“As farmers or owners, the poor peasants possess a piece of land. The excellent means of transport enables them often to sell their goods. At the very worst they can mostly provide their own food.” MeanPoorPiecesLandWorstSellsExcellentOwnersGoodsFarmersPeasantsTransport Author:Herman Gorter
“Economists use the word consume to mean "utilize economic goods," but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary's definition is more appropriate to ecologists: "To make away with or destroy; to waste or to squander; to use up." The economies that cater to the global consumer society are responsible for the lion's share of the damage that humans have inflicted on common global resources.” HumansMeanUseCommonEconomyShareEconomicWasteResourcesResponsibleDefinitionsConsumersDamageAppropriateGoodsLionsConsumerismEconomistDictionaryOverconsumptionOxford Author:Alan Thein Durning
“Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.” HumansMeanUsedCultureHuman BeingsOppressionConsumersSomething NewGoodsExploitationConsumerismFringeExclusionOutcastExcludedOverconsumptionDiscardedDisposableLeftoversDisenfranchised Author:Pope Francis
“The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the best possible result in each separate instance.” MeanSocialProcessResultsImpossibleEconomicPerfectionAvailableInstanceGoodsQuantityInherentIrrationalUnlimitedConstraints Author:Thomas Sowell
“I believe in that one-on-one sell. I don't really believe in flooding the market with loads of goods that don't mean much, and you lose your identity.” BelieveMeanI BelieveLosesIdentitySellsI Believe InSellingGoodsLoadFloodingOne On One Author:Alexander McQueen
“It always surprises me when donors who operate successful businesses assume that just building a school structure means that a community now has access to education. When creating a business, does renting an office space now mean that you're producing goods, training staff and generating revenues?” MeanDoeSchoolCommunitySpaceSuccessfulBuildingOfficeCreatingTrainingStructureAssumingSurpriseAccessGoodsStaffRevenueSuccessful BusinessSurprise MeDonorsAccess To EducationOffice Space Author:Adam Braun
“We are sacrificing ourselves for our ready-made goods; we are consumers and live in such a way that the means may consume the end.” WayMayMeanMadeEndsSacrificeReadyConsumersGoods Author:Karl Kraus
“Unfortunately, once an economy is geared to expansion, the means rapidly turn into an end and "the going becomes the goal." Even more unfortunately, the industries that are favored by such expansion must, to maintain their output, be devoted to goods that are readily consumable either by their nature, or because they are so shoddily fabricated that they must soon be replaced. By fashion and built-in obsolescence the economies of machine production, instead of producing leisure and durable wealth, are duly cancelled out by the mandatory consumption on an even larger scale.” MeanEndsTurnsGoalWealthEconomyFashionIndustryBuiltMachinesProductionsScalesGoodsLeisureDevotedConsumptionReplacedExpansionOutputObsolescence Book:THE CITY IN HISTORY Source: THE CITY IN HISTORY