Consumer capitalism

Short description: Condition in which consumer demand is manipulated through mass-marketing

Part of series on

Anti-consumerism

Theories and ideas

* Affluenza
* Alternative culture
* Anti-capitalism
* Autonomous building
* Billboard hacking
* Bioeconomics
* Buddhist economics
* Buy Nothing Day
* Collaborative consumption
* Collapsology
* Commodification
* Commodity fetishism
* Commons
* Commune
* Compulsive buying disorder
* Conspicuous consumption
* Consumer capitalism
* Consumerism
* Criticism of advertising
* Culture jamming
* Degrowth
* Do it yourself
* DIY ethic
* Downshifting
* Earth Overshoot Day
* Ecological economics
* Ecovillage
* Ethical consumerism
* Environmental justice
* Feminist political ecology
* Freeganism
* Gift economy
* Green consumption
* Hyperconsumerism
* Local food
* Microgeneration
* Overconsumption
* Planned obsolescence
* Political ecology
* Post-consumerism
* Post-growth
* Post-normal science
* Right to repair
* Self-organization
* Simple living
* Slow Food
* Spectacle
* Steady-state economy
* Subvertising
* Sustainable consumer behaviour
* Sustainable consumption

Notable works

* Walden
* The Theory of the Leisure Class
* Brave New World
* The Affluent Society
* One-Dimensional Man
* The Society of the Spectacle (book * film)
* The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (fr)
* Steal This Book
* Small Is Beautiful
* To Have or to Be?
* Future Primitive and Other Essays
* Fight Club (novel * film)
* Escape from Affluenza
* No Logo
* Profit over People: Neoliberalism
and Global Order

* The Cultural Creatives
* Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic
* Evasion
* The Corporation
* Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers
* So, What's Your Price?
* What Would Jesus Buy?

Organizations and groups

* Adbusters
* Crass
* CrimethInc.
* Deep Green Resistance
* Democracy Now!
* Earth Liberation Front
* Fifth Estate
* Freecycle
* Green Anarchy
* Institute for Social Ecology
* Monthly Review
* Rage Against the Machine
* Reverend Billy
* The Venus Project
* The Yes Men
* 350.org

People

* André Amar
* André Gorz
* Bruno Clémentin
* Donella Meadows
* Edward Goldsmith
* E. F. Schumacher
* Erich Fromm
* Federico Demaria
* Filka Sekulova
* François Schneider
* Giacomo D’Alisa
* Giorgios Kallis
* Henry David Thoreau
* Ivan Illich
* Ivo Rens
* Jacques Grinevald
* Jean Baudrillard
* John Ruskin
* Mauro Bonaiuti
* Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
* Noam Chomsky
* Paul Ariès
* Paul Goodman
* Pierre Rabhi
* Serge Latouche
* Vincent Cheynet

Related social movements

* Alter-globalization
* Amateurism
* Anarcho-communism
* Anarcho-primitivism
* Anarcho-punk
* Anti-capitalism
* Anti-corporate activism
* Anti-globalization movement
* Diggers (theater)
* Ecofeminism
* Eco-socialism
* Environmentalism
* Feminism
* Food Not Bombs
* Green anarchism
* Green left
* Green politics
* Hippie
* Libertarian socialism
* Neo-Luddism
* New Left
* Occupy Wall Street
* Postmodernism
* Punk
* Situationists
* Slow movement
* Social anarchism
* Social ecology

See also

* Works about consumerism
* Advanced capitalism
* Advertising
* Barter
* Capitalism
* Consumer behaviour
* Consumption (economics)
* Consumption (sociology)
* Cooperative
* Counterculture
* Cultural hegemony
* Ecological economics
* Economic materialism
* Economic problems
* Frugality
* Green economy
* Gross National Happiness
* Heterodox economics
* Influence of mass media
* Informal sector
* Intentional community
* Left-wing politics
* McDonaldization
* Mutual aid
* Natural resource economics
* Non-monetary economy
* Permaculture
* Post-materialism
* Productivism
* Shopping
* Social movements
* Subsistence economy
* Sustainability
* Sweatshops
* Veblen good
* Workaholic

* v
* t
* e

Capitalism

Concepts

* Business
* Business cycle
* Businessperson
* Capital
* Capital accumulation
* Capital markets
* Capitalist mode of production
* Company
* Corporation
* Competitive markets
* Economic interventionism
* Economic liberalism
* Economic surplus
* Entrepreneurship
* Fictitious capital
* Financial market
* Free price system
* Free market
* Goods and services
* Investor
* Invisible hand
* Liberalization
* Marginalism
* Money
* Private property
* Privatization
* Profit
* Rent seeking
* Supply and demand
* Surplus value
* Value
* Wage labour

Economic systems

* Anglo-Saxon
* Authoritarian
* Corporate
* Dirigist
* Free-market
* Humanistic
* Laissez-faire
* Liberal
* Libertarian
* Mercantilist
* Monopoly
* National
* Neoliberal
* Private
* Regulated market
* Regulatory
* Rhine
* Social
* State
* State-sponsored
* Welfare

Economic theories

* American
* Austrian
* Chartalism
* MMT
* Chicago
* Classical
* Institutional
* Keynesian
* Neo-
* New
* Post-
* Marxian
* Monetarist
* Neoclassical
* New institutional
* Supply-side

Origins

* Age of Enlightenment
* Capitalism and Islam
* Commercial Revolution
* Feudalism
* Industrial Revolution
* Mercantilism
* Primitive accumulation
* Physiocracy
* Simple commodity production

Development

* Advanced
* Consumer
* Corporate
* Crony
* Finance
* Global
* Illiberal
* Late
* Marxist
* Merchant
* Rentier
* State monopoly
* Techno

*   *   *   *   *

* v
* t
* e

Consumer capitalism is a theoretical economic and social political condition in which consumer demand is manipulated in a deliberate and coordinated way on a very large scale through mass-marketing techniques, to the advantage of sellers.

This theory is controversial. It suggests manipulation of consumer demand so potent that it has a coercive effect, amounts to a departure from free-market capitalism, and has an adverse effect on society in general. According to one source, the power of such 'manipulation' is not straightforward. It depends upon a new kind of individualism - projective individualism, where persons use consumer capitalism to project the kind of person who they want to be.[1]

Some use the phrase as shorthand for the broader idea that the interests of other non-business entities (governments, religions, the military, educational institutions) are intertwined with corporate business interests, and that those entities also participate in the management of social expectations through mass media.

## Contents

* 1 Origins
* 2 Criticism
* 3 Consumer capitalism today
* 4 See also
* 5 References

## Origins

The origins of consumer capitalism[2] are found in the development of American department stores from the mid 19th Century, notably the advertising and marketing innovations at Wanamaker's in Philadelphia.[3] Author William Leach describes a deliberate, coordinated effort among American 'captains of industry' to detach consumer demand from 'needs' (which can be satisfied) to 'wants' (which may remain unsatisfied). This cultural shift represented by the department store is also explored in Émile Zola's 1883 novel Au Bonheur des Dames, which describes the workings and the appeal of a fictionalized version of Le Bon Marché.

In 1919 Edward Bernays began his career as the 'father of public relations' and successfully applied the developing principles of psychology, sociology and motivational research to manipulate public opinion in favor of products like cigarettes, soap, and Calvin Coolidge. New techniques of mechanical reproduction developed in these decades improved the channels of mass-market communication and its manipulative power. This development was described as early as the 1920s by Walter Benjamin and related members of the Frankfurt School, who foresaw the commercial, societal and political implications.

In business history, the mid-1920s saw Alfred P. Sloan stimulating increased demand for General Motors products by instituting the annual model year change and planned obsolescence, a move that changed the dynamics of the largest industrial enterprise in the world, away from technological innovation and towards satisfying market expectations.

## Criticism

A criticism of consumer capitalism has been made by the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler. He argues that capitalism today is governed not by production but by consumption, and that the techniques used to create consumer behavior amount to the destruction of psychic and collective individuation. The diversion of libidinal energy toward the consumption of consumer products, Stiegler argues, results in an addictive cycle, leading to hyperconsumption, the exhaustion of desire, and the reign of symbolic misery.[4]

## Consumer capitalism today

In light of the economic hardships the United States is today experiencing as a result of radical wealth inequalities, and perhaps a strong dependence on oil, consumer capitalist tactics have turned to credit as a means to maintaining a high level of expenditures in the form of consumer demand. Some of these tactics, to cite one extremely peripheral example, include government incentives to buy eco-friendly 'green' products, such as tax deductions for energy conserving home improvements or the purchasing of hybrid cars. These tactics, however, are not without critics. James Gustave Speth, former dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and author of The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, does not believe the United States government should implement such tactics. Instead Gustave believes in more direct approaches to repair or avoid environmental damage. Rather than focusing on re-boosting the distressed economy, treat the problem.[5]

## See also

* Capitalism
* Productivism
* Consumerism
* Artificial demand
* Geoffrey Miller (evolutionary psychologist)
* No Logo, a book exploring product branding
* Economic materialism
* Planned obsolescence
* Subjective theory of value
* Conspicuous consumption
* Fear, uncertainty, and doubt
* Keeping up with the Joneses
* The Century of the Self, a documentary series

## References

1. ↑ James, Paul; Scerri, Andy (2012). "Globalizing Consumption and the Deferral of a Politics of Consequence". Globalizations 9 (2): 225–240. doi:10.1080/14747731.2012.658249. https://www.academia.edu/3230921.
2. ↑ Silla, Cesare (2018). The Rise of Consumer Capitalism in America, 1880-1930. London-New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781315399645. https://books.google.com/books?id=oqVYDwAAQBAJ&q=the+rise+of+consumer+capitalism+in+america&pg=PT1.
3. ↑ Leach, William (1993). Land of Desire. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 9780307761149. https://books.google.com/books?id=VHZ6UAudSiUC&pg=330.
4. ↑ Stiegler discusses consumer capitalism in his article The Disaffected Individual. His response to the situation can be discerned by reading the manifesto of his political group, Ars Industrialis.
5. ↑ Speth, James G. The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies - Masters of Environmental Management. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. < http://environment.yale.edu/news/5647/ >.

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