When people are treated like a product, they become obsessed with materialism. Modern capitalist consumer-life commoditizes people and “educates” them to become human products. A culture that raises and grooms people to be human resource products in a marketplace cultivates non-individuals who experience life through materialism. When people are treated as creators versus products, materialism diminishes. This is because the way people see themselves changes. We see the world as we are, and also as we are treated and seen by others, and by our environmental situation. With rare exceptions, the people who work in corporations, like those working on assembly-lines, are not producers—they are products. This is a distinction that is often overlooked. Human products see the world as a grand carnival of products. Being a human product, versus a producer, makes people feel powerless as ultimately disposable commodities. In consumer life we become what we consume—disposable junk to be used and thrown away.

Being a creator puts people back in touch with their power and purpose, causing them to no longer seek their identity and purpose externally through materialism.  As long as people are products, they will be obsessed with products.  When people become empowered creators, or producers, they begin to think about the internal gifts they have to share with others.  Creative producers understand value as something internal to give, whereas human products and consumers understand value as something external to get.  Human products want products.  Free human creators want sharing, people and community.  Consumer life and present-day corporatism is a form of passive violence because it denatures people and turns them into disposable produce.  We reclaim our power, communities and families by becoming creative producers.  To end materialism, you don’t merely reject materialism, you reject the contract of existing as a corporate slave and as a disposable human product.  Materialism is an identity crisis.

Read More in Bryant's Book or Collection:

• SOCIAL ISSUES
• Voice of Reason: Speaking to the Great and Good Spirit of Revolution of Mind