INTRODUCTION TO PP 259: Consumption,

THE COURSE Culture and Markets

WHAT THE COURSE IS NOT
Not a course in consumer behaviour
Not concerned with micro properties focusing on firms and
consumers
Does not bother much with why people buy what they buy
Not conceived as an aid to informed decision-making and strategy
formulation in terms of marketing
No direct managerial relevance
WHAT THE COURSE IS ALL
ABOUT
Consumption as a macro-phenomenon
The centrality of consumption as a social phenomenon
Historical origins of patterns of consumption
The nature, mechanics and consequences of consumption
Global expansion of consumption and its increasing intensity
SALIENT ASPECTS
The role of consumption in identity construction
Consumption and the pursuit of human values like happiness and
satisfaction
Broader geographical and historical sweep
Goods and commodities as status markers
Experiential aspects of consumption
Pathologies of consumption
MORE THAN THE PURCHASE
ACT
Consumption as a way of understanding the human condition
Consumption and human well-being (not merely marketing
success)
Linkages with industrial capitalism and the changes therein
Consumption as a mediated phenomenon
MEDIATIONS: CULTURE AND
MARKETS
Market as an institution that has shaped consumption most
forcefully (Brands, Ads etc.)

Increasing expansion of the market and its intermeshing with major

aspects of sociocultural life (art, religion, politics, professions)
IN BRIEF
An attempt to go beyond individual consumer behaviour and firm-
specific marketing actions

The focus on consumer culture

Consumption as a meaning making activity

THE KEY THEMES
Consumption, Consumerism, and Consumer Culture
CONNECTIONS AND
DIFFERENCES
Increasingly central to contemporary life and modern society
Consumption is the most basic of these three concepts.
Derived from the Latin consumere, meaning "to take up," it refers
to acquiring, using up, burning, wasting, and decaying.
A consensus definition suggests consumption consists of activities
potentially leading to and actually following from the
acquisition of a good or service by those engaged in such
activities.
It encompasses a wide range of activities beyond mere purchase,
including the use, maintenance, repair, and disposal of
products or services.
CONSUMPTION: BEYOND
UTILITARIANISM
Traditionally, economists viewed consumption in utilitarian terms,
as individuals satisfying needs and maximizing utilities through
market exchanges
largely a private, solitary and individual affair
However, objects are not simply consumed for their function or use
value, but for their symbolic and communicative qualities as well
When we consume an object, we also consume its meanings
CONSUMPTION: A
FUNDAMENTALLY SOCIAL
PHENOMENON
Informed by a social logic of emulation and competition for
prestige and power (Veblen and Mauss)
Consumtion practices do involve gift-giving rituals as well: the self
and the extended self (Russel Belk)
Consumption practices define one’s taste and thereby engender
and maintain social relationships of dominance and
submission (Bourdieu)
Therefore, Consumption is a fundamentally social activity,
despite its common perception as individualistic.
CONSUMERISM: THE SOCIETAL
DRIVING FORCE

"Consumerism" is a type of social arrangement that recycles

mundane human wants, desires, and longings into the
principal propelling and operating force of society.
It coordinates systemic reproduction, social integration, social
stratification, and the formation of individuals.
Consumerism arrives when consumption becomes "especially
important if not actually central" to the lives of the majority
of people, becoming "the very purpose of existence".
CONSUMERISM: A SHIFT
IN VALUES
A key characteristic that distinguishes the consumerist cultural
syndrome from its productivist predecessor is the reversal of
values attached to duration and transience
It involves an emphatic denial of the virtue of procrastination
and the desirability of delayed satisfaction
Frugality versus Indulgence….
Hedonism and the quest for individual gratification
The change in ethic and its implications
Beyond moralism and pathologies
CONSUMER CULTURE
If consumption involves the purchase of meanings, consumer
culture involves a quest for meaning in life primarily
through consumption.
It signifies that consumption and the things we consume
comprise our culture.
Culture has become commoditized to such a degree that it is
experienced as consumption, by consumption, and through
consumption
Consumption as the central leitmotif of being
MANIFESTATIONS OF
CONSUMER CULTURE
In consumer culture, shopping has become one of our key
leisure activities.
Interpersonal relations are increasingly defined through the
mediation of consumer commodities.
Key rituals, such as weddings and funerals, are now
consumption events staged by commercial entities
Individuals, through their logo-laden clothing and shopping bags,
become "walking billboards" for brands, seeking identity and
meaning in life
THE ROMANTIC ETHIC AND
THE SPIRIT OF MODERN
CONSUMERISM
Colin Campbell• proposes that modern consumerism is driven by a
"Romantic Ethic".
Campbell distinguishes between traditional hedonism, which seeks
immediate pleasure from direct, tactile, and sensory experiences,
and modern hedonism, which derives pleasure from imagined or
anticipated emotions and is autonomously controlled.
Self-Illusory Hedonism: Modern hedonists construct and
consume mental images for intrinsic pleasure, leading to a "self-
illusory hedonism" where satisfaction is often found in imagination
rather than direct sensory experience
ROLE OF ROMANTICISM

Romanticism facilitated the transition to modern hedonism by re-

enchanting the individual's psychic world and emphasising a "cult
of the self," thereby creating a state generally conducive to modern
consumerism.
The Cycle of Desire and Disillusionment: A key paradox is that
the more adept individuals become at imaginatively creating
emotions, the less likely "real" consumption is to provide
comparable pleasure, leading to a cyclical pattern of desire,
acquisition, use, disillusionment, and renewed desire. This fuels an
insatiable demand for novelty.
COLIN CAMPBELL 1987
A new ethic

Expression of self

Development of
uniqueness

Quest and cultivation of

pleasurable experiences

Consumption as a self-
gratifying activity