17h ago

What would happen if Americans stopped buying new consumer goods for a month?

The current hostile corporate takeover in the USA and the clear loss of political power of the common people, I started wondering what happened if people used consumption as their leverage. Since the system is designed for continuous growth, what would happen if a mass movement of people stopping buying new non-essential consumer goods?

It would send a much stronger message than angry public protests. Thoughts?

Edit 1: Received some fantastic responses one of these highlighted February 28th as the "National No Spend Day" that we can consider the rehearsal.

*Do not make any purchases Do not shop online, or in-store, No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy, Nowhere!

Do not spend money on: Fast Food,Gas,Major Retailers Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Only buy essentials of absolutely necessary (Food, Medicine, Emergency Supplies) If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.*

This movement is the definition of equitable, not spending means everybody can contribute within their means, and if you can't afford to buy shit anyway, you're already doing your part!

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2025/02/12/national-no-spend-day-economic-blackout-amazon-walmart/78410711007/

77 comments

The main problem with these things is people buying stuff before, so they can boycott the next day. Makes absolutely no difference.
Obviously, what you're describing is different.
- agree. the main idea is to shift away from buying new to buying used, bartering, using cash. there's such abundance of used goods in the US people actually wouldn't have to compromise their lifestyles and this could continue on for months and months and months.

Im already trying my best to move off any services tied to any oligarch at Trumps inauguration.
I just bought a kindle but planning on donating it and moving to Kobo.
Side hobby to learn to pirate safely. Im now using any alternate website to Amazon.
We have the power of voice with our wallets.
- Just use the kindle without amazon stuff, maybe install KOReader, you can get your books from somewhere else.
  
  I would but just knowing its a kindle disgusts me. Already bought a kobo.
  I think ill donate my kindle instead.
- Are you already familiar with https://fmhy.pages.dev/ ?
  
  Oh no, what's this?

The Day the World Stops Shoppong examined this and found that it doesn’t take a whole lot of concerted action to tank the consumption economy.
Buy nothing days are good but less good if you return to regular habits and redouble your consumption after the boycott is over.

I already have. Long before the threat of tariffs. I shop thrift stores, yard sales, and social media markets. I go to electronics recyclers and find perfectly good laptops that just need an OS installed.
I’ve had the same phone since 2017, and the same car for 10+ years, neither of which were new when I got them.

I've already planned with my wider family that for the next 4 years we aren't doing jack shit for holidays. No black friday (tbh we never did anyway), no cyber Monday. No gifts for Christmas.
- I've been doing homemade gifts or local market goods for xmas the past couple xmas
- I haven't celebrated xmas for several years now and it's seriously been so liberating.

If y'all aren't already aware the first test date for Consumer Power is on Feb 28th. Don't buy ANYTHING on that date. Yeah, it's brief, it will probably be a blip, but this is like a test of the emergency broadcast system. If we can get say 2% of people to do that, then watch closely for reactions, it will help us spread the word for the 2nd test. Then the 3rd. It's only through this grassroots organization that we can accomplish anything.
I had a friend tell me that they'd already seen organizations trying to make it their idea and honestly, I'm not at all concerned about who is putting their brand on it. The POINT here is that we need to start exercising our muscles to make this a real tool for change. Stop focusing on that message and start embracing the larger goal here. Spread the word. RESIST.
- Thanks edited my OP to advertise this. i like passive resistance, it takes much fewer resources, non-violent etc.

that would probably be impossible and wouldn't have a lot of effect cuz demand is an elastic band or something
- but a lot of the demand can be met by buying used stuff
  
  Buying used stuff should be illegal! The government is losing out on taxes, and the producers don't get the revenue. Are you not thinking about the shareholders?
  
  that's what i like to do but that's a long term cultural thing

I already barely buy shit. I've always said "if the economy hinged on my purchasing habit, the country would go bankrupt". People in general should start living within their means without any protest. It's good for everyone and also will make corporations slow down on killing this planet.
- I already barely buy shit. I’ve always said “if the economy hinged on my purchasing habit, the country would go bankrupt”.
  well, you're already part of the movement:)
- yup. Im in a similar boat. could not reduce more. we really need a blender and I saw one for an estate sale next weekend. hoping they have some plates, bowls, and cups to. eff the corps.
  
  Facebook market place has a ton of cheap things. I bought two 27" 4k HDR monitors for $130 from there. Those monitors are literally $1100 new. I bought my GPU for $100, and it's $380 new. People buy shit they don't need and upgrade in a year, too. It's fucking insanity. Check it out if you have an account. I use my wife's.
  
  Plates, cups and bowls can be bought second hand at charity/opp/goodwill shops in my experience. They also often have small appliances, sometimes new as people donate unwanted gifts. Pie makers are very common. Noone should buy new pie makes.

It certainly would, but I would be worried about the people at the bottoms whose salary depend on this. Rich people can afford not getting revenue for a month, but people with precarious work contracts often can't.
What about mass boycott targeted at the companies undeniably supporting this government?
It could impact bottom people less.
- This is where mutual aid comes in.
  Share cash with people who need it. Pay their bills, pay their rent, pay their bail money, pay their medical expenses.
  The capitalists will hurt people to try to get you to stop boycotting and striking.
  
  Not to be a dick, but I barely have enough money to cover myself and my wife. I don't exactly have any extra money, and our budget is tighter than a tightrope wire, which I suppose is part of the point.
  
  We need society to go back to our earliest economy. The gift economy, just sharing things expecting nothing in return. I wonder what life would be like if that was our main economy.
- Should turn Amazon prime week into boycott week. We just did a one week break from Amazon in our house and it was refreshing.
  
  1 week? Are you talking about tv or buying stuff? I haven't done anything with amazon in years.
- ...
  If people stopped buying stuff, it wouldn't translate to immediate loss of wages except for gig economy workers.
  It's not like production or stores would no to stop immediately counting on starting back up at the exact right moment.

"Culture Is Not Consumption"
Write that on a tee shirt you already own.

Anything that $peaks their language will work better than protests IMO
- Hey hey! Ho ho!

They'll just buy the things they didn't buy before hand, or afterwards, washing it all out in the average.
- After a long enough period of striking it begins to have repercussions beyond the individual budget.
  If the flow of money slowed to a crawl for an extended period, companies don't have the funds to pay workers. Enough job loss leads to further reduced spending, thus impacting stock value, thus impacting employment, etc...
  A month would have a noticeable impact, but a full fiscal quarter would be the first cliff where the big corporations would really sweat. But generally I agree, an economic strike with an end date is like an overnight hunger strike

If even a relatively small number — say 10-20% — just refused to buy anything other than the bare essentials (like food, energy, utils) until action was taken, you'd probably see more action than if those people got out in the streets and protested.
- That action would be increasing the price of bare essentials to compensate
  
  So, some of this would occur but I can think of two reasons why it wouldn't be a linear tradeoff. I dunno why but I decided to write a scroll about it, even tho nobody is gonna read it.
  "Bare Essentials" are price competitive - Basic groceries like milk, eggs, dry goods, canned goods, etc., are produced by a large arrangement of producers, and also quasi-local (big ag owns all the farms, but certain farms produce for specific regions). This means that it's hard to corner the market on these goods. Keep in mind brand-name foods collude to push against this price competition, but only to a certain extent because grocery store "value brands" can become irresistible if they're half the price. The price of kraft mac and cheese is tethered to within a couple bucks of the value brand next to it on the shelf.
  The "Not Bare Essentials" products (Entertainment [incl. Tourism, Dining], durable goods, luxury items and electronics) are produced by different corporations than the bare essentials groups. Megacorps like Amazon do have some stratification across the entire goods spectrum (mostly by reselling/market tolls) but they're also exposed because the margins on the nonessentials are better because of issue #1. So a boycott of these groups would have a significant effect on all retail and retail-adjacent companies. That's like 12 out of the top 20 companies in the US, roughly 3.2 trillion in revenue that could take a 20% hit to their balance sheet. That's 2% of the US GDP out of those 20 companies alone, enough to flatten the GDP curve in a given year. That kind of effect would result in a panic among global decision-makers.
  However, there are major issues with the 'buy nothing boycott' plan:
  the idea of getting 10% of the people in the country to buy into the plan is pretty far-fetched. Buying things basically daily is a (bad) habit of nearly all Americans and breaking that cycle will not be easy. Not eating out, not taking vacations, not buying christmas or birthday gifts, and replacing these activities with zero or near-zero cost activities will come at an enormous social cost as compared to people not boycotting. This can be mitigated by trying to enact pacts with friends and family and entering into buy-nothing local groups, as well as focusing on a barter economy that sidesteps retail and services.
  the concept of a sustained boycott will get harder and harder in the imagined scarcity, planned obsolesce environment we live in. Cars break down, clothes wear out, everything requires upkeep, etc. Obviously this can be deferred and stretched (I'm never selling my already 10 year old car, for example) but the boycott will fray. This can be counteracted by more people joining than those exiting, via media and grassroots efforts.
  Overall: If 10-20% of Americans actually bought nothing (very unlikely) for a sustained (months, even more unlikely) period of time, the outlook of the GDP would be very noticeable. If that could be sustained (by more people joining than leaving) then you'd absolutely see major changes in policy. It would start with corporate layoffs, but then graduate to price cuts, sales of production facilities, drops of industrial output, and then finally decreased energy consumption and industrial inputs. That would be a national security emergency that would force bipartisan political change, because energy and industrial potential are the two primary metrics of nation-state success for both hard and soft power.

If you got a substantial amount of people to it, like 40-50% of the population it would probably collapse the economy via domino effect. So much is underpinned on people spending money on any given day
But, I don't see it happening in reality, just getting 20% to actually do it would be a massive undertaking and 20% would probably be painful, but not cause a cool cascade of collapse
- Total collapse might not be required for real, tangible change. Collective action is a unifying force, and it would remind everyone top to bottom that the house of cards is in fact collapsible and not an inevitable behemoth under its own inertia.
  You could argue that even with reforms the underpinning economic system remains as problematic as ever. But building that collective support, reminding poor voters that they're not temporarily embarrassed billionaires, adds more opposition to it than support.

I'm sure this will be an unpopular opinion, but any publicly traded company no longer needs to post a profit. Boomers are retiring and 401ks ensure that these companies will make money purely from "value potential". Maybe in 20 or so years as the demographics change this will be different, but this is how I see it going down today.
If all of America collectively decided not to purchase from publicly traded companies, and instead only bought from small local companies for just one month. I doubt it would even register on a YTD stock price chart. It would need to be a true philosophical change in how we consume products, and it would have to last for longer than a month to be effective. On top of that, only privileged households will realistically be able to "choose" not to buy consumer goods.
I think we should all buy less and be more mindful of where our money goes. I think we should buy locally and promote businesses that you agree with on levels beyond the value of the good or services they offer as often as possible. However, I don't think we can effectively protest this way unless it was a true lifestyle change for a large portion of the country.
- should all buy less and be more mindful of where our money goes. I think we should buy locally and promote businesses that you agree with on levels beyond the value of the good or services they offer as often as possible. However, I don’t think we can effectively protest this way unless it was a true lifestyle change for a large portion of the country.
  I'd disagree, we saw it with COVID how vulnerable corporations are. They'll always focus on stock buybacks and stuff like that over recession-proofing. Also, this is quite an equitable movement. Those who can't afford new shit are already contributing to it.
  
  Firstly, the covid pandemic was a multi year event. Secondly, publicly traded companies were enriched greatly from that time. Also it wasn't conscious degrowth or a lack of ability, it was supply chain issues that caused products not to be available for purchase.
- I agree. Inventory isn't going to change much, just delay it a little, if that.
- Boomers are retiring and 401ks ensure that these companies will make money purely from "value potential".
  Peter Zeihan expects the opposite as Boomers sell their stock to fund lifestyle.
  Could be both. First up, then down.
  Edit to fix name.
  
  I haven't read this take yet, and I'm not an economist.
  My point is that right now, boomers are doing everything they can to invest, so its a self fulfilling prophecy of ETFs and investment funds. Where everyone is buying in because the stocks are preforming well and the stocks are performing well because everyone that plans to retire is buying in.
  However once boomers start to either sell their assets or die off, there will be a sudden surplus of stock and other assets in a pretty small window. And i doubt it will be a boon for the economy or the stock market.

Won't happen but it's a great idea. The environment loves recession. The only years in recent history when the climate indicators briefly stopped moving in the wrong direction were 2009 and 2020.
- OH THANK GOD they finally stopped exploiting me. Let me just catch my breath here and oh GOD OH FU--

Both. Definitely both. Every person has a unique capacity for resistance, so however you’re able is good and important. Talking about it, protesting, boycotting (even in tiny amounts) is something! Being nice to yourself and others in non-consumerist ways is also resistance; like hand-write a note instead of buying a card; your loved one will still appreciate it.
The point is to be a dandelion - they try to pave over us, and we pop back up through the cracks, even in our own little unassuming ways. We may be ants to them but insects outnumber vertebrate life forms by orders of magnitude.
Lots of metaphors as I get sidetracked but case in point: if you can do it, do it!
ETA: Decentralized forms of resistance may be our best bet. Big coordinated efforts are good. Making them play whack-a-mole is also good. If they don’t know where to look next even better.

They'd buy more goods for a few weeks leading up to that month, then buy a bit less during, then buy more for two weeks after
- Yup, delayed consumption would be the most likely outcome, but that's not necessarily a problem if people can apply this pressure in a meme-like fashion. It's sorta like the gamestop squeeze.
  Also the immediate personal pain could be mitigated by buying used stuff.

You see this (or used to, anyway) from time to time with gas strikes.
If it's just a month of "don't buy," it wouldn't do much in the long run. All that does is time-shift demand to when the strike is over. If the company can anticipate well enough, they'd raise prices when the demand comes back and come out ahead in the long run.
You have to use/consume less, and for an extended time period, not just change when that purchase happens.
But yes, with that caveat, use less, and choose the lesser evil when you do need to buy something. The individual effect is small, but small things add up.
- n the strike is over. If the company can anticipate well enough, they’d raise prices when the demand comes back and come out ahead in the long run.
  You have to use/consume less, and for an extended time period, not just change when that purchase happens.
  But yes, with that caveat, use less, and choose the lesser evil when you do need to buy something. The individual effect is small, but small things add up.
  The mitigation is to focus on used goods so it is much less painful. Unlike gas, people don't need that new TV, or that next phone, gaming console, their Nth streaming sub and use alternative (wink) ways to consume entertainment media.

As a European i'd suggest to not buy nothing, but only products made in Europe ;)
- Don't forget about America's neighbours to the north and south too, eh!
  
  We have no neighbors. Only an unruly 51st tundra state and a hoard of alien barbarians being held at bay by the ~~Night's Watch~~ ICE

Donald Trump has broken the Constitutional binding of Checks and Balances, upon which all law in the United States is governed. Ask yourself what that means to business contracts which depend on those laws to be guaranteed, and what the loss of faith in the underlying system means to all commerce in this country and between this country and foreign individuals, corporations, and nation states.
Anycahoots, that's my long way of answering, What would happen if Americans stopped buying new consumer goods for a month? with: you are going to find out
- Ask yourself what that means to business contracts which depend on those laws to be guaranteed,
  Agree. If they feel the rules of engagement can be changed unilaterally, we can show that this can go both ways.

The small would die, the big would survive

All the old consumer goods would fall apart because they're built to fail and non-repairable, so you'd need to buy new ones anyways.
Take that, Communists!
/s

I haven't bought stuff in over a year. AI laptop let me check out completely and mostly offline all the time in general except for mobile like now

Yes. Or if everyone paid the monthly bills late on purpose at the same time. They stay rich because money flows through us to them. Demonstrating the power to disrupt that flow is going to send a message. The challenge obviously is in building and organizing a mass movement capable of taking coherent and targeted actions like these. You need a lot of people participating to have an impact.

We could even make an app that shows stephen miller, steve bannon, or one of the dogeshits talk whenever people got tempted to buy shit.

it would be soooo badass let's do it just real quick

77 comments