Consumerism is not just a feature of our modern society. For decades, those in power have been using consumerism as a means to fragment and control those without power. From slaves to communists and feminists, consumerism alongside a tactic to hijack and divide revolutionary groups, has been the strategy of choice to quash any rebellion, writes Jorge Majfud.

Translated by Andy Barton, Tlaxcala

Strategy and dogma

While declaring the abolition of traditional slavery in the Caribbean, the British envisioned a new type of enslavement that the new slaves would themselves desire. On 10th June 1833, Rigby Watson, a member of parliament, clearly summarised this idea: “To make them labour, and give them a taste for luxuries and comforts, they must be gradually taught to desire those objects which could be attained by human labour. There was a regular progress from the possession of necessaries to the desire of luxuries; and what once were luxuries, gradually came, among all classes and conditions of men, to be necessaries. This was the sort of progress the Negroes had to go through, and this was the sort of education to which they ought to be subject in their period of probation”.