Under capitalism, society is organized into what you might call ‘consumption brigades’. These are various organized hobbies, fandoms, lifestyles, etc, that people can subscribe to. Membership of one often predicts likelihood of membership of another, forming clusters.
Consumption is highly organized under capitalism, usually at the ‘industry’ level (e.g., video games) but sometimes individual enterprises operate their own ‘consumption brigades’ (Apple, Disney-Marvel, etc). Products are often updated annually or released according to schedule.
Much attention is given to advertising, but the real work is done in the magazines, websites, YouTube channels, etc, that serve each consumption brigade. The ‘informed‘ consumer regularly gorges himself on such materials in order to know what purchases he should be making.
An individual might begin with an inchoate conception of a purchase he wishes to make and, wanting to be ‘informed‘, set out to learn the practices of the relevant consumption brigade. Within hours, he will have developed strong, lifelong opinions about the new product category.
Because capitalism plans demand, rather than supply, it is efficient by definition. People define themselves in terms of the industrial waste that clutters their homes and enthusiastically share stories about how unnecessary each purchase was.
Deleted the top-level tweet because of ambiguous wording. Capitalism plans demand, communism planned supply. The communist states ran into problems because consumption was poorly organized. Capitalist states, on the other hand, see all consumption outcomes as good by definition.
As usual, the pseudoscience of psychology is used to obscure what’s going on. The problem isn’t that marketing unduly ‘influences‘ otherwise ‘autonomous’ individuals. There is no possibility of a society where consumption is not organized and planned, just as production is.
The psychological ‘explanation’ of consumerism is part of consumerism. The self-conception of the individual as ‘not being able to resist‘ is part of individual identity under consumer culture. But there is no ‘natural‘ alternative. You have to decide what you want for culture.
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