Introduction to Sociology: Consumption

 

We shall discuss the importance of consumption in contemporary societies, and then investigate four major approaches to consumption.

 

Why Consumption as a topic?

a) It has become a significant topic to investigate:

i) the topic of consumption is a correction to Marx’s analysis of capitalism, and its emphasis on production relationship, class struggle and workers’ exploitation;

ii) a feminist critique of mainstream sociology that neglects household work, which involves consumption, leisure and entertainment; and

iii) development of post-materialist values; e.g., ‘There is more to life than just working!’

b) The Weberian analysis of capitalism equally neglects consumption, since it emphasises the rational and efficient nature of society (e.g., markets and organisations), and the hard-working and pious nature of individuals, who are characterised as thrifty and work-conscious (e.g., the Protestant work ethic).

However, this analysis is weak and lacking:

i) what and how do people buy? The analysis assumes it is natural, biological and functional, but we consume chocolates, driven by fashion and have tastes for particular wines and meat; and

ii) clearly, consumption is socially constructed; i.e., it involves social identities, status and symbolic values that mark our lives and say something about us – the type of clothes we wear, the kind of music we listen to and where we eat say a lot about us, and we cultivate this image.

 

Approaches to Consumption

There are four key thinkers.

 

a) Thornstein Veblen – conspicuous consumption

i) in the C19th, US industrialists, the nouveaux riches, wanted to ape and imitate European aristocratic families in tastes and lifestyles;

ii) conspicuous consumption and leisure (e.g., skiing, cruise trips, lavish parties, servants, housewives, exotic holidays and second homes) are a social display of surplus income, designed to impress others; i.e., wealth as the basis of social prestige (‘social currency’);

iii) consumption and leisure demonstrate the need not to work – the ability to have social distance from economic necessity, so that the working class cannot be conspicuous and the middle class can only aspire to be so; and

iv) the rich spend time learning to consume conspicuously to impress (parties and clothes); i.e., to ‘waste’ time, resources and money to achieve recognition from others.

 

b) Georg Simmel – trickle down effect of fashion

i) individuals need to preserve their autonomy and individuality in a faceless, impersonal and alienating reality – the stranger in the city, in an urbanised and industrialised space;

ii) individuals create their own social identity and status to avoid being lost and meaningless in a modern society;

iii) they desire not only to be different, but to distinguish themselves from others – the need for social recognition of belonging to a higher social class. Individuals achieve this through imitating fashion from the higher classes. In effect, the trickle down effect of fashion and tastes: e.g., the upper classes bring champagne, the middle classes sherry and wine, and the working classes cheap imports of wine;

iv) this process of distinction and imitation is never-ending and continuous; and

v) unlike Veblen, Simmel suggests that all classes aim to impress and achieve recognition.

 

c) Pierre Bourdieu – cultural capital

i) social groups mark out their way of life through consumption patterns; social classes have symbolic and cultural elements (style of clothes, music, arts, food, books and films);

ii) unlike Veblen, Bourdieu sees consumption as a means of establishing, not just expressing social identity

iii) human beings are motivated by need to produce collectively patterns of social demarcation

iv) individuals possess two types of capital:

- economic – such as money, shares and bonds

- cultural – tastes, knowledge, aesthetic understanding and education

v) social groups occupy a matrix of economic and cultural capitals:

- low economic capital + low cultural capital, such as cleaners and factory workers;

- low economic capital + high cultural capital, such as teachers and nurses

- high economic capital + low cultural capital, such as businesspersons and self-employed people

- high economic capital + high cultural capital, such as barristers and doctors.

vi) this position is often called a structuralist position: structures (such as class, status, gender and ethnicity) have an impact on individuals’ tastes, but they do not determine them – nevertheless we are likely to act in a particular way.

vii) high consumption depends not only on economic resources, but also demands ‘good tastes’

 

d) Jean Baudrillard – symbolic value

i) there is no pre-given needs – no distinction between false and true needs, between social and functional needs, between cultural and biological needs;

ii) all consumption is symbolic, involving image, signs and symbols around a social identity - a post-modern viewpoint:

i.e., ‘I shop therefore I am!’

iii) individuals seek to establish more tastes than others; i.e., to construct differences; and

iv) there is no final and fixed point to consumption; we are doomed to continuously consume.; social goods have the potential to fulfil human desire, but they always fail to do so – they symbolise, they becomes signs that signify our desires.