Producing More, Selling More, Consuming More: Capitalism's Third Contradiction

Although many scholars and social critics have in the past questioned whether growing levels of economic output and consumption lead to a richer and happier human life, very few have approached this question from the standpoint of the social and ecological contradictions that capitalist social structures tend to generate. This essay analyzes the futility of consumerism and the compulsive pursuit of economic growth under capitalism as a manifestation of a 'third contradiction' of capitalism.