Rousseau on Consumption

Man who had previously been free and independent, is now so to speak subjugated by a multitude of new needs. Consuming ambition, the ardent desire to raise one's relative fortune less out of genuine need than in order to place oneself above others, instills in all men a black inclination to harm one another; a secret jealousy which is all the more dangerous as it often assumes the mask of benevolence.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1755