Consumerism is the CORE of capitalism.

Consumer Culture „Consumer Culture‟ within debates concerning whether advanced capitalist societies have entered into postmodernity or an information age by which traditional social structures of meaning have been eroded. In what Jameson (1984) terms late, consumer or multi-national capitalism, consumption may be viewed as: “ a social and cultural process involving cultural signs and symbols, not simply as an economic utilitarian process” (Bocock, 1993:3). This is not to ignore fundamental economic factors impinging on people‟s lives, which may well determine- or limit-, their patterns of consumption. However, it can be argued that consumption in the social formations of late western capitalism is: “based increasingly upon desires, not simply upon need.” (Bocock, 1993:3). The implication is that privatized consumption practices, together with shifting, underlying social changes are having a greater influence upon the construction of personal identity. The work of Veblen, Bourdieu, and Baudrillard is examined to trace the theorization of consumption practices from the satisfaction of utilitarian material needs to symbolic, idealist needs however, to counter any notion of economic or textual determinism, the concept of the „active‟ consumer is explored. One cannot attempt to theorize consumption practices without engaging with the debate as to whether western capitalism has entered into a postmodern phase, resulting in an epochal change from the social formations of „modern‟ society. Proponents of postmodern theory situate its emergence in the rapid growth of consumerism in the U.S. in the 1950‟s. According to Lyotard (1984) and Baudrillard (1988) there has been a major break from capitalism is very difficult to sustain as it continues to perform the dominant mode of production and consumption around the globe, particularly with the collapse of state socialism in the former East European bloc and the rapid embracement of capitalism by China under the economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Jameson (1984) explains the new phase in social formations: the postmodern. “It is …, at least in my use, a periodizing concept whose function is to correlate the emergence of new formal features in culture with the emergence of a new type of social life and a new economic order – what is often euphemistically called modernization, post industrial or consumer society, the society of the media or the spectacle, or multinational capitalism. This new moment of capitalism can be dated from the post-war boom in the United States in the late 1940‟s and 1950‟s‟ (Jameson, 1984:15). Smith says: “This notion of post modernity implies a phase in the periodization of capitalism characterized as involving a shift towards consumption as a central social, economic and cultural process. It also implies that capitalism is becoming more global in its impact as a result of the expansionist strategies of multi-national or transnational companies with the concomitant collapse of time and space and the social impact on global/local communities. It can be viewed that the term postmodern suggests the idea that social classes are of less importance in the minds of individuals than the construction of individual social identity/identities. However, sweeping theorizations need to be treated with caution, as the economic imbalance of wealth, within nations states and throughout the globe is empirically evident with approx. 1bn of the globes population of 5.5bn consuming approx 80% of production” (Smith, 1997:15). Jean Baudrillard, initially derived from Marxian and Weberian sociology, has developed a more radical theory of consumption. Baudrillard conceptualizes consumption as a process in which consumers purchase goods in order to create and maintain a sense of identity and difference from others through the display of purchase goods. Also, Baudrillard argues that consumption has taken off into a hyper-real, symbolic level so that the idea of purchasing as much as the act of purchasing operates as a motivation for many in doing paid work. The argument therefore is that consumption, as the active ideology of capitalism, promises that the meaning of life will be found in buying things and pre-packaged experiences. Therefore the ideology of consumerism serves both to legitimate capitalism and motivate people to become consumers in fantasy as well as reality. If we accept Baudrillard‟s hypothesis, it is only one further step to assume that through consumption, we can actually transform the sense of who are by purchasing commodities. By consuming clothes, perfume, jeweler, holidays, etc, people can gain access to another lifestyle by sharing the same set of signs signifiers and symbols. It is in this sense that Baudrillard views consumption as the consumption of signs and symbols rather than utilitarian material objects. However, Baudrillard argues that the anticipation of consumption is frequently experienced as being more enjoyable than the act of consumption itself, which sets up a process of a constant desire to consume and an endless deferring of satisfaction. As Baudrillard argues: “there are no limits to consumption… If it was that which is naively taken to be, absorption, a devouring, then we should achieve…satisfaction. But we know that this is not the case: we want to consume more and more…If consumption appears to be irrepressible, this is precisely because it is a total idealist practice which has no longer anything to do (beyond a certain point) with the satisfaction of needs…” (Baudrillard, 1988:24). In summary, according to Baudrillard, consumption cannot be thought of as the satisfaction of a biologically determined set of needs. If the need is food, it is social and cultural factors within advanced capitalist societies that transform this need into a desire (want) for lobster and champagne, tofu stir-fry or a McDonalds hamburger.