We are not Consumers, We are Producers! January 2023

This article was published in the January 2023 issue of the Youngstown Buckeye Review, a locally owned black publication.   

There are many books and articles written about the ills of consumerism.  A few books are Benjamin Barber’s Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class, Jean Baudrillard’s Consumer Society; Charles Maier’s Empire of Consumption; Frank Trentmann’s Empire of Things: a New History of Humans and Their Stuff; Zygmunt Bauman’s Consuming Life; and Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. 

Equally, Claude Anderson (PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America), Boyce Watkins (Black American Money 3), and others have called for refocusing attention away from being wasteful and indebted consumers to being producers of goods and services in the community.

Implicit in the criticism of consumerism and the call for more producers in the community is the acceptance that we are consumers who should be wiser and more conscientious.  These authors have good intentions but overlooked is how the consumer as the source of all our problems.  The consumer isn’t to be made wiser or consumerism more conscientious.  The consumer is to be removed from our vocabulary and minds.  For far too long we have commodified everything, viewed our relationships as transactional, and been forced to think, talk, and live the lie that we are consumers.

The truth is that by nature we are Producers!  Biology, neurology, science, nature, and spirituality informs the truth that we are Producers.  Even the Bible tells Christians that we are “made” in the image and likeness of the Creator (Producer) of everything.  We are autonomous agents who 24/7 “produce” a wealth of feelings, actions, reactions, and thoughts.  And because we are natural Producers our language, ideas, and mindset must fit this truth.  We have to begin thinking, talking, and living as Producers.

The language and ideas of Producer mindset begins with Systems Theory’s Inputs and Outputs (you know the saying “garbage in, garbage out”).  All of life operates under Inputs and Outputs.  Corporations use inputs like raw materials, component parts, energy, labor, and financing to produce their final goods (Outputs).  We human Producers are far more phenomenal than any corporation.  Our Inputs are the whole world.  Every person, place, thing, and idea that you encounter provides Inputs that you utilize to produce your Outputs (e.g., emotions, beliefs, values, conventions, demographic characteristics, personality traits and characteristics, activities, interest, opinions, etc.).  WOW!  Who Am I?  I am a Producer who produces my life’s Outputs. 

There are thousands of examples of our daily Inputs and Outputs.  Food is a big one.  Food, a raw material and natural resource, is an Input used by our phenomenal production system (body) to produce energy (an Output) that is then utilized to produce all of the life’s Outputs mentioned above.  Because we’ve been thinking, talking, and living a lie about being consumers consuming food, food companies promote stuff that tastes, smells, looks, feels, and even sounds good but in many cases are harmful to the body and lack the nutrition for productive energy.  As Producers, we can still eat food Inputs that taste, smell, look, feel, and even sound good, but we become more concerned about how a food Input may harm the production system (body) and provide quality energy to produce all of our Outputs.

Another big example our daily Inputs and Outputs is emotions (anger, love, sadness, etc.).  Note how we get angry at someone or something for causing a problem.  The consumer doesn’t “buy” what someone is doing and we say things like “why are you doing this to me” or “you’re making me mad”.  Yes, what someone does can be mean and hurtful, but the fact is that the limbic system of your phenomenal brain is producing the Output of anger.  What someone did, though mean and hurtful, is only an Input.  Here’s the KEY to thinking, talking, and living as a Producer: there are other Inputs contributing to the anger.  Like the Input of lack of sleep, the Input of poor eating, the Input of being overworked, the Input of the constant negative news in the media, and maybe even the Input that you are really angry at someone or something else.  The Consumer sees the hurtful person as the sole cause of the anger.  The Producer realizes that the hurtful person is a big Input but that there are other Inputs likely involved in producing the anger.  Knowing Inputs and Outputs gives you more control of your feelings, actions, and reactions.  Let’s be clear, sometimes people have to be put in their place.  But, doing it as a Producer is a powerful coping skill and emotional intelligence that will contribute to your overall interpersonal skills, personal wellbeing, and flourishing.