Consumerism: Then and Now

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Prof. Joseph Salvacruz
Department of Marketing HKUST

Satisfaction means [the product] does everything you want it to do and more.
Scott

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Whats going on?

Increasing commercialization and commodification of everyday life Growing volume of commodities in circulation Almost everybody addresses their needs and wants by purchasing goods, services and experiences rather than providing for themselves.

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Consumerism evolved as an ideology because we have failed to distinguish NEEDS from WANTS (PREFERENCES)
loss of distinction between consumption and consumerism.

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How come? Emphasis on the relative nature of needs

Needs are not given, fixed, or absolute, but are culturally defined. What constitutes needs (and satisfaction of needs) varies from society to society, from culture to culture, from group to group, etc.

Differences between comparable goods exist in terms of their symbolic values (rather than on use values)

Consumption is symbolic Consumption involves self-identity

JC Salvacruz

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The Symbolic Value of Consumption Consumers consume goods and services for their symbolic value

People eat steak not because of its nutritional value, but because it symbolizes virility!

MARK 1230- Consumerism and Happiness

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The growth in production in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries required growing markets

1860-1920: Production increased by 12 to 14 times in the US while the population only increased three times.

Supply outstripped demand and problems of scarcity were replaced by problems of how to create more demand.

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Early 1920s: American markets were reaching saturation

"over-production" and lack of consumer demand were blamed for recession. More goods were being produced than a population with "set habits and means" could consume.

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There were two schools of thought about how the saturated markets problem should be solved.

1.

Work hours should be decreased and the economy stabilised so production met current needs and work was shared around.

held by intellectuals, labour leaders, reformers, educators and religious leaders.

2.

Over-production could and should be solved by increasing consumption so economic growth could continue.

mainly held by business people and economists

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Work vs Leisure
Keen to maintain the importance of work in the face of the push for more leisure, businessmen extolled the virtues and pleasures of work and its necessity in building character, providing dignity and inspiring greatness.
Creating work, and the right to work had a higher moral imperative than meeting basic needs. - John M. Clark, Economist "I am for everything that will make work happier but against everything that will further subordinate its importance.... the emphasis should be put on work - more work and better work, instead of upon leisure." - John E. Edgerton
President of the National Association of Manufacturers
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Mid 1920s: consumption rates were increasing, particularly in the US

the "new economic gospel of consumption" gained many adherents.

The

idea that there were limits on consumer wants began to be eclipsed by the idea such wants could be endlessly created. 1929 the President's Committee on Recent Economic Changes stated: "wants are almost insatiable; one want satisfied makes way for another... by advertising and other promotional devices, by scientific fact- finding, and by carefully pre-developed consumption, a measurable pull on production... has been created
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In

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Hooking work and leisure to consumption "People had to move away from habits of strict thrift toward habits of ready spending. From the 1920s, corporations began advertising to the working classes in an effort to break down these old habits of thrift and encourage new consumerist desires. In earlier times higher wages might have encouraged workers to work shorter hours, but once workers had been coached into becoming consumers, it was a totally different story!

With the help of marketers and advertisers, workers could be trusted "to spend more rather than work less."
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In boom times, workers were given increased wages rather than increased leisure.

Between 1910 and 1929 the average purchasing power of workers in the US increased by 40%. Higher wages helped in this shift from the ethic of austerity and self-denial to one of consumerism that fitted with the required markets for mass production.

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Manufacturers expanded markets by expanding the range of goods they produced, moving from the basic requirements of living such as food, clothing and building materials to items such as cars and radios that provided entertainment and recreation.

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During the war a demand for consumer goods built up and workers tended to prefer wage rises to shorter hours. Unions no longer pressed for shorter working hours and workers themselves became wedded to a consumer lifestyle that required long hours to support.

Many unions in fact gave up their fight for control of production in favour of a share of the fruits of production and "ever-increasing levels of material well-being for their workers."

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Leisure became consumer-oriented, revolving round the home with its entertaining and convenience goods and the vacation where workers could enjoy living in luxury for a short time.

As Cross noted: "The identification of leisure with consumption won many to hard and steady work in disagreeable jobs."

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1920s 1930s

Department store merchant Edward Filene spoke frankly about the need for social planning in order to create a consumer culture where industry could "sell to the masses all that it employs the masses to create" and the need for education to train the masses to be consumers in a world of mass production. He argued that consumer culture could unify the nation and, through education, social change could be limited to changes in the commodities that industry produced.

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Consumerism and politics Consumerism was not only aimed at increasing markets for goods but also at shifting the locus of discontent from people's work to arenas that advertisers could promise would be satisfied by consumption. Their frustrations and unhappiness could then be directed towards buying rather than political protest against working conditions or other elements of industrial society.
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Consumption allows people at the bottom of the social hierarchy to feel they have some measure of access to the good life for all their troubles.
"it is only as purchasers, 'shoppers', that we are treated with the courtesy worthy of a human being. - Lisa Macdonald and Allen Myers Green Left Weekly

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1950s

There was less difference between middle class and working class purchase of consumer durables (cars, white goods, electrical appliances) than previously and class self-identification had come to depend more on factors such as house ownership than type of work. Increased consumerism led to an increased emphasis on the importance of pay.
Many

people work so as to earn the money to buy consumer goods and some measure of status that accompanies them.

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Post 1950s: Consumption sectors became more specific and focused. Consumer lifestyles became the order of the day as multiskilled flexible workforce emerged worked on small-batch production runs which were readily adaptable to the whims of consumers consumption was no longer determined by the producer; the producer was increasingly subject to the demands and tastes of the consumer. from homogeneity to heterogeneity; from principles of size, uniformity and predictability to those of scope, diversity, and flexibility.

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1977 "The only really meaningful measure of success is money" People spent more money on stereos, mobile phones, beepers and cars

"Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. - Jimmy Carter
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1980s: the marketplace became ever more sophisticated with regard to what it knew, and what it wanted to know about its consumers (Lee, 1993) Consumption started to play a fundamentally formative social role in modern societies; Consumerism has become a way of life.

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More recent opinion surveys show that in countries like the US and Japan, "people increasingly measure success by the amount they consume. In a society where people don't know each other very well, appearances are important and social status, though more securely attained through occupation, can be attained with strangers through consumption.

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Consumerism as social, economic and cultural change

Social change Certain aspects of social life such as gender relationships, class relationships, and social relationships appear to be impinged upon by aspects of consumerism.

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Consumerism as social, economic and cultural change

Economic change Spending power has grown in recent decades as people have enjoyed access to increasing levels of disposable income.

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Consumerism as social, economic and cultural change

Globalization The common economic currency of consumerism has played a key role through the influence of multinational companies such as Coca-cola and Nike. Issue: Has consumerism encouraged global standardization or diversity? Is consumerism, therefore, as a way of life, desirable?

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