Wasteful Consumerism

Like socialism or communism, capitalism is not inherently dangerous or predatory.  It all depends on how it is implemented.  Versions of capitalism can feature or encourage reckless spending, with unnecessary debt accumulating as people rush to pay for belongings or experiences they do not need or authentically gravitate towards.  Yes, they might not even have any genuine interest in these things apart from submitting to cultural pressures!  Whether a person is lower, middle, or upper class, though, they could purchase things that are not strictly necessary for survival or basic entertainment without being wasteful consumers.  The avoidance of gratuitous, destructive, or irresponsible spending does not mean people cannot be proactive in planning for the future or buy something above the bare minimum to stay alive or participate in society.

A wife and husband buying a third car as a backup vehicle for emergencies or sudden mechanical/electrical problems is not wasteful, for example, even if they thankfully never end up having the chance to use it for this purpose.  The goal in this case is a higher probability of security in a possible scenario that may or may not be likely, not opulent, blind consumerism.  They are only buying one additional vehicle for the sake of safety or for the sake of still being able to travel to work, family members, or friends.  Thus, there are no assumptions or hints of extravagance behind their decision.  If they make it so, they have no philosophical delusions or selfishness in this purchase despite the car costing a potentially large amount of money (and raw materials), taking up space where they live, or having the chance of just sitting there.

Emotionalistically buying each new annual generation of a car or a tablet device with minimal improvements on the predecessor--without one's current version breaking down--in contrast, can be extremely wasteful beyond being irrational just for the emotionalism.  To purchase just to purchase or to fit in with arbitrary societal trends is objectively pathetic, and even if someone is not motivated by direct philosophical assumptions about consumerism, they might still be passively defaulting to the futile squandering of resources and the glorification of cultural constructs.  There are ways someone could regularly spend plenty of money while never going about it blindly and having the sincere intention of using something at least in a hypothetical future situation, but thoughtless consumerism is not a part of this.

To use a very simple example, someone might keep buying items that they otherwise would not buy in order to make use of something else.  They do not even particularly like or look forward to eating cereal, but they bought some with milk once and the former ran out, so they casually, unthinkingly buy more to use what is left of the latter.  Then the latter is depleted and there is some of the former left over, and so they buy more of the latter to finish the former, and so on.  With more expensive or culturally exalted things like Apple products that could have explicitly overbearing anti-consumer tactics associated with them, the financial and environmental cost of pointless spending can be far higher.  Hundreds of pounds of raw materials and perhaps little to no true consumer benefit over the previous model, which could have released only a year earlier, make this a far less trivial thing to passively pursue.

Making purchases one has neither the need nor legitimate desire for is wasteful of one's own time, money, and space, as well as general environmental resources.  A gutted physical world could not constantly support wasteful consumerism and personal recklessness does not necessarily, even on a pragmatic level as opposed to a moral one, help the consumer.  With planned obsolescence, specific products might even be engineered to stop functioning fully or safely, if not at all, after a certain time to "remind" customers to buy a replacement.  This adds to cultural pressures and personal (and voluntary) ensnarement of some individuals by adding a literally intentional deadline for functional use.  As long as profits keep streaming in or increasing, some executives might not care at all about the exploitation of consumers, workers, and the environment that feeds sheer consumerism.

Blind or apathetic perpetuation of these practices cannot be engaged in unless people allow this of themselves, but even if they seek an emotional high or social "affirmation" by such means, they are delusional.  Perhaps their consumerism is a means to some other end.  It might be a hedonistic cry for existential fulfillment or a supposed way to impress someone they care about.  This does not make it any less stupid, especially if they totally ignore foundational matters of reality like logic, the uncaused cause, and moral obligations to pointlessly distract themselves.  Emotionalistic gratification is an irrationalistic and thus invalid approach to anything in life by default as it is, with personal finance and general business as much as other things.  To spend and consume without truly having personal investment in a thing (even if the purchase is morally permissible on its own) or some sort of amoral/practical advantage from it is self-hindering and, en masse, far more destructive than they might begin to realize left to themselves.