Lives

It seems to me the two basic approaches to life are those of aggregation and transformation.  The first consists in collecting objects and experiences, which can and often does include the experience of power, but could also include travel and the gratification of varied interests.

The latter consists in a focus on inner reality, and where and how that reality meets the external world, and continually working to refine it so as to have transformative, paradigmatic, qualitative experiences, ones which do not add to previous experiences, but supplant them.

I would submit that both Consumerism and Socialism are variants of the first objective, where Socialism is preoccupied not with adding things or experiences, but in theory with deducting them, with eliminating the possibility of negative experiences of racism, sexism, greed, and inequality.  It is assumed that purely by deducting the alleged negatives, happiness will blossom.  In the long term, and particularly where the alleged grievances were not actually that severe, this is very rarely the case.

An active meaning system=Living=transformation.

Collecting=dying=stasis.