6/7. Why Can't We Stop Shopping? Every year there are more shops full of more things to buy and, every year, the consumer buys them. For most of the last decade the economy has relied on ever higher levels of consumer spending and borrowing to keep the world economy going. But can this go on for ever? Will an increasingly educated and affluent public finally decide buying things does not lead to happiness or is capitalism just too effective at sustaining our addiction to shopping?
Bob Tyrrell examines the future of consumption and looks at what might happen to our economy if more of us decided we had got enough "stuff". Producer Richard Vadon