anies are also co-opting a green image through affiliations with environmental movements because “such companies are finding that cold cash will buy them good will from the environmental movement.” In addition, “some of the industrial polluters with the worst records have devised “public education” campaigns that enable them to placate the public while they continue polluting,” (Silent Spring) through the distribution of free literature and so called education materials to schools and other community forums, all which distort the truth in order to create a more positive image for the company. While all these activities require a multi-billion dollar input of cash annually on the part of the companies, the costs are viewed as more profit-friendly than the improvements necessary to take corrective and preventative measures. Thus, profit-maximization has encouraged and allowed corporations to deceive rather than protect. The development of a consumerist society is also a result of capitalism. We now exchange our labor for money that we use to buy all of our necessities. This has separated us from the means of production and from realizing the truth about many things. Helga Moss makes several conclusions about the state of our society because of consumerism and these things are; she sees herself as “delinked from nature and people as producers of the things that I use to live” and “the fact is that within the market economy, the people and ecosystems that contribute…are invisible.” This separation has changed our view of natural resources and the production process, so we have turned to a consumerist lifestyle. This lifestyle reflects a of lack of knowledge concerning the true nature of the production process. We keep consuming with reckless abandon because we have no way to relate our actions to the loss of human life and natural resource degradation. This separat...
