shopping...

why is it that we love shopping so much? i've been thinking about this lately and wondering why we love spending money to get new things. and why is it that social status in middle and high schools can revolve around malls and on shopping at certain stores and owning specific name brand things? is it any surprise that we are in a time where being in debt is common and accepted as normal?
growing up with five siblings it was easy to get carried away as to who had more than another - especially at meal times. i don't know if we were typical in this but it became a competition at dinner to see who could end up with more food on their plate. at one point i remember my parents mandating that they had to dish up the plates because they were sick of all the whining and griping and fighting.
so is this drive to own more or better things than another an innate survival instinct? in nature, animals try to acquire resources for survival and guard them possessively. if they don't, it may well mean that they won't live very long. if it is innate, how can we defeat it? how can we teach our kids to overcome it?
i'm not saying that over-acquiring ("debt"or "hording") is a natural characteristic of every person, but is it a natural drive? and how do we change the next generation's outlook on it? on shopping? on owning new things? and how do we change our own?
on a side note, below is a picture of all the items that i scored for $16 at albertson's a few weeks ago. yeah, yeah - acquiring things can sometimes be exciting! :)