"We Use Products to Create and Experience Community"

"When a group feels unfairly deprived of material wealth, respect, rights or freedoms relative to other groups, that relative deprivation mobilizes political action. The proliferation of consumer choice helps explain why today's Gilded Age hasn't sparked as much outrage as the last one. Money may not buy happiness in the long run, but consumer choice has gone a long way in keeping most Americans reasonably content, even if they shouldn't be."


Steven Quartz and Anette Asp in The New York Times discuss the "neuroscience of consumerism."