Consumer Culture example essay topic

Culture of European Organisation Essay, 13/10/043600 words " People recognise themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobiles, hi-fi sets, split level homes... social control is anchored in the new needs which the consumer society has produced. ' (Marcuse, 1968: 24) To what extent are we controlled by the consumer society we live in? Marita Juenamnn " People recognise themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobiles, hi-fi sets, split level homes... social control is anchored in the new needs which the consumer society has produced. The rise of the consumer culture is a phenomenon characteristic for the twentieth century. The impact of this cultural movement is disputable.

The quote above was taken from Marcuse's book "One dimensional man". (1964) Marcuse believed that the products of consumer capitalism indoctrinate and manipulate society to promote a false consciousness of needs which become a way of life. He saw this as another form of totalitarianism which binds consumers to producers and uses the pleasures of consumer lifestyle as instruments of control and domination. Therefore the question arises whether the culture of consumerism poses a profound threat to the freedom and individuality of the consumer. In response to this claim, the essay will argue that Marcuse has been right in arguing the advertising and consumerism's aims to manipulate the consumer's consciousness. Furthermore by taking an existentialist approach it will argue that society ultimately chooses their own path and consents to their own destiny.

It also takes into consideration that in the contemporary society consumerism is omnipresent; therefore the option of choice is diffused. The essay, will be structured in the following way. It will first outline the concept of consumer culture and its development in the last century. Moreover it will outline the change from the age of modernism to the post-modernist era. According to Slater (1997), Consumer Culture is the culture of market societies and is defined though market relations. It predominantly is the product of capitalism.

He believes that this new culture is a pecuniary culture based on money. The central claim is that the values from the realm of consumption will spill over into other domains of social action. He further argues that Consumer Culture is in principle, universal and impersonal. He simultaneously ages, that there is an claim towards this definition, as although it seems universal and is depicted as a land of freedom, in which everyone can be a consumer, it is also felt to be universal because everybody must be a consumer. Another characteristic is that Consumer Culture is identified with private choice and private life.

The next characteristic feature is that the consumer's needs are unlimited and insatiable. He argues that in the age of consumption the identities are negotiated though consumption, with which he means that we define ourselves more and more by what we consume. His last characteristic to the definition of consumer culture is that Consumer Culture represents the increasing importance of Culture in the exercise of power. Ritzer (1999) refers to the places in which consumption takes place "cathedrals of consumption". He argues that there are obvious cathedrals of consumption such as the supermarket, internet shopping or the shopping malls, but also ordinary everyday locations, which we would not associate with consumption, such as the railway station, the library or even our living room at home. Everywhere we go we are surrounded by cathedrals of consumption which aim to entice us to consume.

Once can detect three different theories, to the power of these cathedrals of consumption. Weber ian theory leads to the view that the cathedrals of consumption, when taken together, create a rationalized iron cage from which it is difficult, if not impossible, to escape. This is totally com modified world in which it would be futile, or nearly so, to hope to find a space in which one is free from commercial pressure. Supportive of this view is the proliferation of the new means of consumption, especially their spread into the home, so that even one is unable to avoid opportunities and pressures to consume.

A second view, more traceable to theories of Michael Foucault (1976), is that instead of an overarching iron cage, what we have is a great number of mini cages. Each cathedral of consumption is a mini cage and when consumers are in one of them, they are constrained. Following Foucault's notion of the "cameral archipelago", we can think of each of the new means of consumption as an islands fortress that is part of a larger archipelago. Using this metaphor, the consumer is free to hop from island to island but on each of the island the consumer is constrained. There is a third view associated with rational choice theory. It argues that consumers are free to move in and out of the cathedrals of consumption as they wish, and when they find themselves in one of the cathedrals, they can decide for themselves whether or not to consume.

More generally, they can decide to avoid any and all of the cathedrals, they are free to avoid consumption if they wish. This notion is put forward by Featherstone (1991) and Campbell (1989). The rise of consumerism really accelerated after the Second Wold War. People became more prosperous and therefore had more money to spend on commodities. Ewen (1976) traces the development of modern advertising back to the 1920's, where realization took place on part of the owners and managers that they no longer control the workers. Consumers became important an feature of capitalism and advertising arose to help make those decisions.

After the economic boom of the 1990's prosperity increased even more and large incomes and early retirements characterized that decade. The youth became increasingly involved in consumption. The technological change is probably the most important factor in creating consumerism. Automobiles and motorways made transport faster and the improvement of the mailing service ensured fast delivery.

The most important invention was the computer in 1946. New facilitating means came into existence, for instance the credit card, which made it possible for people to obtain what they want and need from the cathedrals of consumption. For small payments we know are able to use the Cyber Cash System on the Internet. Hence consummation has never been this easy. There has also been a sociological change in how today's society consume.

According to Samuel Strauss consumptions involved a commitment to produce more things from one year to the next. Previously business has sought to give consumers what they want. Now business interest shifted to an emphasis on compelling consumers to want and "need" the things that business are producing and selling. Ritzer (1999) argues that today we are in fact in a time of "hyper consumption". One cannot deny the fact that nearly everybody is involved, or at least touched by the culture of consumption.

In the last twenty years personal savings have gone down and personal debt has risen. Although these sociological changes seem to be for the better, Schor's (1998) findings prove that although there is an increase in consumption and material possessions, Americans seem no happier than in earlier generations. We consume differently today. We seem never to stop shopping as we are surrounded by commodities. Every destination seems to be a Cathedral of Consumption.

For instance, a do-it yourself attitude and self service facilities in Fast Food Restaurants or even an ATM, encourage us to believe it is our own choice to consume. Even though the exportation of American Consumer Culture is noticeably very aggressive it enjoys worldwide acceptance. The key to this attitude is the absence, since the fall of communism, of any viable worldwide alternative to the American models. American models of Cathedrals of Consumption have an increasing international presence, influencing European consumer culture.

As for example Mc Donald's had only a quarter of its branches outside the US by 1991 but by 1996 it was over 40%. The rise of consumerism is also very closely linked to the shift from modernism to postmodernism. The term 'postmodernism' is difficult to define. The term is a contradiction in itself. Its meaning appears to be self-conscious, self-contradictory and self-undermining statement. The 'post-'s ugg ests a new direction from the previous philosophy of modernism.

Modernism was the cultural movement which flourished in the first decades of the 20th century. It derived from a conscious opposition to classicism. It emphasized experimentation and aimed at discovering an inner truth behind the surface of appearance. Modernism was progressive. It was exploring the paradoxical, was ambiguous and uncertain and stressed an open-end nature of reality. Postmodernism figuratively rejects modernism.

It emphasizes eclecticism in art styles, ironic stances towards life, superficiality instead of depths and the role of reproduction as against originality in art. Modernity was marked by progress, the striving and 'development towards a better, more complete and more modern condition " In order to begin out criticism of consumerism, one has to take Marx's theory of commodity fetishism into consideration. Paul Rico eur (1986) has described the concept of commodity fetishism as 'crucial for a theory of ideology' in capitalist society (p. 130). Marx's comments on fetishism in Capital are confined to one comparatively short section in the first chapter. He criticizes the taken-for-granted assumptions of common sense and he argues that these assumptions conceal the real nature of social relations in capitalism.

According to Marx, the value of a commodity derives from the labour which has produced the commodity. Instead of understanding the value of the commodity in terms of the social relations which have produced it, the commodity's value is understood in relation to other commodities, such as money or the goods that money can purchase. In this way, the labour expended in the production is forgotten in the everyday understanding of the value of the commodity. Marxian theory of the exploitation of workers is clear-cut because all value comes form the workers. If they get anything less than everything, they are being exploited. Jean Baudrillard (1996) criticizes industry's generous attitudes towards consumers by giving them the freedom of choices as a trick of capitalism: Our freedom to choose causes us to participate in a cultural system.

It follows that the choice in question is a specious one: to experience it as freedom is simply to be less sensible of the fact that it is imposed upon us as such, and that through it society as a whole is likewise imposed upon us. Choosing one car over another may perhaps personalize your choice, but the most important thing about the fact of choosing is that it assigns you a place in the overall economic order. (Baudrillard 1996,141) In Baudrillard's account, the capitalist system allows consumers a certain degree of freedom, and this generous attitude toward a free individual consumer makes the capitalist system more attractive and effective. In the real business world, industry treats consumers as groups, such as status groups, age groups, value groups, sex groups, etc., based on industry's c.