Introduction
Here is a thought experiment. Imagine two neighbours. One lives alone, eats alone, entertains alone. The other is embedded in a close-knit community — sharing tools, meals, childcare, and social life with the people around them.
Which one spends more money?
The answer, almost certainly, is the first. The isolated individual needs their own lawnmower, their own streaming subscription, their own takeaway dinner, their own gym membership. The connected neighbour borrows, shares, and makes do.
This is the quiet engine of consumer capitalism: the more atomised we become, the more we consume. And the question worth asking is whether this fragmentation is accidental — or structural.
The Mechanics of Division
Modern capitalism did not set out to destroy community. But its incentives push relentlessly in that direction.
Consider housing. The shift from multi-generational households to single-person flats multiplies the number of kitchens, washing machines, and heating systems in use. The UK now has 8.3 million people living alone, up from 3 million in 1971. Each of those households is a separate unit of consumption.
Consider food. The decline of shared family meals — replaced by individual meal kits, microwave dinners, and food delivery apps — means that a family of four increasingly eats as four separate consumers rather than one household.
Consider entertainment. Where families once shared a television, they now each have their own phone, tablet, and subscription. Netflix, Spotify, and gaming platforms are priced per individual, not per household. The Brookings Institution has documented how consumer culture encourages identity expression through purchasing, turning personal taste into a market opportunity.
The pattern is consistent: every social bond that weakens creates a new market.
But Is It That Simple?
The counterargument is worth taking seriously. Do strong social bonds actually reduce spending — or do they simply redirect it?
There is a body of research suggesting that social connections can increase consumption through what psychologists call competitive consumption — keeping up with the Joneses. A study published by the NIH found that societies with more capitalistic structures tend to exhibit more competitive rather than prosocial behaviours. Your friend buys a new car; you feel the pressure to upgrade yours.
Social media has turbocharged this dynamic. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube create constant exposure to other people's lifestyles, possessions, and experiences. The result is not contentment but aspiration — and aspiration drives spending.
So the relationship between social bonds and consumption is more complex than a simple inverse. Close bonds can either reduce consumption (through sharing and contentment) or increase it (through comparison and competition). The question is which tendency dominates — and whether the design of our economic system tilts the balance.
The Intentional Shift
There are signs that some consumers are pushing back. McKinsey and Greenbook have both reported a trend towards "intentional spending" — particularly among Gen Z — where consumers actively resist mindless purchases and prioritise experiences, durability, and values over volume.
The sharing economy — Airbnb, car-sharing, tool libraries — represents a partial reversal of atomisation. And the growing interest in community living, co-housing, and cooperative models suggests that some people are actively choosing connection over individual consumption.
But these remain niche movements. The dominant direction of travel — smaller households, more screens, more subscriptions, more delivery — continues to fragment daily life into individual units of consumption.
Conclusion
Capitalism does not need a conspiracy to divide us. It simply rewards fragmentation. Every shared resource that becomes an individual purchase is a new revenue stream. Every social bond that weakens creates a need that the market can fill.
This is not an argument against capitalism itself. It is an argument for being conscious of what the system incentivises — and for actively choosing community, sharing, and connection, even when the market offers a more convenient, more personalised, more individual alternative.
The question is not whether capitalism divides. It is whether we will let it.
Do you think stronger communities would mean less consumer spending — or just different spending? Is the sharing economy a real alternative, or a fad? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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