1

Lesson 7: Consumerism

Social ProblemsRobert Wonser

2

Consumerism is Capitalism

Capitalism - the economic system that is based on the private for-profit operation of industry.

Consumerism propels the insatiable belief that we need what we do not have to fuel capitalism.

4

Consumerism

“By the advent of the 80’s, Americans believed in consumption as salvation, as the only way they knew: shop ‘til you drop, spend ’til the end, buy ‘til you die. Buying was the new time religion, and the shopping mall [or Wal-Mart] its cathedral of consumption.” – Kowinski 1993

A fundamental frame of reference for relating to oneself, to others, to the environment as a whole

The principle socializing force behind this way of being in the world is television and advertising

5

An anticorporate advertisement from the critical magazineAdbusters.

Why do activists compare global corporationsto psychopaths?

6

Cultural Hegemony and Consumerism

Ideas propelled by the culture industry:

Last season’s fashions are so last season planned obsolescence

Shopping completes us Average adult – 48 new pieces of

clothing a year, child – 70 new toys

7

But, it’s new!

8

Cultural Hegemony and Consumerism

We can all live like celebrities No longer the Jones’, we evaluate our consumption

relative to reference groups that live financially beyond our own means.

Americans carry $2.56 trillion in consumer debt, up 22% since 2000

Average household’s credit card debt is $8,565 up 15% from 2000

Ironically, this doesn’t make us any happier by only highlighting existing disparities between the middle and upper classes.

9

Cultural Hegemony and Consumerism

Our self-worth is determined by our looks and cultural norms of sexual attractiveness Airbrushed images of perfected bodies

normalize an unattainable expectation of beauty.

10

Cultural Hegemony and Consumerism

Brands matter

Connote status

McDonald’s coffee beats Starbuck in unbiased Consumer Reports taste tests.

Ramones t-shirts have outsold their cds and records 10 to 1

Cool hunters

11

Commodities

Commodity a product of materialist orientation with a focus on productive capacity of actors.

Upon interacting with others and nature, humans produce the objects necessary to survive, which are then used by oneself or immediate others commodities use value. But under capitalism this becomes working to produce exchange value where objects aren’t used immediately but later exchanged for money or other objects.

12

Use vs Exchange Values

Use value tied to human needs and the objects to satisfy those needs; difficult to compare; they’re qualitatively different.

In the process of exchange though commodities are compared to one another, which are quantitatively different.

Exchange value is separate from the physical property of the object.

13

Fetishism of Commodities

Commodities are products of human labor but can be separated from the needs and purposes of the creator (becoming exchange values).

EV floats free from commodity and seems to exist independently. In capitalism this the commodity and market do become real independent phenomena and take on independent, mystical external reality.

This is the fetishism of commodities

14

Fetishism of Commodities

For Marx, true value comes from the fact that labor produces it and someone needs it, its value represents social relations.

Capitalism distorts this relationship to one of relations between commodities, hiding the exploitative social relations that built it.

Also a process of reification (or“thingification”)

15

Class Status and Conspicuous Consumption

Conspicuous consumption status displays that show off one’s wealth through the flagrant consumption of goods and services, particularly those considered wasteful or otherwise lacking in obvious utility

Upper classes distinctly avoid associations with working class; this reverse is not true.

Our new drug of choice

We find reward through purchasing power (the paycheck and salary) rather than labor power (the artistic ability to create and make, and the humanistic ability to contribute and serve)

TV amplifies our confusion of reality

Helps make our needs and wants ambiguous

Advertising is it’s only true enduring program

The primary role today of most media is to deliver advertisements

As McLuhan put it,“the medium is the message”

16

Consuming = Identity Construction

What we acquire and own is tightly bound to our personal identity

Competitive acquisition has long been an American institution.

Comparisons we make are no longer restricted to those in our own general earnings category, today we are more likely to be making comparisons with or choose as our “reference group” people whose incomes are three, four, or five times his or her own.

17

How Bad is it?

27% of all households making more than $100,000 a year say they cannot afford to buy everything they really need. Nearly 20% say they“spend nearly all their

income on the basic necessities of life”

In the 50-100k range, 39% and ⅓ feel this way respectively.

Overall, half the nation’s richest country say they cannot afford everything they need! Which half are we talking about?

18

Intensification of Competitive Consumption

At a minimum: average persons spending increased 30% between 1979-1995.

Economic trend: diverging income distribution. Sociological trend: upward shift in consumer aspirations and the vertical stretching out of reference groups.

Growing income inequality yet more of us aspiring to ‘make it.’

In short, 4/5ths of Americans were relegated to earning even less than the people they looked up to, who were now earning and spending more.

19

Ah, plastic…

Debtors pay an average of $1,000 a year in interest fees alone.

Credit card link is Pavlovian:

Adding the MC logo causes people to spend more.

Credit card tips tend to be higher than cash tips.

20