 percent of a buying public did without (completely without) certain purchases, be that use the car another two years, no new winter coat, less gasoline, no plastic products that are disposible, whatever, how long would it take to be more than a blip on a company report? And who would be willing to do something, or brainstorm instead of simply putting ideas down?
I bought myself an airplane ticket so I could visit surviving relatives in California. This visit was my gift to them. Other than that, no gifts to anyone, other than maybe a used paperback book here and there. I'm still a consumer. I consume gasoline, rented property, groceries, alcohol, taxable property, internet fees, natural gas, electricity, telephone service, auto maintenance fees, auto insurance, federal and provincial government services, all that crap they make you pay and work for if you're still breathing. I don't have a new car or expensive property or demanding dependents (except my dog of course). If I tried to bug out of all that and go live in a tree, inside of forty-eight hours there would be an enforcement pig telling me I didn't have a permit to occupy that tree, if I were within fifty miles of any roadway in Canada, not to mention the U. S. of A. Some fly-over pig would sure as hell spot me with a heat sensor, and then it would be Big Brother coming down to find out if I was a stray bear, an untagged moose, or, worst of all, a squatter.
again, what would it take to change the general buying habit? I would still consume things, we all would, but more would be acquired by more self-reliant means: sprouts, container gardens for the urban, gardens for the suburban and rural. transportation rethought to provide more for less. Food grown locally and/or organically. (some places MUST import for variety, and most urban areas would need a long span to get to a modicum of sufficiency, plus gardening supplies would be imports at some level (city or state at least) reuse or recreation of clothing ON A MASS SCALE. hand arounds, borrowing co-ops, telecommuting, skill barter. its self-reliance, or creating a smaller model of dependency than we are living in now, on average. But how do we start making things better regionally?
The best I can do is just buy stuff from campus with meal points b/c it's hard to be self supporting while living in a dorm! Although when I do make purchases off campus, I try to buy from the local coop and other local stores. Peace and love
i didnt really buy too much anyway. it's not even a concious decision i make, i just don't really want much. when it comes down to it i spend most of my money on music and weed. and thats not really much. i save a fair ammount of money for a young guy. i get clothes if the old ones don't fit anymore or wear out, not for any other reason. i eat vegan and cheap. i guess what im getting at is making it a concious campaign and asking people to TRY and buy less is going to be difficult...i think we need to identify and then challenge the core values of society that perpetuate consumerism. i dont know what they are though..most people don't even seem to understand why reducing their consumption is neccesary.
Homemade gifts or gifts of charity donations mean more anyway, I try to give things like this for the holidays whenever possible. I agree that less consumption is necessary, but it's pretty much impossible to buy nothing for an extended period of time, sadly. Unless you live off the grid, grow your own food, make your own clothes, etc... which is something I'm working towards but I'm not there yet. In the mean time, by being conscous about what you're buying and only supporting companies that you agree with ethically you can be an activist through your buying choices.
Good initiative. How about we come up with a term for those of us who attempt to buy what we need, not what we think we want, and do not "shop" as an activity?
I think it's important in being aware where your money is going to and for what cause, but swinging to the extreme of cutting out buying is a political statement that's not for me. I would rather spend my time and energy thinking of new ways, or going about methods that have already been in place to help sick children, donate to charities, volunteer for the environment. Awareness is key. Flipping out just doesn't make sense to me.
Christmas is a time to remember JC. Let's do some quick quotes, not that he's my favorite guru or anything. "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance, but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." - Matthew 13.12 "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat. I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and ye took me not in, naked, and ye clothed me not, sick and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? "Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to me." - Matthew 25.42-45
