Confucius said, “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” The average Canadian consumer might add, “and a stop at the Tim Horton’s drive–thru.”

But Vancouver-based artist and activist Ted Dave is not your average consumer. In fact, it was the overconsumption of coffee and muffins that ultimately led him to bring a homemade Buy Nothing Day poster into the Adbusters Magazine office on December 24, 1992.

“I was working at a downtown office and realized I was spending my first hour’s wage of work on coffee and muffins,” Dave said. “I was like, ‘Why am I not being more organized about this?’”
Since the day Dave was driven to get organized, Buy Nothing Day has become an annual globally–recognized 24-hour moratorium on consumer spending. It coincides with Black Friday in the US and the unofficial start of the international holiday shopping season.

But is this annual break from the capitalist craze really doing anything to change our consumption-addled society for the better?

The people’s response

“I don’t think it will help too much if it’s something that’s just one day….In fact I think it’ll start hurting smaller businesses.”
—Izaaz Badshah,
Biology 3

“What we should be focusing on is what we’re choosing not to buy that day, who’s making it, where it comes from, and ultimately which corporation you’re going to be supporting.”
—Roberta Wover,
owner of Ripe Beauty booth in the SUB

“I think the most effective forms of political action are when you have direct action….You can protest specific corporate practices like child labour and unfair wages and unfair working conditions by boycotting a specific company, but in terms of a global movement, I don’t have any ideas.”
—Devon,
Science 5

“It would be helpful in raising awareness about the consumerism. If you just buy nothing for a whole day I think you’d realize how much you buy every day, and how much you actually don’t need of what you buy every day.…I don’t know if it really helps in achieving anything in the whole, though.”
—Kelly Speck,
Arts 1

“It’s up to either the corporations, or government making sanctions for the corporations….That’s the only way anything will ever change.”
—Anthony,
hot dog vendor at Granville and Georgia

“It’s an admirable concept, but I think, as is the case with a lot of things, it can’t really apply in the Downtown Eastside.…We’re talking about a lot of folks down here who have nothing.”
—Brian Dodd,
executive director of United We Can Bottle Return (39 East Hastings St)

“I don’t think it will have much of an impact on sales, but it may perhaps remind people to think about what is motivating them to buy what they do, and to think about where what they are purchasing is coming from. They may even begin to think about the working and living conditions of the people who are producing what they consume.”
—Catherine Douglas,
UBC economics professor

“You’re putting a finger in a dam that is breaking…Our generation needs to be the first in a long time that needs to lower our standard of living well below our parents and their parents. That sort of cutting back comes from Buy Nothing Day not being Black Friday—Buy Nothing Day being Tuesday through Sunday.”
—Andrew Primus,
currently unemployed

For future reference

Respondents seemed to agree that the intent behind Buy Nothing Day is a step in the right direction. However, it leaves a lot of ground left to cover. But until we find a better way to flex our consumer buying power to improve our cultural and natural environment, it seems one day of nothing will continue to be better than something.

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