Comparative analysis of anticonsumer models in the history of philosophy and religion

The article classifies philosophical and religious concepts critically related to excessive consumption and the ideology of consumerism and directly influencing the development of modern anticonsumerist practices. Modern anticonsumerism is an ideology and a set of social, economic and cultural movements aimed at criticism of excessive consumption and finding an alternative. Certain trends of analysis of consumerism as a negative social phenomenon appeared in ancient times. The aim of this work is to identify anticonsumerist models in the history of Western and Eastern culture. An anticonsumerist model can be considered as a theoretical system of ideas about the nature of human needs and their implementation as ethical practices of self-improvement. Through the development of ethical traditions in understanding suffering, pleasure, abstinence and freedom one can trace the formation of anti-consumerist morality and its specific historical and cultural content, depending on the belonging to a certain religious doctrines or philosophical schools. The purpose of this paper is to identify the essential characteristics of the sample anticonsumerist models in the history of Western and Eastern culture in chronological order. The results revealed two anticonsumerist models: philosophical and religious. The philosophical model is manifested in the teachings of Diogenes, Epicurus, A. Schopenhauer, the philosophers of the Frankfurt School, social anthropology of M. Moss; it has a developed classification of needs, aspiration for independence as a necessary condition of happiness, social activity. In this model, the emphasis is put on the domestic content of behavior, on the correspondence of lifestyle to the stated principles. The religious model is revealed in the article by the example of religions of Eastern and Western cultures, Buddhism and Christianity. The religious model is characterized by the understanding of liberation from things and constraint of needs as achieving personal salvation; anticonsumerist ideas are often expressed in the scriptures and supported by social institutions (monasteries). Overall, the majority of religious teachings contain anticonsumerist ideas, except for Protestantism, the ideological basis of capitalism, and, as a result, a consumer society. All this suggests that anticonsumerism is the philosophy and social practices of simple living, inherent in every era and every culture, universal in nature, supplemented in each case with specific historical characteristics.

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