How We Became a World of Consumers

LISTEN LIVE from 1pm on 28th January 2016

What we consume has become the defining feature of our lives.

Our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers, and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket.

Acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann visits the RSA to show how our consumption of goods, services, experiences is embedded in centuries of social and economic history; the result of which is that our societies encourage us to consume and we set great store by the meaning and emotional content of our possessions.

But now that we have come to live with so much more, the resulting moral and environmental challenges are clear. Is there a way to change the relationship between us and our things?