so what do we want, when we have everything we want?

Capitalism is based on wanting things, rather than needing things. Communism presumed that it was based on needing things, and that if the state could just provide for needs, then the people would be happy, but they looked over the proverbial fence and saw people getting what they wanted, and found that they too wanted it.

Consumerism has always been more sophisticated that just supplying needs, then supplying wants. It generates its own demand through means such as built in obsolescence so that goods fail far more quickly than they really ought to. Then there is fashion, which is just a clever way of convincing people to buy replacements for perfectly good clothes. Perhaps it is no surprise that communism had people wearing uniforms, explicitly rejecting fashion. Then there is luxury, a form of conspicous consumption where the consumption becomes an end in itself. And finally there is the whole consumer society, where media shades into advertising and we judge people by what they own, and how they dress. So we aspire to the clothes and accessories, dressing up and pretending to be, just like when we were children.

But we are entering into a post-consumer society. It is now relatively open to people to eat as much of whatever they want to make themselves obese and ill. It is relatively easy to buy more books that you could read in a lifetime, more electronic gadgets than you could ever find time to use.

Our houses are so packed with physical things that now you can pay for people to declutter your house for you. Presumeably giving you the chance to then reclutter it up again, just as you can have the fat sucked out of your belly, ready to gorge yourself afresh.

The consumer society has responded to this by trying to create experiences, bundle them up and sell them. So that now we are paying for intangibles, like mobile contracts, ringtones, and downloads. We pay to go ballooning or race car driving. Going straight past all the tedious learning about something, and working up to it, just diving straight in.

But just as our homes are finite, so is our time and attention. Our lives are full up now.

And what do you do when you life is full up? Do you just liposuction out all that cheap crap, and get ready to gorge yourself again. Do you think of some more expensive way to fill up your life, with basically the same stuff that you had before, the stealth wealth people dressed just like everyone else, but so much more expensively.

If you look at old money, it was never just about stuff. Even a stately home fills up eventually. It was never just about experience, one Grand Tour was enough for most. You stepped back far enough to see things in generations. So that your family name prevailed, so that there was enough money there to not have to worry too much. And looking round now, how many of the best of opportunities seem virtually restricted to the children of first generation meritocrats. Paul McCartney might have went to a comprehensive, but Stella had the opportunities he never had.

For those unfussed with their progeny, there is the wider world, buy into Fair Trade and sponsoring, look at the whole world and try and shove it just that little bit in the direction that you would like to see it move.

The thing about a consumer society is that it is sticky sweet like candy. Designed to tempt and seduce, it fits us likea comfy chair, flattering us and beguiling us. The consumer society has all the best tunes because it pays handsomely for them. But we need to step back, and try to listen to that quiet voice within ourselves, what does it say is that change which we ought to make in the world, what does it say we ought to be doing with our lives. We need to struggle hard to hear that quiet voice, so quiet we might never quite hear it all our lives, until perhaps it is too late.