1. SCRIPT:
Ah, black Friday is almost gone, but if you think everyone was in the shopping mood
today, think again: there’s a growing movement aimed at buying less or as this
ad points out: nothing at all.
The Average North American Consumes 5 times more than a Mexican, 10 times more
then a Chinese Person and 30 times more then a person from India. We are the most
voracious consumers in the world, a world that could DIE, because of the way we North
Americans live. Give it a rest! November 26th is Buy nothing day.
- Now, the group behind the add “of searching” a boycott on shopping for the
entire holiday season, the man behind the drive is Kalle Lasn, editor and chief
of Adbusters Magazine, he joins us, live from Vancouver, British Columbia;
welcome!
- Yes, hi! I should point out that the add you just saw, we were not able to buy
any airtime on MTV, Fox, ABC, NBC or CBS for that add.
- Oh! Why do you think that is?
- Because I think that they want to generate as much consumption as they can
during the Christmas shopping season and they don’t like dissenting voices
like this coming on.
- No, we make our money off advertising, so we want the money too. But you
really think portraying consumers as pigs is an effective way of getting people
stop buying so much?
- Yes, I think so; this “Buy Nothing Day” that we started back in 1992, it had a
meteoric rise, and it is now celebrated in 65 countries around the world, so
today in the United States of America, when millions of people were going and
shopping like crazy, there were a few million other people around the world
who didn’t buy a single thing.
- Oh, it’s so hard to believe, Kalle; I mean: Black Friday is a tradition, people love
to go out on this day and shop, we absolutely love it; why do you want them to
quit shopping?
- But think about it: after this very spiritual holiday of Thanksgiving, why is that
our country is somehow requiring us to go out the next day and max out our
credit cards and buy probably more than we need to buy; I think that those
people, those millions of people, what they’re missing is they don’t quite
understand the consequences of their consumption, because over consumption
has ecological consequences, you know that over consumption is, in some
sense, the mother of all our environmental problems.
- Oh! Come on! Environmental problems?
- Yes! Environmental problems: every single purchase that you make has some
kind of an impact on the planet, and we, the rich one billion of the people on
the planet are now consuming 86% of the goods in the global marketplace,

2. leaving a lousy 14% for the rest of the 5 billion people on the planet and then,
you wonder why it has ecological, psychological and political consequences; I
believe that over consumption in the rich countries of the world is one of the
root causes of terrorism; I believe that this huge inequity: 86% for the rich
people, 14% for the poor.
- Oh! Come on! If someone wants to buy their kid an Elmo doll, what’s the harm
in that?
- Well, yeah, I mean, you make it sound so nice but, you know, if we consume
86% and only leave a 14% for the rest of the 5 billion people on the planet, how
do you think that makes them feel? Forget about our kids, what about their
kids?
- Well, I kind of understand that ________ but, “Buy nothing day”? Wouldn’t that
destroy the American economy?
- Well, yes, I think that if we all suddenly stop buying, of course it will hurt the
economy, but only in the short term; you have to think about the long-term
consequences of the kind of business culture that we have built up, I mean, our
global economic system is now producing climate change, we are running out
of oil; the fishing in the Atlantic has started to disappear; here in the Pacific
Northwest, where I live, the salmon runs are drying up, and I think that, in
some way, we are actually living off the backs of our own children, we are living
off the backs of future generations, if we continue to…
- Somehow, Kalle, all that sounds nice and politically correct but, I just don’t
think people will stop buying for that particular reason; maybe if you said,
“well, the holiday season is meant to be with your family, and the sharing of
generosity, and love, and not consuming, maybe that’d work better.
- Well, I think that a lot of people just need to wake up to the ecological,
psychological and political consequences of this opulent kind of hyperactive
lifestyle that we have built up here; you know that right after the second World
War we only consumed very frugally, and we have increased our consumption
by 300%: the average consumer consumes today 3 times more than the average
consumer did right after the Second World War…
- We got a lot more money…
- And you know…?
- Kalle Lasn, we have to leave it there…
- Yeah, we have more money, but our happiness has not gone up!