Consumption and Identity

Producers are enablers. They encourage people to spend money on things they don’t need and aren’t necessities. Consumers are like drug addicts, they shop for things they don’t need and are constantly striving to acquire what they don’t have. “We Americans are beyond a simple, possessive materialism.” (Rose) Americans have developed a shopping problem. We buy things simply for the

The term consumer society goes beyond the mere act of shopping and the functional use of goods with contemporary

In this essay I will be outlining consumerism and claims that a consumer society is always a throw-away society. Consumption plays a big part in our lives and causes us to live in divided societies. It may make us feel like we fit in buying new gadgets and clothes and also give us that sense of belonging but we don’t take into account what happens to the old items and packaging. People do not want to look at the problems caused. I will use this essay with the evidence I have read

Literary Review: Grant McCracken, Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Good and Activities; The Evocative Power of Things (Indiana University Press 1988)

Hunger for luxury items and people’s strife for the brands and items they associate with being beyond reach is paramount for this system. It is this drive for items one can’t have that the author feels is one of the benefits of consumerism. He declares, “…the aspiration of the poor to

As we are constantly exposed to mass media and popular culture in our modern society, the insidious nature of consumerism has allowed it to penetrate into every aspect of our lives, dictating our very beliefs, values and wants. Nearly every individual in our society subconsciously conforms to the shallow and superficial mindset that characterises our consumerist culture. This idea is highlighted by the following texts; the poem “Enter without so much as knocking” by Bruce Dawe, an extract from the sermon “The Religion of Consumerism” delivered by Peter House, the poem “Breakthrough” by Bruce Dawe, and the

Simmel’s major work usually considers money and finances as well as the impact money has on society. In the book ‘The philosophy of Money’, Simmel is concerned with money as a symbol and how societies wealth affects itself and its people. He also finds that within society money becomes an impersonal or objectified measure of value. This grants neutral, rational ties amongst those within society which are institutionalised with money. He believed that the use of money and finances distances the individual from objects. This then provides the ability to overcome distance meaning that an individual with money has the means to travel greater distances. This overcomes person to person limitations which would occur without financial backing, and in some cases, asserts dominance over the other party.

What do people do with the objects and services that they consume? What symbolic meanings are contained in consumption? How is consumption connected to our deepest emotions, desires and fantasies? And what are the consequences of the way we consumer” (Szeman and O’Brien 126). These phrases of questions relate to the idea that culture is non-static and shared.

Bourdieu argues that different tastes are encourage or discouraged within different classes, the tastes you have then is dependent on the class that you belong. It is important to note that Bourdieu’s work is written sixty years later than Veblen, although initially agreeing with Veblen’s views and approaches to consumption patterns establishing status distinctions, Bourdieu recognised that there was more needed in order to understand and explain the social positions and distinctions within society. taste is an important aspect – individually peoples tastes vary and across classes, this is important when grasping… According to Bourdieu social classes express different patterns of taste and consumption in both material and cultural ways, (ref) depending on the amount of economic capital you might have, your taste is adjusted correspondingly. For example if you have higher economic capital, then you are more likely to desire upmarket high-end restaurants rather than lower-end restaurants such as MacDonald’s.

Michel Foucault presents those revolutionary sorts of analyses that are rich not only for their content but for their implications and novel methodological approach. Just beyond the surface of his works lies such philosophical wealth that one can be overwhelmed by considerations of which vein to mine first, and what to make of the elements therefrom extracted.

A ‘commodity sign’ invests symbolic meaning in products or services as a signifier with an image as signified. In recent times, consumer culture is driven by our desire for superfluous wants, causing the production and consumption of commodity signs to become more specialised according to the notion of capital. Capitalism is characterised by economies that are based on open markets and the ethos of individuality over community. French Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (Distinction 1984) introduced the schema of subcultural capital, which ‘confers status on its owner in the eyes of the relevant beholder’ (Thorton, 2006: 100). Therefore people have the idea that they can buy subcultural capital, as it is seen as self-revealing, in order to impress people or become someone else (Frith, 1996: 5). Thus advertising was developed as a strategy in generating demand in a contemporary consumer culture. Mass marketing has split the unity of signifiers and signified into a language of appearances and images of which we realise as either visible, physical connections or indirect connotations to that which they represent.

the point of affecting the way we go about living and controlling our personal and social

Consumption, we describe as the act of meeting basic needs with material goods and the practice of consuming as a way of life is ‘consumerism’ ( Kennedy 173). The ideology that the meaning of life is found in buying things has really caused majority to spend almost their monthly salary on goods and services in search of utility. This excessive recreational spending also plays a part in increase of inflation, also has made more money in circulation.

Consumerism exists to benefit our economy which forms the base of the base superstructure model. This model was used to help explain what Marx ideology termed economic determinism (Sherman, 1981), in which the means of production controls everything else that goes on in society and anything that surfaces from the superstructure has the capacity to change people's ideas or their behaviour (with the exception of relative autonomy). Consumerism is a mass production that presents us with cultural products and supplies. The means of production are owned by the bourgeoisie, providing them with wealth and power whereas the proletariat only has its labour power, so consumerism also controls our sense of class. Bourdieu described this through what he labelled the habitus (Grenfell, 2014) where we are divided into different class fractions and products become a direct reflection of our class status. This

Slater established a set of ground rules almost that relates to the cultural consumer culture. That while consumption requires economic exchange, it also involves the exercise of taste as a part of a self identifying act. That consumer culture balances the quest for achieving meaningful ways of life and having the resources available to do this, especially in the west. (56 julier)