Jiya Says

We live in an age where progress feels fast but meaning feels thin. The modern world thrives on the twin engines of capitalism and consumerism, systems that promise abundance, freedom, and opportunity. Yet, as we move faster and own more, a quiet unease grows. Something human, something essential, seems to be slipping away. This article explores the history, logic, and lived reality of capitalism and consumerism, asking one core question:  what happens when having replaces being? The Birth of Capitalism Capitalism wasn’t born overnight. It grew over centuries, from the crumbling of feudal estates to the rise of bustling city markets. When peasants became wage labourers, when ownership shifted from land to capital, the seeds of the modern economic order were planted. Max Weber, in his classic  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , suggested that early Protestantism encouraged discipline, productivity, and thrift values that later became the moral backbone of moder...