It’s Not Your Imagination: Consumer Goods are Less Durable, more disposable, and way more expensive. Here’s Why.

Most of the mainstream press is keen to blame it on “Greed-flation” , a term coined to describe the choices of grocery corporations to keep raising prices even though inflation has (allegedly) gone down. However all of us living in the real world notice when brands we used to count on for well-produced goods start selling crap for a higher price. We have witnessed it with shoes, as shoe brands we used to swear by came out with “new models” that are the quality of shoes that are a quarter of the price. Don’t even get me started on clothes—even the old durable outdoor-gear standbys like Carhartt and Columbia are shades of their former selves. Bookcases from Walmart that you have had for five years and bought for $20 are now $50 and fall apart within months. Even the expensive stuff is not worth the cost.

 However, the lack of quality in our consumer goods isn’t the problem—it’s a symptom. When resources are at a surplus, prices are cheap and quality is higher. When resources are scarce, the price jumps up. The problem here is not only that resources are scarce, but production needs energy, and higher temperatures (record-breaking, really) not only mean dry, dead crops, but overuse of air conditioning and higher operating costs for factories all over the world. Extreme weather drought, and hurricanes in places like Florida, California and Texas greatly reduce the amount of sugar, fruit and grain crops produced by these states, bumping those prices way up nationwide.

In addition, the H5N5 Bird Flu is mutating at an alarmingly fast rate, and has now infected more than 100 species of mammals, including domesticated cats and dogs. According to the CDC, since the H5N1 Outbreak in 2022, over 82 million chickens in the US were culled (slaughtered) because of bird flu, and now, this virus is even present (latent/not active) in 2/3 of the beef sold in America. Pandemics like these cost billions, and the cost of eggs is now astronomical as a result. Due to deforestation (both of new and old-growth forests) and over-harvesting of timber, rubber, and copper, building houses, furniture, and a myriad of other goods are now way more expensive. The high frequency and severity of disasters and extreme weather has caused the beginning of what might very well be the collapse of the home insurance industry.  

So what can we do? Seriously??? Stop buying so much. Half of the stuff we think we “need” we probably don’t, and the quality and durability is bad anyway. Just stop buying it and either find an alternative and go without! Also, stop buying gifts and check your wasteful habits. A huge cause of climate change are our consumerist habits. According to a 2015 study by the United Nations, 60% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions were caused by the production and consumption of goods and services for the home. Here in the U.S. and in other wealthy nations, we are responsible for most of those emissions. And the rich rich, the 1%? They emit more than twice as much as the poorest 50%. The annual carbon emissions of the average American are five times higher than those of the global population. And even though they only make up 22.3 percent of the population, Americans earning over $100,000 annually accounted for nearly one-third of all household carbon emissions in 2009. It’s most likely worse now.

Yes, it sucks that things are made to last a few months or less now. This is another notch on the belt of Darwinian survival, another thing that we need to adapt to, and adapt we must—we need to change our values to reflect what is happening to the Earth and our societies. What is important—food, water, shelter, love, community, tending to the earth that houses us—that is all that matters.

“Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.”

― Chuck Palahniuk