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Journal of Consumer Culture

2014, Vol. 14(1) 324

! The Author(s) 2013

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Article

Prosumption: Evolution,

revolution, or eternalreturn of the same?

George RitzerUniversity of Maryland

Abstract

Prosumption, the interrelated process of production and consumption, is increasinglyobvious everywhere, but especially on the internet where people prosume, for exam-ple, Facebook pages, Wikipedia entries, and Amazon.com orders. But what is prosump-tion? Has it evolved out of recent behaviors? Or, is it new and revolutionary? Or, is itwhat weve always done? In fact, it is all three. Beyond dealing with these questions andre-conceptualizing much of what we do as prosumption rather than as either produc-tion or consumption, we reflect on the future of prosumption, as well as on thecontinuing utility of traditional concepts, paradigms, theories and methods that werecreated to deal with epochs, phenomena and processes seemingly focused on produc-

tion or consumption.

Keywords

Prosumption, consumption, production, digital, eternal return of the same

It is now possible to begin to get a handle on the full extent of a series of extremely

important and closely related changes in everyday life, especially involving the

economy. Changes in production are often noted and there has even been increas-ing, but still inadequate, attention to changes in consumption. However, changes in

prosumption, the interrelated process of production and consumption,1 indeed

the phenomenon itself, have generally not been recognized, at least until recently.

This is a revised version of a paper presented as the annual Robin M Williams, Jr Lecture at the Eastern

Sociological Society meetings in Boston, MA on 21 March 2013. I would like to thank Chih-Chin Chen, PJ Rey,

Nathan Jurgenson, and the students in my spring 2013 graduate seminar on consumption at the University of

Maryland for their input into this paper. Reviewers, as well the editor of this journal, made many useful

comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Corresponding author:

George Ritzer, University of Maryland, Art-Sociology Bldg, College Park, MD 20742, United States

301-405-6418.

Email: [email protected]

at Universit degli Studi di Napoli 'L'Orientale' on April 22, 2015joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
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They are largely invisible not only to scholars, but also to the people most actively

involved in, and affected by, them.

There are several reasons for the near invisibility of prosumption. The social

changes associated with prosumption are usually so mundane (e.g. bussing ones

own debris at a fast food restaurant) that they hardly seem worthy of note to those

involved. In addition, they are occurring in so many diverse economic and, more

broadly, social worlds (airports, the internet, etc.) that it is difficult not only to see

their connections to one another, but also that they are part of some larger set of

changes. Because they have largely not been recognized by laypeople and scholars,

the phenomenon and these changes have not been researched, theorized, or even

conceptualized until relatively recently. Without a significant concept, or set of

concepts, to describe them, scholars and, more importantly, laypeople have been

unable to discern the commonalities or connections among the diverse changes andthe even more diverse phenomena undergoing these changes.

Beginning in 1980, scholars did begin, albeit haltingly, to conceptualize these

changes, but they soon created a series of very different concepts often dealing with

only a part of the broader economic and social changes, as well as the phenomena

involved in those changes. As the number of these concepts grew over the years,

their quantity and diversity tended to prevent scholars and laypeople from under-

standing what the various changes and empirical phenomena had in common.

The first significant contribution to conceptualizing prosumption was made by

Alvin Toffler (1980; Toffler and Toffler, 2006), a popular writer, a futurist, withouta base in an academic discipline. Because his ideas lacked legitimacy, at least to many

in the academic world, Tofflers work did not have a great deal of impact on scholars.

Toffler was on target in his work on prosumption, but he was, as a futurist, ahead of

the curve, especially because the arena in which his ideas were most relevantthe

internetwas still in its infancy. While his 1980 book, Third Wave, devoted much

attention to prosumption, it was only a small part of his larger argument about the

Third Wave and the dramatic social changes on the horizon. It was that over-

arching argument that received most public attention and was the source of great

controversy. Prosumption was largely lost in the broader issues and the controver-sies that surrounded it. The concept failed to gain much traction among either lay-

people or scholars in spite of the expansion of phenomena that clearly involved

prosumption. A major social change away from production and consumption and

toward prosumption was not only under way but was soon to accelerate.

In the wake of Tofflers work on prosumption, and only in part as a result of it,

scholars in a number of different fields began to accord greater attention to the

changes involved. In the process, they either used or created other concepts to deal

with them. This eventually led to a set of similar concepts that, in turn, led, at least

in part, to a failure to see what they had in common. Among them are such ideas asdo-it-yourself (DIY) (Watson and Shove, 2008); craft consumption (Campbell,

2005); Pro-Ams (Leadbetter and Miller, 2004); co-creation (Prahalad and

Ramaswamy, 2004a, 2004b); service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004,

2008); commons-based peer production (Benkler, 2006; Benkler and

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Nissenbaum, 2006); collaborative capitalism involving both value co-creation and

service dominant logic (Cova, Dalli and Zwick, 2011); crowd- and open-sourcing

(Howe, 2009); putting customers to work (Ritzer, 1993); wikinomics based at least

in part on the idea that businesses put consumers to work on the internet (Tapscott

and Williams, 2006); the complete collapse of consumption into production (Zwick

and Knott, 2009); Laugheys (2010) productive consumption; and the produser

(Bird, 2011; Bruns, 2005, 2008). In spite of this conceptual proliferation, it is

prosumption that remains the most popular and useful concept for understanding

the full range of the changing economic and social phenomena of concern here.

Despite this growth in work on prosumption (and related ideas), it remains a

niche concept that is largely unknown to most observers. A key factor in this

invisibility is the fact that within the social and economic worlds, there are hege-

monic conceptsproductionandconsumptionthat are so omnipresent and power-ful that they strongly bias and limit the ways in which scholars and laypeople look

at those worlds and what they see in them. As a result, they are largely unable to see

the prosumption that is rife throughout the economy and the social world.

Nonetheless, the hegemony of the concepts of production and consumption even-

tually led to the greater acceptance and popularity (compared to similar ideas listed

above) of the concept of prosumption because it involves a fusion of the concepts

ofproduction and consumption. However, given these largely economic roots, the

concept of prosumption inhibits our ability to see and fully understand the

broader, non-economic dimensions of that process (for example, how they applyto the media and media studies).

Some deper theoretical background

Scholars and laypeople have long had a productivist bias (Ritzer and Slater,

2001) when examining the economy (for a recent example of this bias, but focused

on the internet, see Scholz, 2013). As a result, they tended to concentrate on pro-

duction and work at the expense of consumption and leisure (as well as play). The

latter were seen, at least until the years following the end of World War Two, asbeing of only minor significance. Most of those who studied the economy rarely

recognized and acknowledged the importance of consumption or looked at it in a

positive light.2 Consumption (and even more leisure) was seen as at best trivial and

at worst as a wasteful social practice (Veblen, 1899/1994). The focus on production

was especially strong after the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the growth in

significance of factories that produced various goods as well as being a workplace

for those who produced in them. The capitalist economic system greatly valued

factories and the productive work that took place in them and, at least in its early

history, accorded comparatively little importance to consumption.The emphasis on production is found in the work of the classical social theorists,

most notably Karl Marx (as well as Adam Smith). In the labor theory of value that

lies at the heart of Marxs theory of capitalism, it is production (work, labor) that

gives commodities their value. Consumption, especially the demand of

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consumers, plays no role in the value of commodities which is determined by the

labor involved in them. What mattered most to Marx was the productive work, the

labor, of the proletariat (as well as the fact that they were not rewarded adequately,

indeed were exploited, by the capitalist). Max Webers (19045/1958) emphasis on

production is clearest in his best-known work,The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of

Capitalism (as well as companion works on other major world religions and their

relationship, largely as barriers, to the rise of capitalism outside the Occident). The

focus is on the role of Protestantism (especially Calvinism) in the rise of the spirit

of capitalism and ultimately of capitalism itself (and, more generally, a rationa-

lized economy) in the West. Webers productivist bias is even clearer in his greatly

underrated General Economic History (1927/1981) where Weber is mainly inter-

ested in the development of the Occidents rational capitalistic economy, as well as

the barriers to the development of such an economy elsewhere in the world.Durkheim was much more interested in collective beliefs and collective morality

than he was in the economy. For example, he saw socialism as a movement aimed

at the moral regeneration of society through scientific morality (Durkheim, 1928/

1962). His most systematic thinking on the economy is found in the Division of

Labor in Society (Durkheim, 1893/1964). His ultimate interest is clear when he

argues that the economic services that it [the modern division of labor] can

render are insignificant compared with the moral effect that it produces and its

true function is to create between two or more people a feeling of solidarity

(Durkheim, 1893/1964: 17). In mechanical solidarity people were held togetherby the fact that they generally performed the same tasks and had the same respon-

sibilities, whereas in organic solidarity people needed one another because they

performed different tasks and had different responsibilities. Mechanical solidarity

was strong because people tended to share a strong collective conscience, whereas

the bonds were reduced in organic solidarity because of a weaker collective con-

science. In terms of the economy, the focus was clearly on what people did (their

work) and not on their role as consumers. Similarly, in terms of his proposals for

dealing with the weakness of the collective conscience in organic solidarity,

Durkheim (1893/1964: 5) proposed the occupational association, or an organiza-tion that would encompass all the agents of the same industry united and orga-

nized into a single group. Rosalind Williams (1982) sees Durkheims focus on the

occupational association as emblematic of the reign of the producer in his work.

Of all of the classical theorists, Thorstein Veblen (1899/1994) is the best known

for his work on consumption, especially the famous concept of conspicuous con-

sumption. However, this work occupies a unique place in Veblens oeuvre which

otherwise is almost completely devoted to production-related matters. Veblens pri-

oritization of production begins with his assumptions about human nature, espe-

cially the instinct for workmanship. This instinct is concerned with practicalexpedients, ways and means, devices and contrivances of efficiency and economy,

proficiency, creative work and technological mastery of facts. . . a proclivity for

taking pains (Veblen, 1914/1964:33). The instinct of workmanship is manifest in

both the technical efficiency of the individual worker and in the technological




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proficiency and accomplishments of the community as a whole (the industrial

arts). The bulk of Veblens work is devoted to the conflict between what he calls

business and industry. Those involved in industry seek to become ever more

efficient, but they tend to be thwarted by those oriented to business and their interest

in money, including large profits and low costs, rather than in efficiency and work-

manship. Thus, business leaders often seek to keep production low (to inhibit, even

to sabotage, those associated with industry) in order to keep profits high.

This productive bias among social theorists and sociologists was not restricted to

the economy; there was a tendency to privilege production over consumption in

other spheres of the social world, as well. In the family, for example, the productive

contributions, especially of men in the labor force, were accorded prime significance.

Even before women entered the labor force in great numbers, the cult of domes-

ticity led to a focus on the domestic work that women did in and for the family(Welter, 1966). This work, as well as their consumption functions within the family,

was seen as of secondary significance to what men did, especially in the labor force.

The classical thinkers inherited and lived and worked in a world in which the

whole idea of a consumer was either non-existent or largely undeveloped. In an

exhaustive historical genealogy of the idea of the consumer, Frank Trentman

(2006: 23; italics added) says,

The consumer was virtually absent from eighteenth-century discourse. Significantly, it

only appears in seven of the 150,000 works of the eighteenth-century collections on line. . .Even after the French Revolution, when deputies in Restoration France considered

consumers interests, it was only to render them insignificant compared to peoples

social station and larger national interests represented by land, production and trade.

In the early 19th century there was only limited use of the idea of the consumer,

often to refer to physical or metaphysical processes of use, waste and destruction

(Trentmann, 2006: 26). It was not until the 1890s that the intellectual pursuit of

the consumer took off (Trentmann, 2006: 29). All of this is to say that the classical

theorists were working in a context in which the whole idea of a consumer was un-,or at least under-, developed. Thus, not only were they drawn to the revolutions in

production taking place around them, but they lacked a strong sense of the con-

sumer to counter-balance the inclination to emphasize production. However, that

is not to say that the classical thinkers were unaware of consumption.

Marx was well aware that, for example, the consumption of various things (e.g.

the raw materials, tools and machinery that allow labor power to function in the

production process) was needed in order for production to occur (productive

consumption). It could be argued that use value is all about consumption (to

be produced, a commodity must be a use value; a commodity will be consumedonly if it is useful). Furthermore the C-M-C (Money-Commodity-Money) circuit is

focally concerned with the exchange of commodities to be consumed (versus the

M-C-M [Money-Commodity-Money]) circuit which is more concerned with the

profit dynamic in capitalism that feeds continual and expanding production).

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To the degree that there was a concern for consumption in Webers work on the

Protestant Ethic, it was ultimately on the propensity of the Protestants to value

frugality; to consume as little as possible. One of the major limitations of Webers

argument on this was clarified by Colin Campbell (1987) who demonstrated that

Weber did not take his argument far enough historically. Over time, the Protestant

Ethic also gave birth to a consumerist ethic to parallel the early capitalist (produc-

tivist) ethic.

Williams (1982) interprets Durkheims moral crisis as one that involves the

consumer, but she argues that his response to that crisis is to focus on the realm

of the producer (and the role of occupational associations in resolving that crisis).

Even in his later work, Durkheim turns to religion, especially the morality of reli-

gion and its asceticism, as at least a constraint on consumption.

Simmel is best-known for his micro-sociological work on forms of interactionand types of interactants, but he dealt with the economy in at least some of that

work. His best-known work in this area, The Philosophy of Money (Simmel, 1907/

1978), dealt with capitalism and the problems created by a money economy (e.g.

cynicism, a blase attitude, increasing impersonality). Interestingly, this work, while

far from silent on the issue of production (the development of a rational market),

had much more to do with consumption.

As the title suggests, Simmel is concerned with the money economy including

many of the distortions associated with it. For example, the rapid circulation of

money induces people to spend and in the process to acquire goods and to utilize arange of paid services. While money in general grows increasingly important, a

specific quantity of money, especially if it seems to be a small amount, becomes

more insignificant. As a result, it becomes increasingly easy to spend. Money, espe-

cially in contrast to predecessors such as barter, leads people into what Simmel calls

a temptation to imprudence. That can mean spending more money than one

should (overspending) and going into debt in order to be able to consume at a

desired level. While it was rather difficult to acquire debt in Simmels time, it has

clearly become far easier today with, for example, credit cards (Ritzer, 1995, 2012;

Manning, 2001; Marron, 2009) and other forms of easy credit. As a result, Simmelcan be seen as anticipating the debt and consumer orgies that precipitated the

Great Recession that began in 2008, as well as its lingering effects.

Many other aspects of Simmels work, especially his numerous essays, deal

either directly or indirectly with consumption. His essay on fashion (Simmel,

1904/1971) attunes us to the greater consumption associated with constant changes

in what is in (or out of) fashion. More generally, his overarching thinking on

objective culture (Simmel, 1921/1968) relates to consumption in various ways.

For one thing, the need to consume becomes part of the objective culture which

pushes individuals in the direction of ever more consumption. For another, as partof objective culture, the pressure to consume grows increasingly distant from

people and much more difficult to control. In fact, it is increasingly likely to control

people and to lead them in the direction of hyper-consumption. Werner Sombart

(1913/1967) devoted far more attention to consumption than his peers (except,




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perhaps, for Veblen), especially in Luxury and Capitalism. There he reversed the

usual argument and contended that it was the consumption of luxury goods that

played a central role in the rise of capitalism. In spite of these exceptions, the classic

theorists lacked a strong sense of consumption. This had many consequences, but

the most important effect from the perspective of this essay is that without a sense

of consumption to complement their focus on production, there was no way that

the classical theorists could have developed the idea of prosumption.

Overall, production has been a hegemonic concept since the Industrial

Revolution. It retains that position to this day even though industry has declined

in importance in much of the developed world, especially the United States, as has

the manual work and production associated with it. Work, more generally, is itself

less central with the rise in importance of consumption that more-or-less coincided

with the decline of factories and the work associated with them. In spite of thesechanges, production (and the factory) remains important and retains its hold on

popular and scholarly imagination; we continue to operate with a productivist bias.

Since World War Two, consumption has grown in economic importance and, as a

result, it has increasingly taken its place beside production as a hegemonic concept.

With consumption now accounting for 70%, or more, of the American economy, it is

natural for it to occupy a place beside production in thinking about the economy, as

well as other sectors of the social world such as the family. Given the change, some

social theorists began to shift from a productivist to a consumerist bias (e.g.

Galbraith, 1958). The work of Jean Baudrillard, especially his Consumer Society(1970/1998), is particularly pivotal in this shift in focus. Interestingly, in spite of

the title, Baudrillard continued to privilege production over consumption.

Nevertheless, the key point from the perspective of this essay lies in the title of

Baudrillards book heralding a shift in the 20th century from a society dominated

by production to consumer society. Baudrillard argues that capitalists came to rec-

ognize that the 19th century emphasis on regulating workers was no longer sufficient.

In the 20th century the view emerged that consumers could no longer be allowed to

decide whether or not to consume or how much or what to consume (Bauman, 1992

takes a similar position). In many ways, a mirror image of the theories of the classicaltheorists emerged. While the latter focused almost exclusively on production (or

separated their analysis of production and consumption into different works

[Veblen, Sombart]), a number of theorists and empiricists in the late 20th century

came to focus almost exclusively on consumption. Indeed, a distinct area of consumer

or consumption studies emerged in several fields (e.g. anthropology, sociology, mar-

keting), as did journals (e.g. Journal of Consumer Culture; Journal of Consumer

Research) devoted to the study of consumption.3 A new section of the American

Sociological Association, Consumers and Consumption, was launched in 2013.

This was related to the view that had emerged in the wake of the work ofBaudrillard and others that we had moved, or were moving, from a modern to

postmodern society. Among the things that were associated with the modern world

was production, but the postmodern world came to be linked to consumption

(Ritzer, Goodman, and Wiedenhoft, 2001). Thus, for example, Bauman argued

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that the society of concern to classical theorists such as Marx was work-based.

It was one in which its members were engaged primarily as producers. In

contrast, a later-modern, or second-modern or post-modern stage. . . engages its

membersagain primarilyin their capacity as consumers (Bauman, 1998: 24).

More extremely, Bauman discusses the passage from producer to consumer soci-

ety (Bauman, 1998: 24). Indeed, the ascendancy of consumer culture was seen as

one of the hallmarks of the postmodern world (see Featherstones [1991]Consumer

Culture and Postmodernism).

The key point is that in the last several decades the two concepts of production

and consumption have so dominated our thinking that they have prevented us

from thinking in other ways about what transpires in the economic and social

worlds. Furthermore, thinking in such binary terms, indeed thinking in modern

binary terms in general, tends to distort our conceptions of the world. Specifically,the production-consumption binary prevents us from seeing the consumption (e.g.

of raw materials, tools, labor time) that is inherent in production andthe produc-

tion that is intertwined with consumption (for example, the work [e.g. shopping]

involved in much consumption; the creation of the meaning of brands; producing

an order on Amazon.com; creating a response after reading a blog, etc.). In other

words, we are prevented from seeing the prosumption involved in what is conven-

tionally thought of as distinct processes of production and consumption.

Furthermore, the hegemonic status of the concepts of production and consump-

tion has rendered us unable to see that prosumption, not production or consump-tion, is the primal (and still predominant) process (Ritzer, 2010a). That is, early

humans consumed as they produced and produced as they consumed. More

importantly, the hegemony of production and consumption has prevented us

from seeing that we are in the midst of a largely unrecognized social change invol-

ving a massive expansion in, and the development of dramatic new forms of,

prosumption (Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010; Ritzer, Jurgenson and Dean, 2012).

Rethinking production and consumption in light of

prosumption

Figure 1 offers a perspective on prosumption not as a single process (or phenom-

enon), but rather as a wide range of processes existing along a continuum. The

poles of the continuum involve production redefined (a bit awkwardly, but more

accurately) as prosumption-as-production (p-a-p) and consumption as

prosumption-as-consumption (p-a-c). This means, among other things, that pro-

duction and consumption, at least in their pure forms devoid of prosumption, do

not exist on this continuum. There is no such thing as either pure production (with-

out at least some consumption) or pure consumption (without at least some produc-tion); the two processes always interpenetrate. In the middle of the prosumption

continuum production (-as-consumption) and consumption (-as-production) are

more or less evenly balanced; it is there where something approaching balanced

prosumption exists (see Figure 1).




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The prosumption continuum

Sociologists, social theorists and other students of society should have always

focused on prosumption. At best, production and consumption should have

been treated as special limiting cases, as ideal types (Weber, 1903/1917/1949:

90), that do not exist in the real world economy, but may be useful in helping us

to analyze the economic world. However, even that accords production and con-sumption too much importance since from the point of view of this discussion they

are merely types, albeit extreme types, of prosumption. In other words, production

and consumption are sub-types of prosumption; it is prosumption that is the more

general process that subsumes the other two.

A number of students of the internet (in many ways the contemporary home

of prosumption) have come close to understanding the nature of prosumption and

its relationship to production and consumption. For example, Howe (2009: 71)

contends: Once upon a time there were producers and consumers. . . the con-

sumer, as traditionally conceived, is becoming an antiquated concept.Interestingly, undoubtedly because of a lingering productivist bias, Howe is

unable to see that the concept of the producer has also become outdated.

Similarly, Clay Shirky (www.shirky.com/writings/consumer/html) argues that

the consumer is the Internets most recent casualty and that we are all produ-

cers now. While Shirky is on the right track, we once again see the productivist

bias at work here. He is able to dismiss the concept of consumption on the internet,

but he remains in the thrall of the idea of production there (and presumably

elsewhere).

Viewed from todays vantage point, and armed with the concept of prosumption(and the continuum), we can now see that concepts true utility and significance as

well as the many phenomena well-described by it. A number of examples of these

phenomena are discussed below. We begin with examples from the material world

and then turn to digital, as well as mixed material and digital, examples. The

examples to be discussed below all lie toward the middle of the continuum in

Figure 1; they are more balanced forms of prosumption. However, it is also the

case that examples that lie at or near the extreme ends of the continuum exist. That

is, processes approaching what we have traditionally thought of as production

and consumption continue to have a role in the social world. For example, at theproduction end of the continuum we can still find the traditional factory worker

(although better thought of as a prosumer-as-producer), while a consumer in an

elite boutique staffed by many salespeople is a traditional shopper (although even

in this case more of a prosumer-as-consumer).

Prosumption-as-ProductionBalanced ProsumptionProsumption-as-Consumption

Figure 1. The Prosumption Continuum.

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It is important to make clear that the distinction between the material and the

digital is made for discussion purposes only; the material and digital worlds increas-

ingly interpenetrate. That is, we must avoid operating with a dualistic sense of the

material and the digital worlds. Rather we should think in terms of augmented

reality in which the digital and material worlds complement one another

(Jurgenson, 2012). Acts of material prosumption such as cashing a check or check-

ing a bank balance are more likely to occur on a computer or a mobile device and

are thereby increasingly digital. Similarly, those actions involving immaterial pro-

sumption such as creating a digital design on ones computer are increasingly likely

to be materialized by 3-D printers (Anderson, 2012).

Among the (mainly) material examples of (balanced) prosumption are lining up

in cafeterias and more recently fast food restaurants to collect ones food and

afterwards disposing of ones own leftovers; fetching ones own food purchasesand using self-checkout systems at super-and hyper-markets; building, really just

putting together (although it is not as easy as it looks and products are often

considered impossible-to-assemble) IKEA furniture (with the help of a sheet

of instructions and maybe a small tool or two); buying and using on ones own

medical technologies such as blood pressure and glucose monitors, as well as tests

for PSA and cholesterol levels, pregnancy, male fertility, drug, tobacco and alcohol

use, and HIV; and using smart phones to photograph and video dramatic events

(e.g. the damage on Americas east coast caused by Hurricane Sandy in late 2012)

and then sending the photos and videos to TV networks (like CNN) and localstations that show them on air almost immediately.

Then there are such (mainly) digital examples as increasingly making all-but-the-

most-complex travel arrangements on ones own through various websites (e.g.

Travelocity, Expedia); doing all of the work on websites such as Amazon.com

including making the appropriate choices for items to be purchased, providing

needed delivery and payment information, and making ones way through the

various steps needed to complete the process; as buyers doing the largely digital

work of providing a body of information on themselves to eBay and if (when) they

are sellers on that which they are offering for sale; diagnosing oneself (or at leastbelieving one is capable of self-diagnosis) as a result of the proliferation of infor-

mation on the internet on every conceivable disease and the associated symptomol-

ogies; co-creating and crowd-sourcing (producing) open-source software (e.g.

Firefox, Linux) online and then downloading and using (consuming) it; producing

and consuming most of what is found on the billion Facebook pages; contributing

to and using Wikipedia; and writing and reading blogs.

Although the material and the digital forms of prosumption always interpene-

trate, the following examples more clearly demonstrate that interpenetration

including producing the rental of a Zipcar online (with the help of various tech-nologies, of course) and then driving the car; producing the listings on Freecycles

website and, along with the person receiving the object, taking the various digital




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and material steps needed to transfer the object from giver to receiver; searching

out and renting lodgings on Airbnb and eventually occupying the rented spaces in

the homes of people in the locales to which one is traveling; tele-teaching and

internet-based education on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) where

much of the burden of education is put on the students themselves (e.g. having

students grade each others exams, even essay exams).

Given the massive number and array of examples of prosumptionand the

enumeration above only scratches the surface of the full range of this ever-expand-

ing phenomenonthe topic to be addressed in the remainder of this paper is

whether prosumption constitutes a revolutionary new development or whether it

is consistent with earlier, even primal, forms of prosumption. Obviously, many of

the examples iterated above rely on new and advanced technology (especially the

computer and the internet), but the major issue is whether the basic actionsinvolvedthose that combine production and consumptionconstitute something

new, even revolutionary.

A revolutionary development

The view that a revolutionary change is under way involves the idea that while we

have always been prosumers, we are now witnessing the emergence of the new

prosumer associated with, among others, the following realities. First, prosumers

are performing tasks (e.g. checking themselves in and out of hotels and at airportkiosks) that they rarely, if ever, did before. Second, many people are no longer

employed, or they are doing different kinds of work, because of the various things

prosumers are now doing themselves without pay. Third, many companies are

earning unprecedented profits because they are able to employ far fewer people

than they would have if prosumers did not perform various tasks without pay.

Fourth, people now get lots of things free of charge, especially on the internet, in

part because of the free labor of prosumers (Anderson, 2010). Fifth, many of these

developments have been made possible by new technologiesthe computer, inter-

net, self-scanners, 3-D printersand they are leading to further technologicaladvances that will, among other things, further expand prosumption.

The new prosumer has been made possible, and is defined, by the emergence of

the new means of prosumption. This idea is derived from Marxs famous concept

of the means of production and his less well-known idea of the means of consump-

tion. Interestingly, Marxs (1884/1981: 471) definition of the means of

productioncommodities that possess a form in which they. . . enter productive

consumptionmakes it clear that he is aware, at least implicitly, of the process of

prosumption. Since it combines production and consumption, the idea of product-

ive consumption is obviously one way of thinking about prosumption, albeit onethat prioritizes production over consumption. Among the means of production for

Marx are labor-time, tools, machines, and the factories in which they exist; that

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which is used and used up in the process of production. The means of production

are, in Marxs terms, then the means that make possible. . . the production of

commodities (Ritzer, 2010: 50b).

Marx (1884/1981: 471) also develops the idea of the means of consumption, but

he defines it in a way that is at variance with his definition of the means of pro-

duction. That is, they are defined as commodities that possess a form in which

they enter individual consumption of the capitalist and working class (Marx,

1884/1981: 471). Marx associates the luxury means of consumption with the

consumption of capitalists and the necessary means of consumption with that

of the working class. Basic foodstuffs would be necessary means of consumption

while expensive automobiles such as Maseratis would be examples of luxury means

of consumption.

However, there are logical problems in the way Marx uses the concept of themeans of consumption, especially in comparison to the paired notion of means of

production. The means of production occupy an intermediate position between

workers and products; they are the means that make possible both the production

of commodities and the control and exploitation of the workers. In contrast, the

way Marx uses the idea, the means of consumption are not means but rather the end

products in his model of consumption; they are those things (either subsistence or

luxury) that are consumed. In other words, there is no distinction in Marxs work

between consumer goods and what are seen here as the means of consumption (fast

food restaurants, supermarkets, Amazon.com).4

To put it another way, in Marxswork there is no parallel in the realm of consumption to the mediating and expedit-

ing role played by the means of production. Here, the means of consumption are

clearly distinguished from that which is being consumed. The means of consump-

tion play the same mediating role in consumption that the means of production play

in Marxs theory of production. Just as the means of production are those structures

that allow the proletariat to produce, the means of consumption are the structures

that make it possible for people to acquire goods and services. Thus, the means of

consumptionshould be defined (assuming we are going to do something we no longer

should do and clearly differentiate between production and consumption), in par-allel with the definition of the means of production, as those means that make it

possible for people to acquire goods and services (Ritzer, 2010: 50b).

In the 19th century, consumption was a very cumbersome and time-consuming

process involving, for example, long and slow treks to and from such means of

consumption as specialized shops (e.g. butcher shops, grocers). Today, consump-

tion is infinitely easier and consumption time is greatly reduced because of the

development of such newer means of consumption as supermarkets and online

shop-at-home services (e.g. Peapod).

Given our interest in the prosumer, we also need the concept of the means ofprosumption, or those means that make it possible for people to prosume goods and

services. In terms of the continuum depicted in Figure 1, IKEA leads prosumers to

produce their own bookcases at home (prosumption-as-production), MOOCs

lead students to consume college-level courses, and perhaps degrees, on their own




13/22

computers (prosumption-as-consumption), and ATMs lead to both doing the

work involved in a bank withdrawal and obtaining and using the needed cash

(balanced prosumption).5 Thus, IKEA, MOOCS, and ATMs are means of pro-

sumption; they allow, even force, people to be prosumers. Since prosumption is

such a desirable process from the capitalist point of view (fewer paid workers and

more unpaid prosumers), we can expect the creation of an increasing number of

new means of prosumption in the future. Both the means of production and the

means of consumption are, in a sense, means of prosumption because production

and consumption have been redefined in this essay as prosumption-as-production

and prosumption-as-consumption. In another sense, if we treat them as binaries,

we could say that both the means of production and the means of consumption are

imploding into one another, especially on the internet, producing the means of

prosumption. Also imploding into the means of prosumption are the actions weactually take on them. It is increasingly difficult to tell when we are producing,

consuming or prosuming (assuming we can even make those distinctions) on these

new means of prosumption. Those distinctions cease to have meaning when we are,

for example, blogging.

The new prosumer relates to many older means of prosumption such as the

home workshop in which the DIY-er and the craft consumer are found.

However, what especially interests us here are the new means of prosumption that

are not only making the new prosumer possible, but are both expanding and

revolutionizing the process of prosumption. Many new means of prosumptionare found in the material world (e.g. self-checkout systems, digital kiosks and 3-

D printers), but they are especially important in the digital world (Amazon.com,

Facebook, Wikipedia).

The eternal return, or recurrence, of the prosumer

While it is possible to think in terms of a series of revolutionary changes giving

birth to the new prosumer, it is also possible to see the new prosumer as continuous

with earlier, even primal, prosumers. Production and consumption were not clearlydistinct processes. Rather, people prosumed, that is they produced as they con-

sumed and they consumed as they produced, or at least the processes were closely

associated in form and temporally. Bruns (2008: 326), who focuses on the media,

argues that prosumption,6 including that which takes place today on social net-

working sites such as Facebook, is consistent with the social processes of prein-

dustrial communities. Vargo and Lusch (2004: 12) operate from a marketing

perspective in their discussion of service-oriented logic, one of the alternatives to

the concept of prosumption (see above). They argue that that process harks back

to pre-Industrial Revolution days. They cite Hauser and Clausing (1988) whooffer the following example of this:

Marketing, engineering and manufacturing were integrated in the same individual. If a

knight wanted armor, he talked directly to the armorer, who translated the knights

Ritzer 15



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desires into a product, the two might discuss the materialplate rather than chain

armorand details like fluted service or greater bending strength. Then the armorer

would design the production process (cited in Vargo and Lusch, 2004: 12)

In this case, the knight is directly involved in prosuming the armor in commu-

nicating his desires about the material used, design elements, and the flexibility of the

armor (modern prosumers increasingly do this with, for example, clothing designers).

However, the knight lies more toward the prosumption-as-consumption end of the

prosumption continuum because physical production remains in the hands of the

armorer. In most other pre-industrial, especially primal, instances, the consumers are

involved in much more than preliminary deliberations about the end-product; they

are actually involved in the physical production of what they consume.

Ballantyne and Varey (2008) make this clear in their discussion of the fact thatservice-dominant logic has much in common with the realities of pre-industrial

society. The key is that in that epoch people were most often not simply involved

in preliminary deliberations, but were involved in production for their own imme-

diate use. In the absence of any large-scale production, people provided for the

needs of their own families and communities. At this point in time, production and

consumption were highly integrated, but this ended with the Industrial Revolution

which, as Toffler (1980) pointed out, served to separate production and consump-

tion (or at least seemed to). This involved a shift from personal value-in-use in pre-

industrial society to market-based value-in-exchange in industrial society.Marketers have long operated with a value-in-exchange perspective, but when

they shift to value-in-use it becomes clear that they are dealing with prosumers

and that it is the latter who produce value. From this point of view, the role of

producer or supplier involves supporting the value-creating process of the pro-

sumer throughout the entirety of the production-consumption process. More gen-

erally, this process involves (re-)connecting the processes of production and

consumption seemingly severed in the Industrial Revolution.

Ballantyne and Varey argue that a variety of recent changes have made it even

clearer that production and consumption are tightly integrated and cannot beneatly distinguished from one another. Among these are the integration and re-

integration of distribution channels, the emergence of collaborative global supply

chains, as well as the increasing understanding that production and consumption,

as well as procurement and distribution, are no longer separable aspects in a supply

chain.

All of this supports the view that prosumers and the process of prosumption are

not new phenomena; indeed they are primal roles and processes that have taken on

new and perhaps greater importance in the contemporary age, especially one

increasingly dominated by the internet. This view stands in stark opposition tothe previously discussed idea that contemporary prosumption represents a revolu-

tionary new development.

The thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin is helpful in con-

ceptualizing prosumption in this way. Nietzsches ideas are highly abstract and




15/22

philosophical, but Benjamin has done the heavy lifting for us by being more

concrete and sociological. He draws on Nietzsche (1999: 337) and applies his

key concept of eternal return [or eternal recurrence] of the same (1999: 71)

to the social world. This means, of course, that Benjamin (1999: 298) is critical

of the concept of progress, especially of revolutionary progress. Therefore, he

is implicitly critical of the idea that prosumption is a revolutionary (or evolu-

tionary) development. That is, what appears to be revolutionary is from this

perspective simply the return of some past reality. Thinking about eternal

return is consistent with Benjamins roots in Marxian theory, especially dialectical

thinking. In fact, Benjamin (1999: 357) sees dialectics as an example of eternal

recurrence. Thus, thesis always returns in the wake of antithesis and syn-

thesis.7 Theories of evolution and progress are not dialectical, but a theory of

eternal return is certainly dialectical. Some of the clearest examples of eternalreturn exist, most generally, in the eternal cycle of nature and more specifically

in the changes in weather (1999: 102) and the stars (1999: 116; 340). In the social

world, Benjamin (1999: 464) argues that what has been within a particular

epoch is always, simultaneously, what has been from time immemorial. For

example, Benjamin (1999: 544) defines the modern as the new in the context

of what has already been there. More specifically, he discusses the creation of

the newest out of the oldest and sees it as the true dialectical theater of fashion

(1999: 64). There is nothing new in fashion and, perhaps, everywhere else in the

social world. In the realm of production, Benjamin (1999: 331) discusses theeternal return of the same as manifest in mass productions. In consumption,

the arcade, an early means of consumption, involves eternal return in various

ways, especially since it resembles earlier means of consumption such as bazaars

and souks. Most generally, Benjamin (1999: 463) sees the whole of primal his-

tory group[ing] itself anew in images appropriate to that [the 19th] century.

Perhaps the phrase of Benjamins (1999: 116) that best fits with the approach

to prosumption taken in this section is the following: primal history enters the

scene in ultramodern get-up. In terms of our interest, the prosumption that

predominated primordially, as well as at all times throughout history, has re-entered the scene today in various ways, especially in ultramodern forms on

the internet and smart phones. Of course, in discussing the new, ultramodern

forms Benjamin is acknowledging that what is returning is far from exactly the

same as that which existed in the past. Benjamin here is taking a position that is

consistent with Deleuzes (1986) emphasis on difference in eternal return.

It may still be prosumption, but its ultramodern guise (e.g. on the internet;

with 3-D printers) makes it different in various ways.

An evolutionary view of prosumptionThe third perspective on prosumption is that it is not a revolutionary development,

or an instance of the eternal return of the same, but rather that it is continuous with

a number of recent developments which are, in turn, continuous with their

Ritzer 17



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predecessors. For example, an internet shopping mall (but not the internet itself)

such as Amazon.com can be seen as continuous with, and a logical development

from, shopping malls. The latter, in turn, evolved from earlier prosumption sites,

including arcades. Fast-food restaurants, as well as the food courts based, among

other places, in shopping malls, are clearly derived, at least in part, from cafeterias.

Going back much further in time, ancient food stalls by the sides of roads are other,

much earlier, forerunners of fast food restaurants. More generally, many of the

phenomena associated with contemporary prosumption are not new, although the

role of prosumption in them has increased greatly in recent years. For example,

people have always, or at least for quite some time, made their own travel arrange-

ments; engaged in self-diagnosis and helped themselves medically; reviewed, at least

informally, products and work performed by others; participated in auctions

(Smith, 1990) not that different from eBay; and participated actively in their owneducation. Thus, from this perspective, prosumption is not a new process and its

current manifestations are not inconsistent with past processes.

Conclusion

This discussion has highlighted a number of recent social changes broadly grouped

under the heading of prosumption. The main issue is whether these changes are an

example of the eternal return of the same, a revolutionary new development, or are

continuous with earlier developments. The central conclusion of this paper is thatthey can be associated with all three processes.

Many of these changes are consistent with earlier developments. To take an

example not dealt with previously, the work that consumers do on Amazon.com

is not dissimilar from that done by those who ordered products from the Sears

catalogue in the late 19th century and well into the 20th century. While, as in this

example, there is some continuity between present and past phenomena, there is

much greater discontinuity. That is, a number of revolutionary changes havetaken

place in the realm of prosumption. Many of those revolutionary changes involve

the internet, itself an extraordinarily revolutionary development. Much of todaysprosumption takes place on the internet and would not be possible without that

technology, as well as others such as the smart phone, the credit card and the

express package delivery systems. New and emerging technologies will both

increase and alter the nature of prosumption. The emergence and growing signifi-

cance of those 3D printers will allow makers to produce an increasing array of

products at home (Anderson, 2012).

While there are both evolutionary and revolutionary changes in the realm of

prosumption, perhaps the most interesting conclusion to be derived from this dis-

cussion involves the eternal return of the same. We were all prosumers before therewas a distinction between producers and consumers; prosumption is our primal

condition. Ironically, the major technological changes discussed here are making it

clear that we are more like our ancestors than we imagine. That fact has been lost

sight of in the last few centuries as we differentiated between, and thought of




17/22

ourselves as either, producers or consumers. However, we were prosumers then and

we are clearly prosumers now. What seems so new and revolutionary today is little

more than another stage in the eternal return of the prosumer who predominated at

the earliest points in human history and, in fact, was predominant in the epochs

that appeared to be defined by either producers or consumers. Thus prosumption

is, simultaneously, something that is primal, ancient, recent, new, and even revo-

lutionary. While we have devoted some attention to its historical roots and simila-

rities, it is its new and revolutionary character that is likely to be increasingly

important in the future. This is likely to be true not only on the internet, but

also in the material world, as well as in the increasing interpenetration of the

two. These changes are likely to become increasingly dramatic leading not only

to more and more prosumption, but also to altered, even dramatically new, forms

of prosumption. Thus, prosumption in the future will be radically different(increasingly high-tech), yet it will still, and always, be consistent with the primal

state (decidedly low-tech), and recent history, of prosumption.

However, there is something that will be radically different. We will not be

returning to an era in which we think of clear differences between producers and

consumers. In that sense, we are not returning to thinking in terms of the eras of

the Industrial and the Consumer Revolutions (Cohen, 2003). We will increasingly

be in the era of the prosumer revolution (or is it devolution?) where we will find it

increasingly difficult to differentiate between production and consumption; between

producers and consumers.Given this, what can we say about the future of prosumption? For one thing,

fewer and fewer activities will exist near the (prosumption-as-) production and

(prosumption-as-) consumption ends of the prosumption continuum. Those activ-

ities will move more toward the middle of the continuum. That is, they will more

clearly be examples of balanced prosumption. They will even more clearlynot be

definable as anything approaching pure production or consumption. For

another, while this will be true throughout the social and economic world, it will

more clearly be the case in some realms rather than others. For example, we will see

a continuation of the trend toward doing things ourselves rather than having paidemployees perform those tasks in the service sector of the economy. The immater-

ial, especially the digital, worlds will be increasingly characterized by prosumption

since it is very easy there to transfer immaterial tasks from those we think of as

producers to those who are more clearly prosumers. While the digital world is the

natural domain for this change, it will also occur in the more material world where,

for example, patients will do more and more medical work.

There will certainly be a continuation of processes in the material world that we

have historically thought of as (pure) production (e.g. automobile manufactur-

ing), although they will be increasingly found in less developed countries. However,a counter-trend of some importance is the fact that traditional production may

increasingly be handled by advanced technologies in the developed world rather

than human labor that dominates production in the less developed world

(Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2012; Markoff, 2012). Another counter-trend is

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associated with the advent of, for example, 3-D printers allowing for what we have

thought of as more traditional production in the developed world. The increase in

prosumption, as well as the realization that it is prosumption andnotproduction or

consumption that is the most central concept, will also cause us to re-examine age-

old ideas in the social sciences. Among them are concepts developed for a society

thought to be dominated by production such as alienation, exploitation, and

rationalization. While this is a subject for another essay, we can exemplify the

main point in the case of the concept of exploitation.

Exploitation is most typically thought of, at least from a Marxian perspective, in

terms of paying the workers less than the value of what they produce. This is the

basic source of surplus value and, in more conventional terms, of profit for the

capitalists. However, in most cases prosumers are paid nothing by the capitalists

who profit enormously from this arrangement. In fact, it could be argued that theyearn far greater profits because instead of the pittance normally paid to workers,

they pay the prosumer nothing at all. As a result, from a purely economic perspec-

tive, prosumers are exploited within a capitalist system and they are exploited to a

greater extent than the proletariat. While this is true from a structural perspective,

it is harder to defend from a social-psychological point of view. That is, the pro-

letariat saw themselves as exploited, or at least many workers came to see them-

selves in that way because of their increasing immiseration as well as the efforts of

radical thinkers such as Marx and organizations such as socialist parties and labor

unions. However, it is very difficult to imagine todays prosumers seeing themselvesas exploited or, more generally, accepting the idea that Marxian thinking applies to

them (Rey, 2012). This is true, in part, because they lack the concept of the pro-

sumer, as well as the fact that Marxian theory seems to apply to a bygone era.

More importantly, it is likely that most prosumers enjoy all, or at least most, of

what they do. They would be hard-pressed to think of themselves as exploited when

they order products on Amazon.com, construct bookcases from IKEA, or use the

ATM. Marxian theorists would say that such prosumers are suffering from false

consciousness and that, in fact, they are deluding themselves into thinking they are

not being exploitated. However, it is also possible that they are not exploited in aclassic Marxian sense and that the concept needs to revised to take into account

these new realities. It is also possible that an entirely new concept is needed to deal

with the greatly different situation confronting todays prosumers in contrast to the

proletariat (who also, it is important to remember, were prosumers [p-a-ps]) of the

heyday of factory-based capitalism. More generally, we need to revisit a broad

range of sociological concepts created during and for eras dominated by produc-

tion and consumption. At the minimum, we will need to revise them and, more

extremely (and more likely), we will need to create new ideas not locked into the old

and increasingly outdated production-consumption binary.In terms of its theoretical implications, the coming of age of work on the pro-

sumer foretells a paradigm revolution in the study of the economy (Kuhn, 1962/

1970; Ritzer, 1975/1980). Extant paradigms have taken either production or con-

sumption as their image of the subject matter in the study of the economy. What




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we are witnessing is the emergence of a new, third paradigm for which prosumption

is that image. This could mean that the study of the economy will be even more

multi-paradigmatic in the future than it has been in the past. However, it is also the

case that prosumption, because it encompasses both production and consumption,

could be the basis of a more integrated sociological paradigm that deals with all

three simultaneously (Ritzer, 1981). This would move the study of the economy in

the direction of the hard sciences where, at least in Kuhns view, single para-

digms predominate. While this is possible, the more likely outcome, given the his-

tory and current status of the social sciences, is one in which multiple paradigms

coexist within the field. Paradigms encompass theories and methods and a new

paradigm means major theoretical and methodological changes. Since prosump-

tion encompasses production and consumption, one alternative is increased use of

multiple theories and methods that allow the social scientist to get a handle on allof these processes. Another is the development of new theories and methods that

are internally diverse enough to deal with these processes.

Thus, the rise of interest in prosumption as an image of the subject matter in the

study of the economy promises a range of dramatic paradigmatic, theoretical and

empirical changes. One parallel example in the history of the field of sociology is

the work of Emile Durkheim (1893/1964) and his contention that social facts are

the subject matter of sociology. This led to the development of a new paradigm

(the social facts paradigm), as well as theories (e.g. structural functionalism) and

methods (e.g. historical-comparative research) oriented to the study of social facts(Ritzer, 1975/1980). It is possible that a revolution involving a new prosumer

paradigm will have similarly powerful and wide-ranging effects.

Finally, there is the issue of the implication of this discussion of the prosumer

for the subject matter of The Journal of Consumer Culture (JCC). One obvious

conclusion is that theJCCneeds to devote more attention to work on prosumption

(and related concepts). A more extreme conclusion is that what is needed is the

founding ofThe Journal of Prosumer Culture (JPC) to complement the JCC (as

well as production-oriented journals).8 If the various theses of this essay have

merit, it does seem likely that a journal of prosumer culturewill come into existencein the future. However, it is likely that the JCC (as well as journals focused on

production) will not only continue to exist, but even flourish. Nevertheless, it will

be increasingly important to recognize that theJCC(as well as production-oriented

journals) is focusing on only one end of the prosumption continuum. That is, the

focus of theJCC, and more generally of consumption studies, is, in the terms used

in this essay, prosumption-as-consumption.

Many other future changes could be discussed here, but that would move us in

the direction of the kind of analysis that characterizes the work of Alvin Toffler.

That kind of journalistic and futuristic analysis is usually demeaned in the socialsciences. However, we should remember that in 1980 it (and not the work of social

scientists) yielded a conceptprosumptionthat has proven not only durable, but

even more useful in the early 21st century than it was when it was created. It will

likely be of increasing utility as the century unfolds.

Ritzer 21



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Notes

1. This constitutes a change in the definition of prosumption from my earlier work on the

topic (e.g., Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010). I no longer think of prosumption as involvingmore-or-less simultaneous production and consumption. A prosumer can produce

something at one point in time (e.g., a crop) and consume it at a much later point

in time. In spite of the passage of time, this still involves the process of prosumption as it

is defined here. I would like to thank Georgia Handforth for helping me clarify this point.

2. There are exceptions, of course, such as Lipovetsky (2002) and Livingston (2011).

3. Of course, journals devoted to production continue to exist and occupy a largely parallel

universe.

4. To Baudrillard (1977/1998), the Parisian drugstore was a key means of consumption.

5. While key points on the prosumption continuum are being distinguished in these examples,

it should be clear thatallinvolve some combination of production and consumption.

6. Bruns, as we have seen, prefers the closely related term of produsage.

7. This, of course, is a great oversimplification of the dialectic; see, for example, Ritzer

(2014) for an example of a more complex model.

8. This would parallel the impact of Durkheims work and his founding of LAnnee

Sociologiquein 1898.

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Author Biography

George Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of

Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. He continues

to think and write about the implications of the changing nature of prosumption

with the objective of writing a book on the subject.


Documents

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