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Materialism: attention to or emphasis on material objects, needs or considerations, with a disinterest in or rejection of spiritual values. The acquisition of material has been equated with happiness in this country. This is true today, and it was true during the ....

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.... the freemarket economy in this country. Consumers are taught that they need to have all these things that the businesses are trying to sell. It's true that this desire for things is what drives our economy. The free market has given us great blessings, but it has in some ways also put us on the wrong path -- the path to a selfish, unhappy society. Michael Lerner, who worked as a psychotherapist to middle-income Americans notes that "The problem is that the deprivation of meaning is a social problem, rooted in part in the dynamics of the competitive marketplace, in part in the materialism and selfishness that receive social sanction. . . many Americ ....