Working Paper
Centre for Global Political Economy
Hedonistic Consumerism:
From Want-Satisfaction To Whim-Satisfaction.
Andrea Migone
Department of Political Science
Simon Fraser University
CGPE Working Paper 04-05
January 2004
Centre for Global Political Economy
Department of Political Science
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Simon Fraser University
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Markets, Consumption And Consumerism
Consumption is an integral part of social and biological life. Consumption is
necessary for human beings to sustain themselves, to develop the skills and abilities that
allow them to function in society, and is fundamental in the running of the economic
system. In fact, markets developed, by and large, as a response to these needs: they
constitute an efficient way of producing and allocating the goods and services that are
required to satisfy them. Consumption aimed at the healthy development of the physical,
intellectual and emotional spheres of human beings should be an inherent right for all
persons. I propose that, for the purpose of our analysis, we define as human consumption
the level of goods and services that are required to satisfy these needs.1
A different aspect of consumption is its degeneration into consumerism: accepting
that it is through the possession and/or consumption of increasing quantities of products
that human beings can achieve self-development and self-fulfillment. It is a nonreferential process, as Bauman notes: “Consumer society and consumerisms are not
about satisfying needs not even the more sublime needs of identification or self-assurance
as to the degree of ‘adequacy’. The spiritus movens of consumer activity is not a set of
articulated, let alone fixed, needs, but desire” (2001: 13). Commodification is now, as
noted by Lukács (1971), diffused across all classes and represents the defining moment of
capitalist relations. Increasingly, the elements of human action are brought into the arena
of consumption and reified2 as consumer goods (Hennessy 2000). Even if we do not fully
subscribe to the notion that the structure of consumer society dictates consumption
patterns through the creation of cultural models that foster consumerism, while
propagandizing ‘free consumer choice’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1972; Marcuse 1964),
even if we recognize that advertising is not an all powerful determinant of consumer
behaviour, but only a party to the shaping of consumer attitudes (Bauman 2001; Ohmann
1996) still we are returned to the question of why so much of societal interaction is
expressed through consumption. There is, I argue, a tendency in capitalism to manipulate
consciousness through culture and desire. This manipulation is not the final determinant
of all consumption choices, but it cannot be dismissed out of hand, in the same way in
which the material referents of consumerism cannot be explained away by assuming the
irrelevance of socio-economic structure on micro-economic activity as is often the case in
unsophisticated liberal economic thought.
After World War II the nature of consumption began to change along two crucial
dimensions. On the one hand, our economic system became driven by consumerism, we
started to consume much beyond the level at which human consumption is satisfied (our
1
Of course these needs will vary from society to society but should include the safety of the person and a
reasonable access to food, shelter and medical care at all ages and in all economic conditions.
2
The process of reification, the transformation of all aspects of human life into ‘objects’, in Lukács’
Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein, tackles more than the issue of commodification (the role of
commodities in a single, over-arching economic system): it explores the implications of reducing social
relations to a reified minimum, of fracturing the wholeness of human life in irremediably individual
elements from which is nigh on impossible to glimpse the whole again. This process is further extended by
the elimination in capitalist society of all references to the actual production of commodities. Production
and consumption of goods become completely unrelated in the capitalist mystique, increasing alienation
and facilitating hedonistic consumption.
-1-
consumption patterns have increased the number of goods and services we consume, and
the speed at which they are consumed). Secondly, most of society consumes to satisfy
induced wants rather than needs. This pattern I call Hedonistic Consumerism, and I argue
that it leads to two related crises: an ecological crisis and an economic crisis.
From the ecological point of view, Hedonistic Consumerism imposes an everincreasing strain on resource stocks and ecosystems around the world. Even to the casual
observer it is immediately evident that levels of consumption are extremely high,
especially in the advanced capitalist economies, which are composed by Western Europe,
North America and Japan. This, I argue, depends on the influence of an industrial system
premised on a model of mass-production, made possible by technological advances, and
sustained economically by mass-consumption.
In the remainder of this article I shall use concepts drawn from the French
Régulation School and I am therefore going to synthetically introduce the key elements
of its economic analysis: the notions of Accumulation Regime (AR) and of Modes of
Régulation (MOR). Regulationists postulate that there are two fundamental levels at
which we must look to understand and analyze economic activity. At the ‘global’ level
there is the Accumulation Regime; this is the dynamic structure of the productive system,
evolving in a particular direction and linked to specific technological elements3. At the
second level are the Modes Of Régulation, different for each economy, which mediate
between the needs of the capitalist system to achieve a viable accumulation process and
the needs of society to maintain a viable and coherent structure. Their content depends on
the historical and material characteristics of specific nations or groups of nations. The
Modes of Régulation follows the logical and hierarchical elements of the specific
capitalist model. Five elements are particularly important in this context: the first element
is the credit and monetary regime, which would in the first instance be charged with
generating a payment system. A second basic institution is the form of competition, which
regulates firms’ activity in the market. The third necessary institution is the “wage-labour
nexus, defined as the precise set of conditions and rules which affect the productive use
of labour and the income formation of wage-earners” (Boyer 2001: 81). While these
institutions are often conceived as self-implementing by classic economic theory, they
need the support of legal and regulative tools that are implemented by the state. The role
of the State is then a crucial element for a capitalist economy. The final institution
expands the regulatory and coercive power of the state beyond its borders. The
international regime or configuration organizes the relationship between the nationstate’s domestic economic order and the international style (Boyer 2000b; Boyer 2001).
3
The definition of accumulation regime in the glossary to Régulation Theory: The State Of The Art, is
“[t]he set of regularities that ensure the general and relatively coherent progress of capital accumulation,
that is, which allow the resolution or postponement of the distortions and disequilibria to which the process
continually gives rise. These regular patterns relate to: 1- The evolution of the organisation of production
and of the workers’ relationship to means of production. 2- The time horizon for the valorization of capital,
which offers a basis for the development of principles of management. 3- A distribution of value that
allows the reproduction and development of the different social classes or groups. 4- A composition of
social demand that corresponds to the tendencies in the development of productive capacity. 5- A manner
of articulation with non-capitalist economic forms, when they hold an essential place in the economic
formation under study.” (Boyer and Sayllard, 2002:335)
-2-
In the article I shall concentrate in particular on the Accumulation Regime and on the
relationship between the structure of the mode of production and the composition of
social demand that supports it. The first step will be to analyze the nature of this nexus
during the Fordist period.
The Fordist Accumulation Regime
The Fordist model began to congeal around its production phase: the assembly
line, reliance on economies of scale, and automatization all were necessary for the
emergence of the new Accumulation Regime. Through it large amounts of standardized
goods could be produced at comparatively low cost. Still, the new Accumulation Regime
needed a mode of consumption to match this emergent mode of production and make
long-term capitalist accumulation viable. As noted by O’Hara (2003: 21) “The Fordist
regime of accumulation in the 1950s and 1960s thus constituted both a sustainable
production system or style and a mode of regulation of consumption, not simply in the
United States but through all the major capitalist economies.”
This could be achieved in part by the dramatic drop in prices afforded by
economies of scale and technological advances, and in part by creating a culture of
consumerism. It is during the Fordist period that the act of consuming becomes the
paramount mode of economic interaction. The nature of consumption becomes selfreferencing: the satisfaction of desires, many of which induced by the socio-economic
setting in which consumers find themselves, becomes the sufficient cause for
consumption. Fordism solved the related problem of workers’ disposable income by
increasing wages to support diffused consumption, trading off high profit margins for
consistent ones (Boyer and Orléan 1991).
Within OECD nations, the effectiveness of these arrangements entered a phase of
relative decline in the 1970s. New arrangements began to emerge as profits in the classic
Fordist economic powerhouses of industrial production became ever thinner. In the US
and UK, high profits are now reaped in the financial sector often by means of speculative
investment. Nonetheless, mass consumption still remains a central element of the
arrangement.
The Emerging Post-Fordist Accumulation Regime
The Post-Fordist system is still looking for a specific format around which to
define its final structure. Profit margins in the traditional industrial sector declined, while
increasing for the speculative and financial sectors, especially in the US. New modes of
production have been emerging, variably related to new technologies and information
flows. The real contribution of these new elements is at the centre of a complex debate
(O’Hara 2003; Cantwell and Santangelo 2000; Barnett, 2001; Tabb 2001; Phillips 2000;
Papadakis 2000; Yates 2001) but the economic data shows a trend towards increasing
consumption often time financed through private debt (O’Hara 2003: 31). On top of that
“[w]hile the mode of regulation of consumption underlying the 1950s to 1960s long wave
upswing was broadly based on the majority of the population, the consumption mode of
the 1990s was based, at most, on a quarter of the population.” (O’Hara 2003: 34).
Consumption then has been swinging towards a relatively smaller section of the
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population of late. This, I argue later, depends in part on the progressive transformation
of goods and services into status conferring symbols operated by the logic of Hedonistic
Consumerism.
The Post-Fordist production/consumption nexus still has the economic effect of
generating large amounts of affordable goods. On the other hand, resources and the
environment come under increased pressure because more inputs are required to massproduce. The global economy has driven the prices of many primary resources down
while increasing their rate of exploitation. At the same time, the new production system
allows for product differentiation and highly variable pricing. From an epistemological
point of view, the ideological progress of Neoliberal notions of shareholder value and
efficiency has been very deep, even if, empirically speaking, their true impact on markets
has been less than clear (Fligstein 2001).
From an economic point of view allocating these resources towards hedonistic
wants, along with structuring production and consumption patterns towards a consumerist
model, means that, on an aggregate scale, scarce resources are being diverted from need
satisfaction. This poses an allocative problem: allocative efficiency within markets
oriented towards Hedonistic Consumerism seems to fail somewhat in that market
mechanisms appear unable to distinguish between hedonistic wants’ satisfaction and
needs’ satisfaction. In this is to be identified the economic crisis to which I was referring
before. While it makes short-term economic sense to allocate productive inputs to
hedonistic wants’ satisfaction, in the long-term this is likely to exhaust resources that will
be needed for needs’ satisfaction.
In many cases our economies are harvesting resources well beyond their renewal
rates (Daly 1997).4 Fish stocks, upon which a large majority of humanity, especially in
the developing world, depends for its protein input are dwindling on a world-wide scale,
timber reserves have fallen, both water quality and quantity have deteriorated (Shiva
2001), even in the developed world, and so forth. Consumerism rather than human
consumption is responsible for this change and for the emergence of an increasingly
complex global environmental crisis.
In the next section I deal with the impact of consumerism on production and
consumption patterns alike, and the notion of the market. Section Three presents some
trends of consumption in OECD economies and Section Four advances some conclusions
drawn from the discussion presented here.
4
One should not get too comfortable with the notion of renewable resources either; fish stocks can
theoretically be managed and their numbers kept steady, trees grow back and so forth, but this too requires
inputs in terms of resources like clean water, food, and nutritional values from the soil and in many cases
these elements are beginning to become scarce. This is why these resources are better termed conditionally
renewable resources.
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Consumerism, The Spirit Of Modern Capitalism
I noted above how the usual description of markets consistently relies on the
image of an arena bringing together people who want to purchase goods and services, and
people who desire to sell them. Mediated through the relative abundance of, and the
relative need for these commodities, a price is fixed and an exchange takes place. The
great strength of markets is that, in most cases, nobody ‘has’ to purchase a good they
deem too expensive: because the demand generates the offer, actual market exchanges
are positive sum games. Sellers dispose of something they wanted to get rid of and buyers
acquire something they wanted or needed. If something fetches a high price more sellers
will try to procure that commodity and offer it on the market and, after a while, its price
will be curbed.5 While this is an appealingly straightforward description, it is also an
incomplete one. Markets are more than arenas for the exchange of goods and services:
they frame such exchange within specific socio-institutional constructs, which necessarily
embody power relations (Weber 1922; Elliot 2000; Smith 1963; Fligstein, 2001). The
institutional forms that are in place in any given situation impact on the economy through
the mediation of the political sphere (Boyer 2003: 4).
The historical and material characteristics of different societies lead towards
different socio-institutional arrangements regulating economic exchange. Nonetheless, I
argue that capitalist exchange has followed a long-term trend of increasingly consumerist
nature. First of all, let me state unequivocally that I consider economic relations to be
inherently social relations (White 1991; Sen 1972). The way in which they are
institutionally organized determines what we define as economic system. Capitalism is an
example. Like any other system of social relations, capitalism is based on, and functions
according to, a set of values, cultural elements, social characteristics, and material
realities. Economic exchange predates the modern capitalist organization and, while
modern economists strive to convince their public that the market system as it exists
today is the apex of a technical evolution in the matter of economic interaction, there is
evidence that this is rather the historically specific organizational standard of economic
exchange (Jessop 2002).
Consider, for example, the class of economic exchanges that belong to the gift
economy (Godelier 1999; Lévi-Strauss 1987; Mauss 1969; Rasmussen 2000). In some
archaic societies gift giving was a particularly common type of economic exchange. In
Melanesian society gift giving was based on self-interest and obligations alike. Revolving
around the obligations of giving (including as many other actors as possible in the
process), receiving (refusing a gift is tantamount to admitting one’s inability of returning
it, and involves a loss of status), and of repaying (the central element of gift economies; it
requires that a gift be repaid with a worthy interest) the gift economy relied on magical
5
Of course the market system is not designed to be particularly ‘humane’: it is designed to be efficient. As
such, it fosters competition, marginalizes those who cannot compete successfully, and generally reduces the
ability of social actors to choose alternative means of exchange (Li, Xing. 2001. The Market Democracy
Conundrum. Journal Of Political Ideology 6 (1):75-94.).
-5-
and religious elements to create relationships among the economic actors and couched
many of these exchanges in terms of reciprocal obligations.6
These exchanges established a cycle of prestations and counterprestations where
gifts could assume the value of wages, contracts, or donations and certainly reflected the
material realities of the Melanesian economic bases where goods were produced or
harvested at different times in different regions, and, therefore, could not have easily been
bartered simultaneously except in exceptional cases. A specific type of exchange, the
kula, effectively created a division of labour between seafaring communities and rural
ones to overcome such an impasse.7
In a region with sparse densities, and where simultaneous bartering was at best
difficult, both the magical elements of gift exchange and the interpersonal linkages and
obligations that they created, reflected the socio-cultural background of these societies
and solved some of the problems related to economic exchange. In fact, it would not be
inappropriate to see gift giving, at least in part, as a way to reduce negative externalities
in the system.8 By linking economic exchange to the realm of religion and magic, ancient
Melanesian societies effectively couched material interactions in a metaphysical setting,
and reduced the risk otherwise inherent in purely economic transactions within their
specific setting.
This is not the only example of cultural and material elements influencing the
nature of economic exchanges. In Southern Italy, for example it is not that unusual for
family members to exchange goods or services on a delayed compensation basis, on a
quasi-barter model, or at cost.9 The process is well suited to the material conditions of
what is a relatively capital-poor area. By exchanging services and goods in the manner
described above, and by delaying or reducing compensation, the family unit prevents an
unnecessary outflow of capital and builds obligational ties and solidarity among its
members. Of course, this type of exchange is not the primary one, but it still exists and it
is relevant to social relations. These two cases do not exhaust the examples of sociocultural impacts on the system of economic exchanges; they simply are intended as a
reminder of the fact that economic activity is strictly correlated to and interdependent
with social and personal elements that differ from society to society.
6
Gifts were not simply a material exchange, with them came a spiritual iota of the giver, binding the two
parties at a meta-physical level.
7
Gifts also had the role of establishing political hierarchies among groups, but this falls outside the current
subject matter.
8
Externalities can be defined as occurring when the interest of economic actors is affected by some factor
other than the price system. These third party effects, for which no appropriate compensation is paid, can
be negative or positive and arise from the production and/or consumption of goods and services. A classic
example of negative externality is pollution caused by industrialization.
9
To exemplify imagine that a person who earns his living as a plumber will install free of charge new
fixtures for a sibling’s bathroom. As the latter is a general practitioner, she may reciprocate by seeing the
former for free. In this case familial relations that allow for delayed compensation to take place abate
externalities’ costs.
-6-
Today, the dominant type of economic exchange is based on modern capitalist
tenets and on a set of socio-cultural values that are as specific and constraining as those
that regulated archaic Melanesian peoples. To begin with, capitalist epistemology has
utilitarian and individualistic premises: economic actors behave so as to maximize
individual satisfaction. The market in its ideal format, it is also claimed, is an inherently
objective process devoid of bias because of its technical nature. Its results, unless
polluted by state intervention, are efficient and have a positive effect on the economic
fabric forcing modernization, rationalization, and progress. As a corollary of this
epistemology, comes the notion that social and economic interactions are separate in
capitalist societies. Classic economic doctrine assumes that human beings tend to be
egoistic utility maximizers in the economic sphere, that their activity is geared towards
obtaining the best possible economic return for their effort and that, for all practical
purposes, no calculations other that those premised in strict economic elements are taken
into account when market interactions are concerned (Friedman 1953; Johnson 1971;
Leeson 2001; Parkin 1986; Stigler 1954; Stigler 1965). This Manichean image of
‘economic’ human beings and ‘social’ human beings is troublesome (Sen 1972) leaving
much of social interaction in the perhaps efficient but not very discriminating hands of
the Homo Oeconomicus. While, the Austrian School Of Economics deserves a place
apart, especially Hayek’s insightful analysis of knowledge and its role in the creation of a
viable market (Hayek 1945; Hayek 1948; Hayek 1964; Hayek 1973; Hayek 1976; Hayek
1979). Still, in mainstream liberal economic thought, the market process is often too
simplistically depicted as rationally modeled and directed.
Capitalism is also a ‘growth only’ model, at least in its current incarnation. It is so
important to show continued profit and growth that a negative connotation is attached to
simply maintaining the economic status quo: we call it stagnation. The whole system is
premised on increasing levels of consumption; these can be achieved either by increasing
the number of consumers, or by increasing the levels of consumption, or by combining
the two.
It is consumerism that has come to dominate capitalist organization in the
Twentieth Century. While levels of luxury consumption always existed, their impact on
the overall economic system was relatively limited: the consumption of commodities
along hedonistic lines was, by and large, limited to the élites. While it may have been
possible for members of Seventeenth Century Venetian nobility to drink daily the then
formidably expensive coffee or chocolate, or for Spanish élites to consume much beyond
their needs, it generally was a minority that indulged in such behaviour (Dyer 1989; Fox
and Turner 1998; Jardine 1996; Pennell 1999; Roche 1997). This type of consumption
can be defined as Affluent Consumption: the use of luxury goods by a relatively small if
wealthy group of consumers (Esch 1995; Fairchilds 1993). Of course, demand for luxury
goods is elastic10 and so it can, under certain conditions, sustain an economic system.
10
From an economic perspective the demand for goods varies with the changes in both goods’ prices and
consumers’ income. The income elasticity of the demand coefficient (eY= %variation in the quantity
demanded / %variation in the consumer’s income) will be >1 for luxury goods (with an increase in income
will come a proportionally larger demand of such goods), while it will be <1 for necessities. The same
relationship can be expressed in terms of a relationship between the relative variation of the demand (q2-
-7-
There certainly is a difference between this type of economic behaviour and the current
patterns of consumption. The emergence of modern capitalism is linked to the provision
of mass goods rather then luxury goods (Weber 1958: 265-267). This is a very important
distinction in that it implies a specific Accumulation Regime and a particular relation
between the production and the consumption phases. Consumerism may well have
extended the number of goods for which the demand is elastic by attaching social status
attributes to these goods: certain clothing and accessories, certain foods and drinks are
now charged with particular relevance and their frequent (and often time-limited)
consumption is linked to status and social awareness, as with trendy clothing.11
This is not to say that these are completely misbegotten trends, or to state that
societies should adhere to a Maoist-like homogeneity. Human societies are intrinsically
different and elaborate constructs, which tend to evolve and refine their nature. It is
important, though, to look dispassionately at the effects that this model of consumption
has on the economy and on society at large.
This pattern of consumption, where most people in the developed world consume
well beyond their needs, is a relatively new event and coincides with the increasing
relevance of Hedonistic Consumerism as the organizational tenet of capitalism.
Wells (1972), in his Picture-Tube Imperialism, demanded that capitalism be analyzed
using consumerism as the material culture’s increase of consumption. He proposed a
fourfold categorization of societies along their production/consumption patterns. This
categorization is intended in Wells’ work as an ideal-type construction. No real society
matches perfectly any of these four models that should be used as analytical tools rather
than descriptive ones.
Table 1. Wells’ Categorization Of Societies
High Consumer
Low Consumer
High Producer
Overdeveloped hedonistic
Ascetic developmental
Low Producer
Declining parasitic
Underdeveloped
traditional
Adapted from (Wells, 1972: 195)
q1/q1) and the relative variation in the price (p2-p1/p1), therefore: e= [(q2-q1)/(p2-p1)*(p1/q1)], where pn
indicates prices at time t and qn indicates quantities at time t.
11
By watching certain TV ads alluding to the fact that consumption of a certain product will ensure social
acceptance, success with the opposite sex, acceptance from your offspring, and so forth, one wonders if the
magical element that modern societies have worked so hard to eliminate (or at least marginalize) is not
creeping back through our colas.
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His notion of overdeveloped hedonistic society serves to analyze the conditions of
the Post-Fordist mode of production, and its consumerist consumption patterns. I suggest
that we should incorporate his insight when analysing Hedonistic Consumerism. This
latter reflects a pattern of excessive consumption (Hooks 2000) to be sure, but not simply
that. It also incorporates the notion that commodification is being pushed ever further,
incorporating increasingly more social elements and determining increasingly larger
differences between those who can afford to consume and those who cannot and that
superimposes often alien elements onto society (Norberg-Hodge 1999).
Hedonistic Consumerism has an additional facet etched into it: the wants that are
bound to it are relentlessly stimulated and consistently excited through the manipulation
of the social fabric. Today society is constructed on inherently unstable and uncertain
grounds, but
The consumer market has achieved an uncanny feat of reconciling and blending two
mutually contradictory values which are both avidly sought by members of an
individualized society: it offers, in one package deal, the badly missed assurance and the
keenly desired yet elsewhere unavailable guarantee of goods-replacement, even a moneyback guarantee, in case the presently sought assurance wears off and a new assurance
needs to be put in its place. The consumer market promises, and delivers, the reassuring
certainty of the present without the frightening prospect of mortgaging the future
(Bauman 2001: 24).
The situation that fosters the process of commodification is the common element of
contemporary consumption. Consumption is now far removed from basic needs and a
wide array of variables are used to explain it. Colin Campbell (1987, 1991, 1994) notes
that consumption is turning into Hedonistic Consumerism (his term too) because it is
based on the psychological process of daydreaming. After biological desires are fulfilled,
consumers must consistently re-invent new desires to keep consuming. A self-replicating
cycle of dream, desire, acquisition and disillusionment is then established within which
the search for novel products is really a proxy for the quest for psychological satisfaction
of the desire. Because of the nature of the process, disillusionment sets in after
consumption and new products must be found.
Consumption is not important relatively to the absolute level at which we
consume but rather as a reference to the consumption of others: consumption is, in Rober
Frank’s terms, positional competition (Frank 1985). At the same time, the Post-Fordist
pattern of consumption has also shied away form the more or less egalitarian levels that
had been incorporated in the Fordist one. Less people are involved in it but are still
engaged in a ‘race to consume.’ Not a completely novel idea this one; in fact Tibor
Scitovsky (1976: 325) had already noted as much: “We must acquire the consumption
skills that will give us access to society’s accumulated stock of past novelty as a source of
stimulation.” Of course this was not necessarily the key to happiness; on the contrary,
Scitovsky dubbed us The Joyless Economy, a point still arguable today (Sen 1996).
-9-
At the same time, positional competition is premised on the over-production (and
consumption) of private consumer goods at the expense of savings, the environment and
leisure time (Schor 1996, 1998). I argue that the process of consumption is an induced
one. This is rooted in the creation of functional systems within society, which structure
the activity of human being along the lines of ‘false needs’ and give material existence to
these choices in the form that our economy offers us (Marcuse 1964). Within this narrow
spectrum commodification becomes the central element of economic relations and
consumerism the mode of this activity.
The cultural element of consumerism is central to the process. The creation of
needs is reflected not only in the elements of planned obsolescence, but also in the
generation of specific socio-psychological traits. These range from the illusion of
diversity that thinly veils the mass uniformity of modern commercialization efforts
(McLuhan 1951), to the postmodern model premised on the colonization of reality by
‘simulacra’; the ultimate reductio ad consumptium of everything around us, flanked by
the progressive disappearance of meaning (Baudrillard, 1994). This system, Baudrillard
argues, is hegemonic in that “our society thinks itself and speaks itself as a consumer
society. As much as it consumes anything, it consumes itself as consumer society, as
idea. Advertising is the triumphal paean to that idea” (Baudrillard 1998: 193).
Consumption naturally fulfills more than the simple ‘needs’ of the consumer.
Certain goods have highly symbolic value, possession and/or use of certain objects add to
their use value a powerful status-defining element. These extra-utilitarian values are
socially defined and, therefore, subject to constant evolution. That consumption satisfies
more than simple material needs, does not excuse us from trying to assess if there are
material relations underlying consumption patterns. Nor can we simply seek refuge in the
relativist notion of consumption being dictated by ‘consumer tastes.’ Aside from the fact
that people seem to differentiate quite handily between luxury consumption and
necessary levels of consumption, the question remains of why tastes appear to broadly
covariate with constructed trends, rather than having a stochastic pattern.
Whether the reason for consumption is emulation, indulgence, or self-expression
or a mix of the three (Fischer 2003: 6), our society looks increasingly to consumer goods
as the accepted form of expressing ‘individual’ choice, determining status, showcasing
wealth, and satisfying psychological needs. It matters not, in a way, if consumerism is
driven by a need to express individual choices in an ever more homogenous society, as
Simmel (1990) argued, or to indulge the need to reach for more and more consumption,
or to emulate others. Ultimately the process passes through commodification, and
consumerist consumption patterns dovetail with both the Fordist and Post-Fordist
production models.
Modern capitalism has a global reach. It hinges on the interdependence of
industrial production (an important part of which has now moved to the Newly
Industrialized Countries), the emerging Post-Fordist arrangements,12 its spatio-temporal
12
With Post-Fordism comes not only the abandonment of much of the tools aimed at securing social peace
in the capitalist system, but also the fragmentation of the working class in its classical Marxist definition, a
- 10 -
fixes (Jessop 1999; 2000; 2002), and consumerism. These elements are closely connected
but consumerism is particularly important because it offers a ready outlet for mass
consumption and, therefore, a way of achieving continued profits.
The push towards increased levels of consumption and a consumerist attitude has
both temporal and geographical dynamics. It established itself in the United States in the
period after World War II and in the early 1950s, mainly as a response to the industrial
overcapacity that was a legacy of the conflict, and as an effect of the Fordist industrial
model, which had become paramount in the period between the two world wars. It then
spread to Western Europe and Japan, as their industrial and economic bases began to be
rebuilt under the U.S. reconstruction plans that followed the defeat of the Axis. With U.S.
aid and grants came the standard industrial set up of industrial mass production and, on
its heels, mass consumption had to be established to support the system. Even if the
economic models that actually emerged from this intervention were not mere
reproductions of the U.S. one, but nationally specific evolutions (Quémia 2001; Lipietz
1991; Boyer, 2003), one of their keystone elements remained stimulating consumption.
The notion of stimulating demand (in fact increasing consumption) as the answer to
avoiding economic downturns was also contained in the core tenets of Keynesian
policies. It is not at all surprising, than, that as supply-side intervention became the norm
for advanced industrial and post-industrial economies, the call for mass consumption
coming from the private sector was mirrored by the spending sprees of governments.13
Patterns of consumerism progressively deepened and expanded. Increasingly
commodities are being turned into induced wants for the population of both the
developed and the developing world and their rate of replacement becomes ever faster.
The need to consume to belong, which is well established in affluent communities, is now
beginning to take hold even in the poorer areas of the world (Burke 1996; Lu 2001; Staab
1997; Zhao 1996).
Consumerism therefore grew as the requirement of a specific mode of mass
production, and within the context of specific historical events. The need for mass
consumption was seconded and sustained by the philosophy of Keynesian policies.
Consumerist patterns expanded to new regions as economies grew and more market
actors entered the production-consumption cycle. These patterns also increased in speed
as goods and services were consumed at accelerated rates.
Consumerism assumed a hedonistic nature, and the act of consumption itself
became cloaked in symbolic meaning as an indicator of social status, and as an activity
having a sui generis intrinsic value. Hedonistic Consumerism sustains and directs mass
consumption by elevating the satisfaction of wants at the same level of needs’
decreasing amount of free time for those who actually work and more occasions and incentives to consume.
The transition from standardized mass production to batch production and the creation of differentiated
products for niche markets are key elements of this transition. On the other hand, mass consumption
remains a fundamental element of the economic system.
13
It is noteworthy to mention that while Neo-Liberal economics has singled out state debt as a major
hindrance to economic stability and development in the current system, it has very little to say about
consumer debt.
- 11 -
satisfaction, and by equating individuals’ participation in the market (both as producers
and consumers) to participation in society.
As the American economy, which had driven this phase of capitalist development
through its sheer size, military power, and industrial model, began to mature, it entered a
crisis of productivity, and faced the declining power of the United States (Aglietta 1976;
Allen 1996; Arrighi and Silver 1999; Boyer and Juillard 1995). The economic system
began to adapt to the new situation: at its core a transition towards financial instruments
became evident (Arrighi 1994; Harvey 1989; Silver and Arrighi 2003) even if its limits
and future reach are still unclear (Boyer 2000a; Boyer and Souyri 2001; Chesnais 1997;
Chesnais 2001; Peck and Tickell 1994). At the same time, at least in the most advanced
and affluent core, it went beyond the Fordist mass production arrangements towards
batch production, diversification of consumer goods, and embraced flexible patterns of
both work organization and production (Allen 1996; Boltanski and Chiapello 1999;
Boltanski and Thévenot 1991; Coriat 1997; Gomez 1996; Salais 1991; Salais 1992; Salais
1994). Consumption, though, remains a central element of our society (Gottdiener 2000;
Lodziak 2000; Lodziak 2002; Stearns 2001). The current phase of capitalism and its
cultural-ideological elements have a global reach and are being sustained by the
concomitant activity of Multinational Corporations (MNCs), nation-states, International
Organizations, and individual consumers (Burgess 2001; Witt 2001).
Probably for the first time in history, the economic sphere is on its way to become
predominant in defining the tenets of human society. Its narrative is hegemonic in the
Gramscian sense that it is better to rule by convincing than to rule by coercing. Some of
its premises are so commonly accepted that the discourse they underpin not only is
seldom challenged, but it often offers the only organizational and legitimizing basis for
social organization. Notions like the primacy of the market, the need for nation-states to
be ‘competitive,’ the relevance of participation in the market as an indicator of social
participation, and the role of consumption in the assessment of self-worth, have become
so widely diffused and so ingrained in the subconscious and conscious elements of social
and political organization of the market that very few of those who accept the validity of
the market as an allocative mechanism dispute them on other levels (Beabout and
Echeverria 2002; Morgan 2003).
Hence, we are increasingly confronted with a division of the opposite camps
among those who refuse to accept not only Hedonistic Consumerism but, often enough,
refuse the market tout-court, and those who support Hedonistic Consumerism and its
consequences. This is a pity, as a ‘third way’ that will allow for the exploitation of the
potential of market organization without requiring unsustainable levels of resource
extraction is urgently needed.
In the next section I shall try to show that our production and consumption have
become bound to Hedonistic Consumerism and that, in the long-term, are inherently
unsustainable.
- 12 -
Patterns Of Consumerism
In the preceding sections I have sketched the cultural-ideological narrative of
Hedonistic Consumerism, noting briefly some of the problems intrinsic in its
implementation, and argued some points regarding its economic bases. In this section I
outline some of the production and consumption patterns that have recently come to
dominate the organization of capitalist economies.
Before I do that let me summarize my position regarding Hedonistic
Consumerism. While luxury consumption always existed it does not compare to
Hedonistic Consumerism. The latter is possible only in modern capitalistic economies
and is a relatively novel extension of an ultimately unsustainable mode of production and
consumption, which is correlated to the need of sustaining mass-production beyond the
end of the Fordist compromise. The need for mass consumption to match mass output
fostered the growth of a sector devoted to the creation of induced wants and, at the same
time, required and favoured the development of an attitude that equated ownership and
consumption with the symbolic representation of status or individual expression.
The global economy has allowed not only for the division of the various phases of
industrial production among different geo-political regions, but has also fostered the
spread of consumer goods and consumerism throughout the globe. The results of this
process have been mixed. On the one hand, the extension of the market economy has
benefited, at least at an aggregate level, consumers across the world by making a wider
variety of consumer goods and services available at a lower cost. On the other hand, the
levels of consumption have increased quite considerably increasing pressure on the
environment.
The table below shows the percentage change in consumer price indexes for
OECD countries between 1986 and 2004 (with the data for the years 2002 to 2004 as
estimates). The general trend among the member countries is clearly towards a reduced
rate of increase in consumer price indexes. The OECD index went from a 12% increase
between 1987 and 1988, to an estimated 2.9% increase between 2003 and 2004. This is,
from an economic point of view, good news. It means that all sorts of goods and services
are more accessible to consumers.
- 13 -
Table 2. Consumer Prices Variations
Consumer Prices Variation on Previous Year
14.0
12.0
10.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
Japan
United States
Es
t.
20
04
Es
t.
20
02
20
00
19
98
19
96
19
94
19
92
19
90
19
86
-2.0
19
88
0.0
OECD
Sources: OECD, Various Documents; 2002, 2003 and 2004 figures are estimates.
As consumer price indices fell, so did the cost of a variety of primary inputs required for
production of manufactured goods. Along with them fell the price indices for OECD
export manufactures. Using the prices of 1995 as an index (1995 prices = 100), the
OECD calculated the relative variation of various commodities’ prices. Once again the
decrease in cost is noteworthy: in 2001 agricultural raw materials dropped to 67% of their
original price (estimated 69% in 2004), food to 70% (estimated 76% in 2004), ores,
minerals and metals to 77% (estimated 83% in 2004), just as OECD manufactures
(estimated 84% in 2004).
- 14 -
Table 3. Prices of Primary Commodities And Manufactures
Prices of Primary Commodities
130
Dollar Indices
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Food
Agricultural raw materials
Minerals, ores and metals
Sources: OECD, Various Documents; 2002, 2003 and 2004 figures are estimates.
The previous table once again shows a positive trend for consumers, as both the cost of
primary commodities and the related costs of manufactures decline.14 But what was the
impact of these trends upon the actual level of consumption within the OECD? To try and
answer this question we can examine the changes in the levels of real private
consumption expenditures; the following chart deals with the percentage changes of this
expenditure over the previous year in the OECD countries and in the European Union.
14
Of course, the decline of these price indices benefits producers too, albeit in a less uniform manner by
reducing production costs for some and investment costs for others, but here we are focusing more
specifically on consumers.
- 15 -
Table 4. Real Private Consumption Expenditure OECD Group and EU
Real Private Consumption Expenditure
4.5
4.0
Percentage Change
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
European Union
20
04
20
02
20
00
19
98
19
96
19
94
19
92
-1.0
19
90
19
86
-0.5
19
88
0.0
Total OECD
Sources: OECD, Various Documents; 2002, 2003 and 2004 figures are estimates.
The average annual increase of real private consumption expenditures for OECD
countries in the two decades between 1986 and 2004 stands at 2.8%, an important
increase, especially if we consider that 2.8% is also the average yearly increase of real
GDP for the OECD area, and that, over the same period, real public consumption
expenditure, rose on average only by 2.2% every year (OECD, 2003, Annex Tables 1 &
4).
Below are the tables that show similar trends in three major industrialized
countries: Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America
- 16 -
Table 5. Japan, Private Consumption By Type Of Goods Quarterly Data (19601999)
Durable goods
Non-durable goods
19
95
19
90
19
80
19
75
19
85
180000
160000
140000
120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
20000
0
19
70
BN ¥
Private Consumption, Constant Prices / National Base, Japan
Services
Sources: OECD, Various Documents
Table 6. USA, Private Consumption By Type Of Goods Quarterly Data (1960-1999)
Private Consumption, Chained Constant Prices, National Base,
USA
3500
3000
2000
1500
1000
500
Durable goods
Non-durable goods
Sources: OECD, Various Documents
- 17 -
19
95
19
90
19
85
19
80
19
75
19
70
19
65
0
19
60
BN US$
2500
Services
Table 7. United Kingdom, Private Consumption By Type Of Goods Quarterly Data
(1960-1999)
Private Consumption Constant Prices National Base, UK
60000
50000
BN £
40000
30000
20000
10000
Durable goods
Non-durable goods
19
95
19
90
19
85
19
80
19
75
19
70
19
65
19
60
0
Services
Sources: OECD, Various Documents
The OECD itself released in 2002 its study of household consumption, which was
completed with an eye to analyzing the goal of sustainable development (OECD 2002).
The report analyzes the “day-to-day actions of households in OECD countries and how
these actions affect the environment. It presents data and trends in five key areas of
household consumption: food, tourism travel, energy, water and waste generation. The
data shows that environmental impacts from household activities have grown over the
last three decades and are expected to intensify over the next twenty years, particularly in
the areas of energy, transport and waste” (OECD 2002: 10).
The results of the report indicate that, with the exception of water consumption
(which either stabilized or fell), OECD households have seen their consumption levels
increase. Between 1973 and 1998, energy use in OECD countries increased by 36% and
is forecast to be a full 35% higher by 2020, and households are an important segment of
this consumption. Transport, which is bound to grow dramatically between now and
2020, will also impact very heavily on the environmental health of the world. Waste,
which will grow by 43% between 1995 and 2020 to the tune of 700 million tonnes every
year, is largely dependent on household consumption. Food consumption, another
household issue, is increasing in the OECD in most food categories, and impacts on the
environment at various levels (OECD, 2002: 11-12).
So consumption is increasing at all levels and forecasts are not particularly
optimistic regarding the sustainability of these patterns. Another important point is that,
- 18 -
while consumption levels went up across the globe, their growth has been particularly
sustained in the wealthy, post-industrial societies of the advanced capitalist economies. In
this same area aggregate population growth has been quite contained as compared with
the rest of the world. This means that Hedonistic Consumerism is drawing an increasing
percentage of world resources towards the already over-consuming North of the world.
The OECD report focuses on a specific set of conditions that must be met to promote
sustainable consumption, both in the economic and regulatory/policy field (shifting the
structure of consumption, making environmentally-friendly goods available, creating a
price structure for consumer goods and services, which incorporate the environmental
costs) (OECD, 2002: 13-14).
The issue of how much pressure can be sustained by the environment is unlikely
to yield a simple answer (McKibben 1999; Ger 1997; Mazur 1994; Crocker and Linden
1998) and escapes a simple categorization (Wilk 1999; Fine 1995; Appadurai 1986) but
the general trends should be enough to create, if not apprehension, at least curiosity
regarding the long term effects of these patterns of consumption. In the next section I try
to address some of the issues that, in my opinion, are generated by Hedonistic
Consumerism.
The Contradictions Of Hedonistic Consumerism
As mentioned in the introduction, Hedonistic Consumerism carries two deep
internal contradictions: on the one hand it fuels an ecological crisis (Sklair 2002) that is
becoming ever more complex as globalization increases the speed at which ecological
problems are being transmitted around the globe (Held and McGrew 2002: 8;
Spangenberg and Lorek 2002). On the other hand it misallocates scarce resources
towards the satisfaction of induced wants rather than meeting real needs.
The Post-Fordist period did not usher a reduced workload for employees; instead,
employment went through a process of flexibilization (Boltanski and Chiapello 1999;
Boltanski and Thévenot 1991; Salais 1991) and intensification (Shipman 2001) which
meant higher unemployment, longer hours and less job security. Education, health care
and social security have increasingly been removed from the sphere of what society
should provide and placed within the realm of what the market can sell. It required that,
alongside the consumer, modern society deploy the producer to satisfy a ‘growth only’
model of the market, and premised social inclusion on one's inclusion in the economy
(Godelier 1999). Those who are not included in the twin processes of production and
consumption are excluded from society and looked upon with suspicion if not contempt.
The process of globalization has changed, sometimes radically, the localities in
which goods are produced and consumed but the trend has been one of increasing
consumerism and reification. Consumption and possession define and support identity
construction and reproduction, and the reification process has been extended (Hennessy
2000; Shipman 2001) across classes to become the defining element of capitalism, in
apparently direct contrast to Polanyi’s (1944) notion that, while human activity is
conditioned by economic factors, only in exceptional cases is it determined by the needs
- 19 -
of material want-satisfaction. Could it then be the case that, as noted in Turner’s (1998)
analysis of Lukács, exchange values and reification have become the tool through which
social relations, although it may be perhaps more accurate to call them consumerist
relations, are measured?
Lukacs blended Marx and Weber together by seeing a convergence of Marx’s ideas about
commodification of social relations through money and markets with Weber’s thesis
about the penetration of rationality into ever more spheres of modern life. Borrowing
from Marx's analysis of the “fetishism of commodities,” Lukacs employed the concept of
reification to denote the process by which social relationships become “objects” that can
be manipulated, bought, and sold. Then, reinterpreting Weber’s notion of ‘rationalization’
to mean a growing emphasis on the process of “calculation” of exchange values, Lukacs
combined Weber’s and Marx’s ideas. As traditional societies change, he argued, there is
less reliance on moral standards and processes of communication to achieve societal
integration; instead there is more use of money, markets, and rational calculations. As a
result, relations are coordinated by exchange values and by people’s perceptions of one
another as ‘things’ (Turner 1998: 553).
Whether we agree with Lukács or not, there is little doubt that consumption levels
are increasing for goods and services. This is both the reflection of wealthier societies,
and of an increased relevance of consumerist philosophies not only in the industrialized
countries, but also across the globe (Jameson 1990). Consumption rates increase, and the
‘life span’ of products or trends tend to be ever shorter. Economies of scale and mass
consumption still remain central to our production-consumption regimes, devouring everincreasing quantities of goods and services. All indicators show increased consumption
straining resources beyond their natural limits: wild fish stocks must be supplemented by
farmed ones, not to restore the former to their original size but simply to keep up with
demand, rice and grain must be genetically modified to increase size and yield, and so
forth. Technology allows us to beat some of the environmental limits that exist but the
real question that begs to be answered is for how long, and how efficient is it to continue
allocating such an enormous amount of resources to the satisfaction of induced wants
rather than channelling them towards a more even human and economic development?
The answer may be, as noted by Deleuze and Guattari (1988), in asserting production
rather than consumption, in defining what we consume in our own personal terms rather
than in terms of the socio-economic pressures we are exposed to. It is necessary, though,
to recognize the material elements of consumerism such as the production-consumption
nexus and the commodification and reification that socio-economic relations have
experienced in our society. Without such recognition consumers remain alienated from
both the reasons for consuming and the objects they consume and there is no alternative
rationale to consumerism.
- 20 -
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