Buying, living well, and voting

Word	What it means
Consumerism	The idea that buying more goods and services is good for the economy, and a way of life built around buying. The word also names the movement that protects buyers' rights.
Marketing	Everything a business does to get people to buy: advertising, packaging, pricing, sponsored posts.
Boycott	An organized refusal to buy from a business, to pressure it to change.
GDP	Gross domestic product: the total value of goods and services a country produces in a year. Economic growth means GDP is rising.
Standard of living	How much people have: income, goods, housing. Measured mostly in money.
Quality of life	How well people live: health, education, safety, environment, free time and rights, as well as income.
Indicator	A measurement used to compare something, such as life expectancy as an indicator of health.
Underground economy	Economic activity hidden from government: work paid in cash to avoid tax, and illegal trade.
Social program	A government program that supports well-being, such as public health insurance.
Universal and targeted	A universal program covers everyone; a targeted one covers people who meet a test, such as low income.
Platform	The set of promises a political party campaigns on.
Left and right	Left-leaning parties favour more public programs and regulation; right-leaning parties favour lower taxes, fewer rules and more room for markets.

For and against. When people spend, businesses sell, hire and invest, and the economy grows: the case for consumerism. The case against: more debt, more waste, more strain on the environment, and more things do not reliably make people happier.

How marketing works. Most techniques say little about the product. They attach it to something you want: to belong (bandwagon), to be like someone you admire (testimonial, which is what influencers do), not to miss out (urgency), or to be a certain kind of person (lifestyle).

Source. An invented sponsored post: “Literally everyone at my school has these now. Only 200 pairs left at this price — don't be the one who missed out. #ad”

Reading it. “Everyone at my school” is bandwagon; “only 200 left” is urgency. Nothing says whether the shoes are any good. The most important word is the last: #ad means the poster was paid or given something, so this is the seller's voice coming through someone you trust. Canada's Competition Bureau expects influencers to make that clear.

Buyers together. A boycott that moves enough sales changes what is profitable, and businesses respond. One person refusing to buy is a choice; it only becomes power when many do it together.

The indicator decides the answer. The United States produces more per person than Canada — a higher GDP per person. Canadians, on average, live longer. Which country has the higher quality of life depends on which indicators you count, and a source that picks only one is making an argument.

Indicator	Shows	Misses
GDP per person	Average production and income	How income is shared; unpaid work; pollution
Life expectancy	A population's health	How good those years are
Air and water quality	The environment people live in	Income and health care

What GDP counts. Money spent rebuilding after a flood counts as new production; the homes the flood destroyed are not subtracted. Volunteering and caring for a relative count for nothing. A rising GDP and a better life are two different claims.

The underground economy. An invented roofer offers to do a job for $2000 cash, no receipt, instead of $2400 with an invoice. The homeowner saves $400. But the income is hidden from tax, so there is less for public services and everyone else pays more; there is no written guarantee if the roof leaks; and a worker hurt on the job may have no coverage. Nobody can measure the underground economy exactly, because it is hidden on purpose.

Values under social programs. Public health insurance is universal, because the value behind it is that care should not depend on income. The Canada Child Benefit is targeted: lower-income families get more, because the value is sending help where it is needed most. Critics of universal programs say they spend money on people who do not need it; critics of targeted ones say they divide the people who get help from the people who pay.

Left and right are tendencies, not rules: a party can lean left on one issue and right on another.

Source. Two invented platform promises. Party X: “We will cut personal income taxes, reduce red tape for small businesses, and let families decide how to spend their own money.” Party Y: “We will make public transit free for every student, paid for by a new tax on incomes over $250 000.”

Reading it. Party X leans right: lower taxes, fewer rules, individual choice. Party Y leans left: a new program paid for by taxing the highest incomes. Asked which value Party Y's promise reflects most strongly, choose shared responsibility — people with more paying toward a service for others. The tempting wrong answer is economic growth: Party Y might claim it, but the promise says nothing about it. Choose what a platform says, not what it might hope to achieve.

• Treating standard of living and quality of life as the same thing.
• Treating GDP growth as proof that people are better off. Ask which indicator, and what it misses.
• Assuming a party is left or right on everything. Read the specific promise.
• Thinking the underground economy is only illegal goods. It includes ordinary work paid in cash to avoid tax.