Consumerism

Acquisition of goods beyond essential needs

Not to be confused with Consumerization or Consumption (economics).

An electronics store displaying CRT TVs in a shopping mall in Jakarta, Indonesia (2002) Part of a series on

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Consumerism is a socio-cultural and economic phenomenon that is typical of industrialized societies. It is characterized by the continuous acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing quantities. In contemporary consumer society, the purchase and the consumption of products have evolved beyond the mere satisfaction of basic human needs,[1] transforming into an activity that is not only economic but also cultural, social, and even identity-forming. It emerged in Western Europe and the United States during the Industrial Revolution and became widespread around the 20th century.[1] In economics, consumerism refers to policies that emphasize consumption. It is the consideration that the free choice of consumers should strongly inform the choice by manufacturers of what is produced and how, and therefore influence the economic organization of a society.

Consumerism has been criticized by both individuals who choose other ways of participating in the economy (i.e. choosing simple living or slow living) and environmentalists concerned about its impact on the planet. Experts often assert that consumerism has physical limits,[2] such as growth imperative and overconsumption, which have larger impacts on the environment. This includes direct effects like overexploitation of natural resources or large amounts of waste from disposable goods and significant effects like climate change. Similarly, some research and criticism focuses on the sociological effects of consumerism, such as reinforcement of class barriers and creation of inequalities.

## Evolution of the term

[edit]

The term "consumerism" has several definitions.[3] These definitions may not be related to each other and they conflict with each other.

In a 1955 speech, John Bugas, a vice president of the Ford Motor Company, [4] coined the term "consumerism" as a substitute for "capitalism" and better describe the American economy:[5]

> The term consumerism would pin the tag where it actually belongs – on Mr. Consumer, the real boss and beneficiary of the American system. It would pull the rug right out from under our unfriendly critics who have blasted away so long and loud at capitalism.

Bugas's definition aligned with Austrian economics founder Carl Menger's conception of consumer sovereignty, as laid out in his 1871 book Principles of Economics, whereby consumer preferences, valuations, and choices control the economy entirely. This view stood in direct opposition to Karl Marx's critique of the capitalist economy as a system of exploitation.[6]

For social critic Vance Packard, however, "consumerism" was not a positive term about consumer practices but rather a negative term, meaning excessive materialism and wastefulness. In the advertisements for his 1960 book The Waste Makers, the word "consumerism" was prominently featured in a negative way.[7]

One sense of the term relates to efforts to support consumers' interests.[3] By the early 1970s it had become the accepted term for the field and began to be used in these ways:[3]

1. Consumerism is the concept that consumers should be informed decision makers in the marketplace.[3] In this sense consumerism is the study and practice of matching consumers with trustworthy information, such as product testing reports.
2. Consumerism is the concept that the marketplace itself is responsible for ensuring social justice through fair economic practices.[3] Consumer protection policies and laws compel manufacturers to make products safe.
3. Consumerism refers to the field of studying, regulating, or interacting with the marketplace.[3] The consumer movement is the social movement which refers to all actions and all entities within the marketplace which give consideration to the consumer.

While the above definitions were becoming established, other people began using the term consumerism to mean "high levels of consumption".[3] This definition has gained popularity since the 1970s and began to be used in these ways:

1. Consumerism is the selfish and frivolous collecting of products, or economic materialism. In this sense consumerism is negative and in opposition to positive lifestyles of anti-consumerism and simple living.[3]
2. Consumerism is a force from the marketplace which destroys individuality and harms society.[3] It is related to globalization and in protest against this some people promote the "anti-globalization movement".[8]

## History

[edit]

### Origins

[edit]

The consumer society developed throughout the late 17th century and the 18th century.[9] Peck addresses the assertion made by consumption scholars about writers such as "Nicholas Barbon and Bernard Mandeville" in "Luxury and War: Reconsidering Luxury Consumption in Seventeenth-Century England" and how their emphasis on the financial worth of luxury changed society's perceptions of luxury. They argue that a significant transformation occurred in the eighteenth century when the focus shifted from court-centered luxury spending to consumer-driven luxury consumption, which was fueled by middle-class purchases of new products.

The English economy expanded significantly in the 17th century due to new methods of agriculture that rendered it feasible to cultivate a larger area. A time of heightened demand for luxury goods and increased cultural interaction was reflected in the wide range of luxury products that the aristocracy and affluent merchants imported from nations like Italy and the Low Countries. This expansion of luxury consumption in England was facilitated by state policies that encouraged cultural borrowing and import substitution, hence enabling the purchase of luxury items. [10] Luxury goods included sugar, tobacco, tea, and coffee; these were increasingly grown on vast plantations (historically by slave labor) in the Caribbean as demand steadily rose. In particular, sugar consumption in Britain increased by a factor of 20 during the 18th century. [11][12]

Furthermore, the non-importation movement commenced in the 18th century, more precisely from 1764 to 1776, as Witkowski's article "Colonial Consumers in Revolt: Buyer Values and Behavior during the Nonimportation Movement, 1764–1776" discusses. He describes the evolving development of consumer culture in the context of "colonial America". An emphasis on efficiency and economical consumption gave way to a preference for comfort, convenience, and importing products. During this time of transformation, colonial consumers had to choose between rising material desires and conventional values.[11]

### Culture of consumption

[edit]

Bernard Mandeville's work Fable of the Bees, which justified conspicuous consumption

The pattern of intensified consumption became particularly visible in the 17th century in London, where the gentry and prosperous merchants took up residence and promoted a culture of luxury and consumption that slowly extended across socio-economic boundaries. Marketplaces expanded as shopping centres, such as the New Exchange, opened in 1609 by Robert Cecil in the Strand. Shops started to become important as places for Londoners to meet and socialize and became popular destinations alongside the theatre. From 1660, Restoration London also saw the growth of luxury buildings as advertisements for social position, with speculative architects like Nicholas Barbon and Lionel Cranfield operating. This then-scandalous line of thought caused great controversy with the publication of the influential work Fable of the Bees in 1714, in which Bernard Mandeville argued that a country's prosperity ultimately lay in the self-interest of the consumer.[13]

Josiah Wedgwood's pottery, a status symbol of consumerism in the late 18th century

The pottery entrepreneur and inventor, Josiah Wedgwood, noticed the way that aristocratic fashions, themselves subject to periodic changes in direction, slowly filtered down through different classes of society. He pioneered the use of marketing techniques to influence and manipulate the movement of prevailing tastes and preferences to cause the aristocracy to accept his goods; it was only a matter of time before the middle classes also rapidly bought up his goods. Other producers of a wide range of other products followed his example, and the spread and importance of consumption fashions became steadily more important.[14] Since then, advertising has played a major role in fostering a consumerist society, marketing goods through various platforms in nearly all aspects of human life, and pushing the message that the potential customer's personal life requires some product.[15]

### Mass production

[edit]

Main article: Mass production

The Industrial Revolution dramatically increased the availability of consumer goods, although it was still primarily focused on the capital goods sector and industrial infrastructure (i.e., mining, steel, oil, transportation networks, communications networks, industrial cities, financial centers, etc.).[16] The advent of the department store represented a paradigm shift in the experience of shopping. Customers could now buy an astonishing variety of goods, all in one place, and shopping became a popular leisure activity. While previously the norm had been the scarcity of resources, the industrial era created an unprecedented economic situation. For the first time in history products were available in outstanding quantities, at outstandingly low prices, therefore available to virtually everyone in the industrialized West.

By the turn of the 20th century, the average worker in Western Europe or the United States still spent approximately 80–90% of their income on food and other necessities. What was needed to propel consumerism, was a system of mass production and consumption, exemplified by Henry Ford, an American car manufacturer. After observing the assembly lines in the meat-packing industry, Frederick Winslow Taylor brought his theory of scientific management to the organization of the assembly line in other industries; this unleashed incredible productivity and reduced the costs of commodities produced on assembly lines around the world.[17]

Black Friday shoppers, DC USA

Consumerism has long had intentional underpinnings, rather than just developing out of capitalism. As an example, Earnest Elmo Calkins noted to fellow advertising executives in 1932 that "consumer engineering must see to it that we use up the kind of goods we now merely use", while the domestic theorist Christine Frederick observed in 1929 that "the way to break the vicious deadlock of a low standard of living is to spend freely, and even waste creatively".[18]

The older term and concept of "conspicuous consumption" originated at the turn of the 20th century in the writings of sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen. The term describes an apparently irrational and confounding form of economic behaviour. Veblen's scathing proposal that this unnecessary consumption is a form of status display is made in darkly humorous observations like the following:

> It is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; so that it is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate, for people to go ill clad to appear well dressed.[19]

The term "conspicuous consumption" spread to describe consumerism in the United States in the 1960s, but was soon linked to debates about media theory, culture jamming, and its corollary productivism.

> By 1920 most Americans had experimented with occasional installment buying.[20]

### Television and American consumerism

[edit]

The advent of the television in the late 1940s proved to be an attractive opportunity for advertisers, who could reach potential consumers in the home using lifelike images and sound. The introduction of mass commercial television positively impacted retail sales. The television motivated consumers to purchase more products and upgrade whatever they currently had.[21] In the United States, a new consumer culture developed centered around buying products, especially automobiles and other durable goods, to increase their social status. Woojin Kim of the University of California, Berkeley, argues that sitcoms of this era also helped to promote the idea of suburbia.[21]

According to Woojin, the attraction of television advertising has brought an improvement in Americans' social status. Watching television programs has become an important part of people's cultural life. Television advertising can enrich and change the content of advertising from hearing and vision and make people in contact with it. The image of television advertising is realistic, and it is easy to have an interest and desire to buy advertising goods, At the same time, the audience intentionally or unintentionally compares and comments on the advertised goods while appreciating the TV advertisements, arouses the interest of the audience by attracting attention, and forms a buying idea, which is conducive to enhancing the buying confidence. Therefore, TV can be used as a media way to accelerate and affect people's desire to buy products.[21]

### In the 21st century

[edit]

McDonald's and KFC restaurants in China Shopping mall in La Coruña, Galicia, (Spain).

Madeline Levine criticized what she saw as a large change in American culture – "a shift away from values of community, spirituality, and integrity, and toward competition, materialism and disconnection."[22]

Businesses have realized that wealthy consumers are the most attractive targets of marketing. The upper class's tastes, lifestyles, and preferences trickle down to become the standard for all consumers. The not-so-wealthy consumers can "purchase something new that will speak of their place in the tradition of affluence".[23] A consumer can have the instant gratification of purchasing an expensive item to improve social status.

Emulation is also a core component of 21st century consumerism. As a general trend, regular consumers seek to emulate those who are above them in the social hierarchy. The poor strive to imitate the wealthy and the wealthy imitate celebrities and other icons. The celebrity endorsement of products can be seen as evidence of the desire of modern consumers to purchase products partly or solely to emulate people of higher social status. This purchasing behavior may co-exist in the mind of a consumer with an image of oneself as being an individualist.

Cultural capital, the intangible social value of goods, is not solely generated by cultural pollution. Subcultures also manipulate the value and prevalence of certain commodities through the process of bricolage. Bricolage is the process by which mainstream products are adopted and transformed by subcultures.[24] These items develop a function and meaning that differs from their corporate producer's intent. In many cases, commodities that have undergone bricolage often develop political meanings.

For example, Doc Martens, originally marketed as workers boots, gained popularity with the punk movement and AIDS activism groups and became symbols of an individual's place in that social group.[25] When corporate America recognized the growing popularity of the brand, it underwent another change in cultural meaning through counter-bricolage. The widespread sale and marketing of Doc Martens brought them back into the mainstream. While corporate America reaped the ever-growing profits of the increasingly expensive boot and those modeled after its style, Doc Martens lost their original political association. Consumers used Doc Martens and related items to create an "individualized" sense of identity by appropriating statement items from subcultures they admired.

Authors Steven Quartz and Anette Asp make a similar argument that changing notions of "cool" affect consumption patterns. Items that cost less, and would normally be lower in social status according to the old rules of conspicuous consumption, can actually rise in status if they are associated with a cool, rebellious subculture.[26] As examples, the authors cite leather jackets popularized in 1950s motorcycle movies, or the cachet of "distressed clothing", or the tech entrepreneur who chooses to wear a T-shirt and hoodie instead of an elegant suit. Quartz and Asp have labeled this trend "rebellious consumption", and assert that it has altered advertising, consumer behavior, and even has political implications since less-well-off people can feel content with their inexpensive but "cool" possessions.[27]

In recent decades, consumerism has evolved into an organized movement to enhance the power and rights of buyers in relation to sellers. Consumer advocates believe that sellers enjoy an advantage in the traditional balance of power, for instance, the right to introduce any product in any size or style, the right to change a product's price at any time, the right to spend any amount to promote a product, and the right to use any message to encourage product purchases. Besides a buyer's principal right, i.e., not to buy, advocates have lobbied for expanded, enforceable buyer rights such as the right to be well informed about important aspects of a product, and the right to be protected against questionable products and marketing practices.[28]

The American Dream has long been associated with consumerism.[29][30] According to Sierra Club's Dave Tilford, "With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world's paper, a quarter of the world's oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper."[31]

China is the world's fastest-growing consumer market.[30][32] According to biologist Paul R. Ehrlich, "If everyone consumed resources at the US level, you will need another four or five Earths."[33]

With the development of the economy, consumers' awareness of protecting their rights and interests is growing, and consumer demand is growing. Online commerce has expanded the consumer market and enhanced consumer information and market transparency. Digital fields not only bring advantages and convenience but also cause many problems and increase the opportunities for consumers to suffer damage.

Under the virtual network environment, on the one hand, consumers' privacy protection is vulnerable to infringement, driven by the development of hacker technology and the Internet, on the other hand, consumers' right to know is the basic right of consumers. When purchasing goods and receiving services, we need the real situation of institutional services. Finally, in the Internet era, consumers' demand is increasing, and we also need to protect consumers' rights and interests to improve consumers' rights and interests and promote the operation of the economic market.[34]

#### Socially mediated political consumerism

[edit]

See also: Consumerism and social media

Today's society has entered the era of entertainment and the Internet. Most people spend more time browsing on mobile phones than face-to-face. The convenience of social media has a subtle impact on the public and unconsciously changes people's consumption habits. The socialized Internet is gradually developing, such as Twitter, websites, news and social media, with sharing and participation as the core, consumers share product information and opinions through social media.[35] At the same time, by understanding the reputation of the brand on social media, consumers can easily change their original attitude towards the brand. The information provided by social media helps consumers shorten the time of thinking about products and decision-making, so as to improve consumers' initiative in purchase decision-making and improve consumers' shopping and decision-making quality to a certain extent.

## Criticism

[edit]

Part of a series on

Anti-consumerism

Theories and ideas

* Asceticism
* Affluenza
* Alternative culture
* Anti-capitalism
* Autonomous building
* Billboard hacking
* Buyer's remorse
* Bioeconomics
* Buddhist economics
* Buy Nothing Day
* Collaborative consumption
* Collapsology
* Commodification
* Commodity fetishism
* Commune
* Compulsive buying disorder
* Conspicuous consumption
* Consumer capitalism
* Consumerism
* Conviviality
* Criticism of advertising
* Culture jamming
* Do it yourself
* Downshifting
* Durable good
* Earth Overshoot Day
* Ecological economics
* Ecovillage
* Ethical consumerism
* Feminist political ecology
* Food loss and waste
* Freeganism
* Gift economy
* Green consumption
* Hyperconsumerism
* Laconophilia
* Local food
* Microgeneration
* Non-possession
* Overconsumption
* Planned obsolescence
* Right to repair
* Political ecology
* Post-consumerism
* Simple living
* Slow Food
* 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

* Mauro Bonaiuti
* Noam Chomsky
* Erich Fromm
* Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
* Edward Goldsmith
* Paul Goodman
* André Gorz
* Ivan Illich
* Serge Latouche
* Donella Meadows
* Pierre Rabhi
* John Ruskin
* E. F. Schumacher
* Bernard Stiegler
* Henry David Thoreau

Related social movements

* Alter-globalization
* Amateurism
* Anarcho-communism
* Anarcho-primitivism
* Anarcho-punk
* Anti-capitalism
* Anti-corporate activism
* Anti-globalization movement
* Communism
* Diggers (theater)
* Ecofeminism
* Eco-socialism
* Environmentalism
* Food Not Bombs
* Fossil fuel phase-out
* 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

* Advanced capitalism
* Advertising
* Barter
* Consumer behaviour
* Consumption (economics)
* Consumption (sociology)
* Cooperative
* Counterculture
* Disneyfication
* Ecological economics
* Economic materialism
* Economic problems
* Frugality
* Green economy
* Gross National Happiness
* Heterodox economics
* HospEx
* Illth
* 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
* Subsistence economy
* Sustainability
* Sweatshops
* Veblen good
* Workaholic

* v
* t
* e

Main articles: Anti-consumerism and Affluenza

Buy Nothing Day demonstration in San Francisco, November 2000 Shop Until You Drop by Banksy, in London

Andreas Eisingerich discusses in his article "Vision statement: Behold the extreme consumers...and learn to embrace them" that "In many critical contexts, consumerism is used to describe the tendency of people to identify strongly with products or services they consume, especially those with commercial brand-names and perceived status-symbolism appeal, e.g. a luxury car, designer clothing, or expensive jewelry".[36][37] A major criticism of consumerism is that it serves the interests of capitalism.[38]

Consumerism can take extreme forms, to the extent that consumers will sacrifice significant time and income not only to make purchases, but also to actively support a certain firm or brand.[39] As stated by Gary Cross in his book An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America, "consumerism succeeded where other ideologies failed because it concretely expressed the cardinal political ideals of the century – liberty and democracy – and with relatively little self-destructive behavior or personal humiliation." He discusses how consumerism won in its forms of expression.[40]

Tim Kasser, in his book The High Price of Materialism, examines how the culture of consumerism and materialism affects our happiness and well-being. The book argues that people who value wealth and possessions more than other things tend to have lower levels of satisfaction, self-esteem, and intimacy, and higher levels of anxiety, depression, and insecurity. The book also explores how materialistic values harm our relationships, our communities, and our environment, and suggests ways to reduce materialism and increase our quality of life.[41]

Opponents of consumerism argue that many luxuries and unnecessary consumer-products may act as a social mechanism allowing people to identify like-minded individuals through the display of similar products, again utilizing aspects of status-symbolism to judge socioeconomic status and social stratification. Some people believe relationships with a product or brand name are substitutes for healthy human relationships lacking in societies, and along with consumerism, create a cultural hegemony, and are part of a general process of social control[42] in modern society.

In 1955, economist Victor Lebow stated:

> Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.[43]

Figures who arguably do not wholly buy into consumerism include German historian Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), who said: "Life in America is exclusively economic in structure and lacks depth",[44] and French writer Georges Duhamel (1884–1966), who held American materialism up as "a beacon of mediocrity that threatened to eclipse French civilization".[44] Francis Fukuyama blames consumerism for moral compromises.[45]

Moreover, some critics have expressed concern about the role commodities play in the definition of one's self. In his 1976 book Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture, historian and media theorist Stuart Ewen introduced what he referred to as the "commodification of consciousness", and coined the term "commodity self" to describe an identity built by the goods we consume.[46]

For example, people often identify as PC or Mac users, or define themselves as a Coke drinker rather than a Pepsi drinker. The ability to choose one product out of a great number of others allows a person to build a sense of "unique" individuality, despite the prevalence of Mac users or the nearly identical tastes of Coke and Pepsi.[46] By owning a product from a certain brand, one's ownership becomes a vehicle of presenting an identity that is associated with the attitude of the brand. The idea of individual choice is exploited by corporations that claim to sell "uniqueness" and the building blocks of an identity. The invention of the commodity self is a driving force of consumerist societies, preying upon the deep human need to build a sense of self.

### Environmental impact

[edit]

Critics of consumerism point out that consumerist societies are more prone to damage the environment, contribute to global warming and use resources at a higher rate than other societies.[47] Jorge Majfud says that "Trying to reduce environmental pollution without reducing consumerism is like combatting drug trafficking without reducing the drug addiction."[48]

Pope Francis also critiqued consumerism in his encyclical Laudato Si': On Care For Our Common Home.[49] He critiqued the harm consumerism does to the environment and states, "The analysis of environmental problems cannot be separated from the analysis of human, family, work-related and urban contexts, nor from how individuals relate to themselves, which leads in turn to how they relate to others and to the environment."[50] Pope Francis believed the obsession with consumerism leads individuals further away from their humanity and obscures the interrelated nature between humans and the environment.

Another critic is James Gustave Speth. He argues that the growth imperative represents the main goal of capitalistic consumerism. In his book The Bridge at the Edge of the World he notes, "Basically, the economic system does not work when it comes to protecting environmental resources, and the political system does not work when it comes to correcting the economic system".

In an opinion segment of New Scientist magazine published in August 2009, reporter Andy Coghlan cited William Rees of the University of British Columbia and epidemiologist Warren Hern of the University of Colorado at Boulder saying that human beings, despite considering themselves civilized thinkers, are "subconsciously still driven by an impulse for survival, domination and expansion ... an impulse which now finds expression in the idea that inexorable economic growth is the answer to everything, and, given time, will redress all the world's existing inequalities."[51]

According to figures presented by Rees at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America, human society is in a "global overshoot", consuming 30% more material than is sustainable from the world's resources. Rees went on to state that at present, 85 countries are exceeding their domestic "bio-capacities", and compensate for their lack of local material by depleting the stocks of other countries, which have a material surplus due to their lower consumption.[51] Not only that, but McCraken indicates that how consumer goods and services are bought, created and used should be taken under consideration when studying consumption.[52]

Not all anti-consumerists oppose consumption in itself, but they argue against increasing the consumption of resources beyond what is environmentally sustainable. Jonathan Porritt writes that consumers are often unaware of the negative environmental impacts of producing many modern goods and services, and that the extensive advertising industry only serves to reinforce increasing consumption.[53]

Conservation scientists Lian Pin Koh and Tien Ming Lee, discuss that in the 21st century, the damage to forests and biodiversity cannot be dealt with only by the shift towards "Green" initiatives such as "sustainable production, green consumerism, and improved production practices". They argue that consumption in developing and emerging countries needs to be less excessive.[54] Likewise, other ecological economists such as Herman Daly and Tim Jackson recognize the inherent conflict between consumer-driven consumption and planet-wide ecological degradation.

American environmental historian and sociologist Jason W. Moore, in his book Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism points out that the challenge of addressing both underconsumption and overconsumption of resources lies at the heart of the world’s primary sustainability dilemma. While significant portions of the global population struggle to meet basic needs, the resource-intensive lifestyles of affluent societies — characterized by car dependency, frequent air travel, high meat consumption, and an apparently limitless appetite for consumer goods like clothing and technological devices — are key drivers of the unsustainable practices.[55]

### Consumerism as cultural ideology

[edit]

In the 21st century's globalized economy, consumerism has become a noticeable part of the culture.[56] Critics of this phenomenon have not only raised concerns about its environmental sustainability, but also its cultural implications. However, a number of scholars have explored the relationship between environmentalism and consumerism within the context of a market economy society.[57]

Discussions of the environmental implications of consumerist ideologies in works by economists James Gustave Speth[58] and Naomi Klein,[59] and consumer cultural historian Gary Cross.[60] Leslie Sklair proposes the criticism through the idea of culture-ideology of consumerism in his works. He says that,

> First, capitalism entered a qualitatively new globalizing phase in the 1950s. As the electronic revolution got underway, significant changes began to occur in the productivity of capitalist factories, systems of extraction, processing of raw materials, product design, marketing and distribution of goods and services. [...] Second, the technical and social relations that structured the mass media all over the world made it very easy for new consumerist lifestyles to become the dominant motif for these media, which became in time extraordinarily efficient vehicles for the broadcasting of the culture-ideology of consumerism globally.[61]

Today, people are universally and continuously being exposed to mass consumerism and product placement in the media or even in their daily lives. The line between information, entertainment, and promotion of products has been blurred, thus explaining how people have become more reformulated into consumerist behaviours.[62] Shopping centers are a representative example of a place where people are explicitly exposed to an environment that welcomes and encourages consumption.

For example, in 1993, Goss wrote that the shopping center designers "strive to present an alternative rationale for the shopping center's existence, manipulate shoppers' behavior through the configuration of space, and consciously design a symbolic landscape that provokes associative moods and dispositions in the shopper".[63] On the prevalence of consumerism in daily life, historian Gary Cross says that "The endless variation of clothing, travel, and entertainment provided opportunity for practically everyone to find a personal niche, no matter their race, age, gender or class."[64]

Arguably, the success of the consumerist cultural ideology can be witnessed all around the world. People who rush to the mall to buy products and end up spending money with their credit cards can easily become entrenched in the financial system of capitalist globalization.[62][65]

### Alternatives

[edit]

See also: Ecoleasing, Ethical consumerism, Frugality, and Green consumption

Since consumerism began, various individuals and groups have consciously sought an alternative lifestyle. These movements range on a spectrum from moderate "simple living",[66] "eco-conscious shopping",[67] and "localvore"/"buying local",[68] to Freeganism on the extreme end. Building on these movements, the discipline of ecological economics addresses the macro-economic, social and ecological implications of a primarily consumer-driven economy.

## See also

[edit]

* American Psycho – 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis
* Anthropological theories of value – attempts to expand on the traditional theories of value used by economists or ethicistsPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
* Bourgeois personality – Social class of business owners, merchants, and the wealthyPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
* Commercialism
* Commodity fetishism – Concept in Marxist analysis
* Consumer Bill of Rights – Guidelines for consumer protection
* Consumer capitalism – Condition in which consumer demand is manipulated through mass-marketing
* Consumer culture – Lifestyle hyper-focused on buying material goods
* Consumer ethnocentrism – Psychological concept of consumer behaviour
* Consumer movement – Social movement to promote consumer protection
* Consumtariat – Global upper-class that bases its power on a technological advantagePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
* Corporatocracy – Society controlled by business corporations
* Cost the limit of price – Version of the labor theory of value
* Dawn of the Dead – 1978 zombie horror film by George A. Romero
* Economic materialism – Excessive desire to acquire and consume material goods
* Fight Club – 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk
* Geoffrey Miller – American evolutionary psychologist (born 1965)
* Greed – Insatiable longing for material or immaterial gain; avarice
* Homo consumericus – Neologism used in social sciences
* Horace Kallen – American philosopher (1882–1974)
* Hyperconsumerism – Consumption of goods beyond ones necessities
* Hypermobility (travel) – Refers to highly mobile individuals who take frequent trips, often over great distances.
* Idiocracy – 2006 film by Mike Judge
* "Keeping up with the Joneses" – Idiom on comparing oneself to neighbors
* Keynesianism – Group of macroeconomic theoriesPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
* Moonlight clan – People who expend their entire salary before the end of each month
* One-Dimensional Man – 1964 book by Herbert Marcuse
* Overconsumption – Resource use exceeding carrying capacityPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
* Participatory culture – Cultural production made through social interactions of different communities and groups
* Philosophy of futility
* Planetary boundaries – Limits not to be exceeded if humanity is to survive in a safe ecosystem
* Planned obsolescence – Policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life
* Post-materialism – Concept in sociologyPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
* Productivism – Primacy of productivity and growth
* Prosumer – Person who consumes and produces a product
* Sharing economy – Economic and social systems that enable shared access to assets
* Shopping addiction – Obsession with shopping and buying behavior
* Steady state economy – Constant capital and population sizePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
* Supermarket – Large format of grocery store
* Surplus economics
* The Century of the Self – 2002 British documentary series
* The Joneses – 2009 American film directed by Derrick Borte
* They Live – 1988 American science-fiction action film
* The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less – 2004 book by Barry Schwartz

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Stearns, Peter (2006). Consumerism in World History. 2nd ed. Routledge. p. vii–viii.
2. ^ "The Theory of the Leisure Class Summary & Study Guide". BookRags.com.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Swagler, Roger (1997). "Modern Consumerism". In Brobeck, Stephen (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Consumer Movement. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio. pp. 172–173. ISBN 0874369878., which is based on Swagler, R. (1994). "Evolution and Applications of the Term Consumerism: Theme and Variations". Journal of Consumer Affairs. 28 (2): 347–360\. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6606.1994.tb00856.x.
4. ^ Sugrue, Thomas J. (27 April 2014). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit – Updated Edition. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691162553.
5. ^ Eriksson, Kai (20 November 2012). "On self-service democracy: Configurations of individualizing governance and self-directed citizenship". European Journal of Social Theory. 16 (2): 153–173\. doi:10.1177/1368431012459693. S2CID 144688904. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
6. ^ Caldwell, Bruce J. (1990). Carl Menger and His Legacy in Economics. Duke University Press.
7. ^ Glickman, Lawrence B. (2012). Buying power : a history of consumer activism in America (Paperback ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 265\. ISBN 978-0226298672.
8. ^ Barber, Benjamin R. (Spring 2008). "Shrunken Sovereign: Consumerism, Globalization, and American Emptiness". World Affairs. Archived from the original on 20 November 2012. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
9. ^ Trentmann, Frank (2016). Empire of things: how we became a world of consumers, from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first. London: Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-241-19840-7.
10. ^ Peck, Linda Levy (2002). "Luxury and War: Reconsidering Luxury Consumption in Seventeenth-Century England". Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies. 34 (1): 1–23\. doi:10.2307/4053438. JSTOR 4053438.
11. ^ a b Witkowski, Terrence (1989). "Colonial Consumers in Revolt: Buyer Values and Behavior during the Nonimportation Movement, 1764–1776". Journal of Consumer Research. 16 (2): 216–226\. doi:10.1086/209210. JSTOR 2489320.
12. ^ Evans, Chris (2012). "The Plantation Hoe: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Commodity, 1650–1850". The William and Mary Quarterly. 69 (1): 71–100\. doi:10.5309/willmaryquar.69.1.0071.
13. ^ Peck, Linda Levy (2005). Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 371\. ISBN 9780521842327. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
14. ^ "Coming to live in a consumer society" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 August 2013. Retrieved 29 October 2013. "The origins of the consumer society as we know it today can be traced back a few hundred years. According to McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb (1982) the birthplace can be found in eighteenth century England. However, as McCracken (1988) has pointed out, the consumer revolution as a whole needs to be seen as part of a larger transformation in Western societies, which began in the sixteenth century. The social changes brought about by that transformation resulted in the modification of Western concepts of time, space, society, the individual, the family and the state. This provided the base on which the consumer revolution could thrive and develop into a mass phenomenon. McCracken (1988) was one of the first scholars offering a comprehensive review of the history of consumption. He approached the subject by dividing the course of events into three moments. The first moment falls within the last quarter of the sixteenth century in Elizabethan England where profound changes in consumption pattern occurred in a small section of the population. This was the moment where some of the established concepts, notably the concepts of space, the individual and the family began to falter. The circumstances bringing about these changes served as a primer for the consumer movement that would come a century later. McCracken describes this as the second moment. It was characterized by a heightened propensity to spend, by a greatly extended choice of goods, and an increased frequency of purchases. Fashion started to play an important role too, and, for the first time, the individual as a consumer became the target of manipulative attempts. The origins of modern marketing instruments can be traced back to this time. With the rise of the third moment, the consumer movement was already a structural feature of life(McCracken, 1988). However, the development was not yet completed. The 19th century added new qualities to the movement and turned it into a 'dream world of consumption' (Williams, 1982)."
15. ^ Czarnecka, Barbara; Schivinski, Bruno (17 June 2019). "Do Consumers Acculturated to Global Consumer Culture Buy More Impulsively? The Moderating Role of Attitudes towards and Beliefs about Advertising" (PDF). Journal of Global Marketing. 32 (4): 219–238\. doi:10.1080/08911762.2019.1600094. ISSN 0891-1762. S2CID 182181403.
16. ^ Ryan 2007, p. 701. sfn error: no target: CITEREFRyan2007 (help)
17. ^ Ryan 2007, p. 702.[need quotation to verify] sfn error: no target: CITEREFRyan2007 (help)
18. ^ "Essay – Dawn of the Dead Mall". The Design Observer Group. 11 November 2009. Archived from the original on 14 November 2009. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
19. ^ Veblen, Thorstein (2010). The Theory of the Leisure Class.
20. ^ Calder, Lendol Glen (1990). Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 222. ISBN 0-691-05827-X.
21. ^ a b c Kim, Woojin (1 April 2022). "Television and American consumerism". Journal of Public Economics. 208: 104609. doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104609. ISSN 0047-2727. S2CID 246897308.
22. ^ Levine, Madeline. "Challenging the Culture of Affluence". Independent School. 67.1 (2007): 28–36. Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
23. ^ Research Alert (1991). Attracting the Affluent: The First Guide to America's Changing Ultimate Market. Naperville, Illinois: Financial Sourcebooks. ISBN 0942061233.[page needed]
24. ^ Sturken, Marita; Cartwright, Lisa (2001). Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford University Press. p. 78\. ISBN 0198742711.
25. ^ Sturken & Cartwright 2001, p. 79.
26. ^ Quartz, Steven; Asp, Anette (2015). Cool: How the Brain's Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 120–126\. ISBN 978-0374129187.
27. ^ Quartz, Steven; Asp, Anette (11 April 2015). "Unequal, Yet Happy". The New York Times.
28. ^ Gary Armstrong; Stewart Adam; Sara Denize; Philip Kotler (2014). Principles of Marketing. Pearson Australia. p. 463\. ISBN 978-1-4860-0253-5.
29. ^ "The Rise of American Consumerism". PBS.
30. ^ a b "The meteoric rise of Chinese consumerism will reshape the world, and maybe even destroy it". Quartz. 4 June 2017.
31. ^ "Use It and Lose It: The Outsize Effect of U.S. Consumption on the Environment". Scientific American. 14 September 2012.
32. ^ "China to surpass US as world's biggest consumer market this year". Nikkei Asian Review. 24 January 2019.
33. ^ McKie, Robin (25 February 2017). "Biologists think 50% of species will be facing extinction by the end of the century". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
34. ^ Kucuk, S. Umit (14 March 2016). "Consumerism in the Digital Age". Journal of Consumer Affairs. 50 (3): 515–538\. doi:10.1111/joca.12101. hdl:10.1111/joca.12101. ISSN 0022-0078.
35. ^ Boulianne, Shelley (31 December 2021). "Socially mediated political consumerism". Information, Communication & Society. 25 (5): 609–617\. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2021.2020872. ISSN 1369-118X. S2CID 245621126.
36. ^ Eisingerich, Andreas B.; Bhardwaj, Gunjan; Miyamoto, Yoshio (April 2010). "Behold the Extreme Consumers and Learn to Embrace Them". Harvard Business Review. 88: 30–31.
37. ^ Abun, Damianus; Magallenes, Theogenia; Tabur, Mirriam (August 2018). "Solving Environmental Problems is Changing Cultural Perception Toward Environment". International Journal of Current Research. 10 (8): 73112–73116 - via SSRN.
38. ^ Muldoon, Annie (2006). "Where the Green Is: Examining the Paradox of Environmentally Conscious Consumption" (PDF). Electronic Green Journal: 19 - via UCLA.
39. ^ Eisingerich, Andreas B.; Bhardwaj, Gunjan; Miyamoto, Yoshio (April 2010). "Behold the Extreme Consumers and Learn to Embrace Them". Harvard Business Review. 88: 30–31.
40. ^ Cross, Gary (2000). An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America. Columbia University Press. p. 2\. ISBN 978-0231113120. OCLC 50817376.
41. ^ Kasser, Tim (2002). The high price of materialism. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262276764.
42. ^ "Fool Britannia". Newindpress.com. Archived from the original on 14 April 2008.
43. ^ Lebow, Victor. http://hundredgoals.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/journal-of-retailing.pdf
44. ^ a b Stearns, Peter. Consumerism in World History. Routledge
45. ^ Fukuyama, Francis (1992). "15: A Vacation in Bulgaria". The End of History and the Last Man. Simon and Schuster (published 2006). p. 169\. ISBN 9780743284554. "[...] what Havel identifies as 'the general unwillingness of consumption-oriented people to sacrifice some material certainties for the sake of their own spiritual and moral integrity' is a phenomenon that is hardly unique to communist societies. In the West, consumerism induces people to make moral compromises with themselves daily, and they lie to themselves [...] in the name of [...] ideas like 'self-realization' or 'personal growth.'"
46. ^ a b Sturken & Cartwright 2001, p. 279.
47. ^ Global Climate Change and Energy CO2 Production - An International Perspective Archived 28 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine
48. ^ Majfud, Jorge (2009). "The Pandemic of Consumerism". UN Chronicle. Archived from the original on 19 July 2013. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
49. ^ "Loss of Biodiversity". Laudato si': on Care for Our Common Home: Encyclical Letter, by Pope Francis, Our Sunday Visitor, 2015, p. 27.
50. ^ Pope Francis (18 June 2015). "Laudato Si' – Chapter One: What is happening to our common home". Redemptorists. Archived from the original on 18 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
51. ^ a b Coghlan, Andy (7 August 2009). "Consumerism is 'eating the future'". New Scientist. Retrieved 12 December 2009.
52. ^ Miles, Steven (1998). Consumerism: As a Way of Life. Sage. ISBN 9780761952152.
53. ^ "Consumerism – Big Ideas". Archived from the original on 20 April 2010. Retrieved 20 April 2010.
54. ^ Koh, Lian; Lee, Tien (2012). "Sensible consumerism for environmental sustainability". Biological Conservation. 151 (1): 3–6\. Bibcode:2012BCons.151....3K. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2011.10.029 - via Elsevier Science Direct.
55. ^ Hansen, Arve (2023). Capitalism, Consumption, and the Transformation of Everyday Life: The Political Economy of Social Practices. Springer Nature. pp. 27–54\. ISBN 9783031110696.
56. ^ James, Paul; Scerri, Andy (2012). "Globalizing Consumption and the Deferral of a Politics of Consequence". Globalizations. 9 (2): 225–240\. Bibcode:2012Glob....9..225J. doi:10.1080/14747731.2012.658249. S2CID 67761604.
57. ^ Panizzut, Nina; Rafi-ul-Shan, Piyya Muhammad; Amar, Hassan; Sher, Farooq; Mazhar, Muhammad Usman; Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír (2021). "Exploring relationship between environmentalism and consumerism in a market economy society: A structured systematic literature review". Cleaner Engineering and Technology. 2: 100047. Bibcode:2021CEngT...200047P. doi:10.1016/j.clet.2021.100047.
58. ^ Speth, James Gustave (2008). The bridge at the edge of the world : capitalism, the environment, and crossing from crisis to sustainability. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300136111. OCLC 177820867.
59. ^ Klein, Naomi (2014). This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (1st ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781451697384. OCLC 894746822.
60. ^ Cross 2000, p. 1.
61. ^ Sklair, L. 2012. Culture-Ideology of Consumerism. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization
62. ^ a b Leslie Sklair, from Chapter 5 of Globalization: Capitalism and Its Alternatives, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2002. Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press
63. ^ Jon Goss (1993), The "Magic of the Mall": An Analysis of Form, Function, and Meaning in the Contemporary Retail Built Environment, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 83, No. 1. (Mar. 1993), pp. 18–47
64. ^ Cross 2000, p. 233.
65. ^ Schmitt, Bernd; Brakus, J Joško; Biraglia, Alessandro (2021). "Consumption Ideology". Journal of Consumer Research. 49 (1): 74–95\. doi:10.1093/jcr/ucab044.
66. ^ See for example: Janet Luhrs's The Simple Living Guide (NY: Broadway Books, 1997); Joe Dominquez, Vicki Robin et al., Your Money or Your Life (NY: Penguin Group USA, 2008)
67. ^ See for example: Alan Durning, How Much is Enough: The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992)
68. ^ See for example: Paul Roberts, The End of Food (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008); Michael Shuman, The Small-mart Revolution (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2007)

## Further reading

[edit]

* Bauman, Zygmunt (2007). Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 9780745640020.
* Baudrillard, Jean (2016). The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (Rev. ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781473982383.
* Buskirk, Richard H.; Rothe, James T. (1970). "Consumerism—An Interpretation". Journal of Marketing. 34 (4): 61–65\. doi:10.1177/002224297003400410.
* Aaker, David A., ed. (1982). Consumerism: Search for the Consumer Interest (4th ed.). New York: Free Press. ISBN 9780029001509.
* Miles, Steven (1998). Consumerism: As a Way of Life. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-0761952145.
* Rief, Silvia (2021). "Consumerism". The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. pp. 1–4\. doi:10.1002/9781405165518.wbeos1788. ISBN 9781405165518.
* Ryan, J. Michael (2017). "Consumption, Cathedrals of". The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. pp. 1–2\. doi:10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosc105.pub2. ISBN 9781405165518.
* Sassatelli, Roberta (2020). "Consumer Society". The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. pp. 1–5\. doi:10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosc208.pub2. ISBN 9781405165518.

## External links

[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Consumerism.

Look up consumerism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

* "Consumer Culture", by Ginny Wilmerding.
* "Consumers may not realize the full impact of their choices"
* "Globalizing consumption" by Paul James and Andy Scerri
* "Obedience, Consumerism, and Climate Change", by Yosef Brody
* A Global Consumer Solidarity Movement
* AdBusters, an anti-consumerism magazine
* Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, a post-consumerist macro-economic framework
* Circles of Sustainability, website for the Circles of Sustainability approach
* Consumerium Development Wiki, a wiki related to consumer activism
* Global-local consumption, by Imre Szeman and Paul James
* Peter Medlin, WNIJ, "Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy," National Public Radio, August 12, 2021
* Postconsumers, moving beyond addictive consumerism
* Renegade Consumer, an actively anti-consumerism organization
* The Human Being Lost in Consumerism: A Polish Perspective and Challenges in Religious Education, by Elżbieta Osewska and Józef Stala

* v
* t
* e

Consumerism

the philosophy of and activism for consumer protection

Concepts|

* Consumerism
* Consumer
* Anti-consumerism
* Consumer capitalism
* Consumer privacy
* Consumer protection
* Consumer revolution
* Consumer welfare standard
* Ethical consumerism
* Informed consumer

Activism|

* Consumer activism
* Consumer Bill of Rights
* Consumer complaint
* Consumer education
* Consumer movement
* Collaborative consumption
* United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection

Fields of study|

* Consumer math
* Euthenics
* Home economics

Key players|

* Consumer organizations
* list
* Consumers' Association
* Ellen Swallow Richards
* Ralph Nader
* Esther Peterson

* v
* t
* e

Media culture

Media|

* 24-hour news cycle
* Alternative media
* Digital media
* Electronic media
* Independent media
* Lost media
* Mass media
* Mainstream media
* Mobile media
* New media
* News broadcasting
* News media
* Old media
* Physical media
* Social media
* Influencers
* State media
* Streaming media

Principles|

* Media development
* Media policy
* Media independence
* Freedom of information
* Freedom of speech
* Media pluralism
* Media transparency

Ideology|

* Advanced capitalism
* American Dream
* Bipartisanship
* Consumerism
* Pensée unique

Deception|

| Forms|

* Advertising
* Propaganda
* Fake news
* Public relations
* Spin
* Tabloid journalism

|

Techniques|

* Cult of personality
* Dumbing down
* Framing
* Media circus
* Media event
* Narcotizing dysfunction
* Recuperation
* Sensationalism
* Viral phenomenon

Others|

* Catch and kill
* Crowd manipulation
* Managing the news
* Media manipulation

Philosophers|

* Theodor W. Adorno
* Jean Baudrillard
* Edward Bernays
* Noam Chomsky
* Guy Debord
* Walter Lippmann
* Marshall McLuhan
* Jacques Rancière

Counterculture|

* Boycott
* Call-out culture
* Cancel culture
* Civil disobedience
* Culture jamming
* Demonstration
* Graffiti
* Occupation
* Political satire
* Protest
* Punk
* Review bomb
* Strike action

In academia|

* Influence of mass media
* Media studies
* Mediatization
* Semiotic democracy
* The Lonely Crowd

Issues|

* Agenda-setting theory
* Anonymity
* Concentration of media ownership
* Exploitation of women
* Freedom of speech
* Media bias
* Privacy
* Social influence
* Transparency
* Violence

Synonyms|

* Advanced capitalism
* Culture industry
* Mass society
* Media franchise
* Post-Fordism
* Society of the Spectacle

* v
* t
* e

Capitalism

Aspects and perspectives

General|

* Anarchy of production
* Business cycle
* Centralization
* Competition
* Competition law
* Depression
* Deregulation
* Economic bubble
* Economic development
* Economic liberalism
* Economic planning
* Entrepreneurship
* Ecopreneurship
* Externality
* Financial crisis
* Financial Revolution
* Globalization
* Global labor arbitrage
* History of capitalist theory
* Industrial Revolution
* Invention
* Market economy
* Market failure
* Merchantilism
* Meritocracy
* Multinational corporation
* Nationalization
* Oligopoly
* Perspectives on capitalism by school of thought
* Privatization
* Profit
* Property rights
* Recession
* Regulation
* Wage labour
* Wealth

Ideology|

* Anglo-Saxon
* Authoritarian
* Conservative
* Corporate
* Democratic
* Dirigist
* Free-market
* Humanistic
* Laissez-faire
* Liberal
* Libertarian
* Market
* Mercantilist
* Mixed
* Monopoly
* National
* Neo
* Neoliberal
* Nordic
* Private
* Raw
* Regulated market
* Regulatory
* Rhine
* Social
* State
* State-sponsored
* Welfare

Cultural aspects|

* Advertising
* American Dream
* Black Friday
* Consumerism
* Decentralization
* Economic freedom
* Economic mobility
* Individualism
* Liberalism
* Liberty
* Mainstream
* Philanthropy
* Private foundation
* Private property
* Rule of law
* Social alienation
* Spontaneous order

Social aspects|

* Corporatism
* Economic inequality
* Employment
* Freedom of association
* Labour market flexibility
* Labour supply
* Productivity
* Prosperity
* Syndicate
* Social venture capital
* Unemployment

Criticism|

* Anti-capitalism
* Capitalist propaganda
* Critique of political economy
* Critique of work
* Market fundamentalism
* Marxism
* Wage slavery

Antithesis|

* Anarchism
* Anarcho-communism
* Anarcho-primitivism
* Anarcho-syndicalism
* Collectivist anarchism
* Communalism
* Communism
* Economic democracy
* Eco-socialism
* Free-market socialism
* Green anarchism
* Individualist anarchism
* Libertarian socialism
* Market anarchism
* Market socialism
* Mutualism
* Post-capitalism
* Post-scarcity economy
* Sharing economy
* Social anarchism
* Socialism
* Syndicalism

* v
* t
* e

Fast culture

* Consumerism
* Convenience food
* Convenience store
* Fast fashion
* Fast food
* Drive-through
* Food delivery
* Online food ordering
* Take-out
* Instant gratification
* Overconsumption
* Planned obsolescence
* Same-day delivery
* Throw-away society

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