Consumer Surplus Quotes & Sayings

My object, having a surplus to deal with, is to consider how I can deal with it to the greatest advantage to the consumer- how, without inflicting any injury on Canada, I can secure the most substantial benefit to this country, to the manufacturing, to the commercial, and to the agricultural interests ... The real way in which we can benefit the working and manufacturing classes is, unquestionably, by removing the burden that presses on the springs of manufactures and commerce. — Robert Peel

To he "over-choiced" with thirty different kinds of bread does indeed develop the shopper's awareness of differentiation and sense of taste. However, from the ego that is becoming dependent on such a surplus of choice, it also takes away the time and energy for other life pursuits. The ego is diverted and, with the help of the world of consumer goods, "turned in on itself" (bomo incur-vatus in se ipsum), as the tradition used to depict the sinner.
The least to he learned from the tradition of mysticism is that becoming empty in a world of surplus, learning to switch off, and limiting oneself are small steps in the liberation from consumerism, and that perhaps freedom cannot he imagined without letting go. — Dorothee Solle