A Brief History of the Consumer Society
This chapter provides some background to the significant shifts in world economies and the resultant impacts on society that have occurred over recent centuries—in particular the shift in focus from that of a production society to a pervasive consumption society, which resulted from the Industrial Revolution. In this chapter, we aim to provide background to the forces that led to the creation of the consumer society and how that changed the social fabric and community life. Here, we address three overarching issues in relation to the evolution of consumer society: the individual and consumer society, the sublimation of the individual, and the individual and self-determination. These issues underlie much of the political debates concerning the role and influence of business and commerce in contemporary society.
The era known as the Industrial Revolution (18th and 19th centuries) was a defining period for humanity. The Industrial Revolution resulted in social, political, and economic changes leading to a new society where the concerns of the individual and families shifted from day-to-day survival and in an agrarian society, to an increasingly urban and suburbanized world. Society shifted from a focus on the production of goods to a focus on the consumption of goods and services
This shift has had extraordinary repercussions in both developed and emerging economies. The desire of people for the latest, biggest, and smartest goods has grown astronomically. People no longer need to search for fuel to keep warm, to make their own clothing, to carve their own furniture, and to grow their own food. A labor force somewhere else on the planet (often in an emerging economy) produces those goods, generally at a very low cost. The goods are mass produced and then shipped to more established nations, where they are displayed in a retail store designed to entice the customer to purchase. The basis of the enticement is often not only to fulfill a need but also to create a market and to convince customers that they should need (want) the goods. Philosophers, economists, historians, and sociologists have explored the societal change in terms of both the macro social level and the impact on the individual. The following section focuses on the key concepts of production, consumption, and markets relevant to consumer resistance and retail. Readers wanting to understand the background on the consumer society can access the original works by German philosopher Karl Marx1 and French social theorist Jean Baudrillard,2 who wrote about the mythologies surrounding the consumer society.
Forces of globalization have had a significant impact on the shifts in capital around the world. Wealthy, developed nations are now able to purchase an ever greater variety of products and services at lower costs as the production facilities have moved to emerging economies. Often these emerging economies, historically including China and India—but also many more, sacrifice their natural environment and culture in this process. Over recent decades, consumer resistance to globalization has emerged in response to these issues.
Often the resistance is based on nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and environmentalism. These are macro-level values which can lead to consumer protest against globalization, international business entry, products’ country of origin, retail formats, and trading hours. As mentioned previously, people holding nationalist, religious, and environmentalist views can express their concerns individually or as part of national or international collective cohorts.
The Individual and the Consumer Society
It is possible for individuals to be considered victims of the market and consumer society; however, they may use society to extend the quality of their lives, or in extreme cases, they may actively work to remove any market interference from their lives. According to Karl Marx3, in subsistence societies, workers used to own their production, such as their crops. With the development of capital markets, industrialization, and mass production in factories, the workers were given wages instead of the goods that they produced. This shifted the power away from the worker. Goods were then sold into markets, often selling at a price that was out of the reach of the workers.
The Sublimation of the Individual
The consumer society developed into what theorists called consumer capitalism, consumer culture, or consumerism. Writers of the 20th century reflected on the changes and observed that the individuals are so enchanted by products and services that they are controlling their lives, providing them with new seductive material meaning.4 The power of capital markets is such that early theorists often considered that market forces would cause all people to be enmeshed in the consumerist society and there would be no alternative to the market. As Elif Izberk-Bilgin, a professor from the University of Michigan—Dearborn, notes, despite philosophical differences, many of the major political and economic theorists over the centuries, such as Karl Marx, Max Horkeimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Jean Baudrillard, agreed regarding the power of the individual:
The general consensus among scholars is that the dynamics of the market economy and consumer culture would entrap all social groups equally, whether they are workers, capitalists, or intelligentsia, such that resistance to the dominance of the market is not possible.5
The dominance of the capitalist market over the individual was further regarded as all-embracing. Producers and marketers began to advertise and promote products by associating “consumption with freedom, democracy, civilization and success.”6
Advertisers would present customers with manufactured goods not only as new innovations and labor saving tools, but also as emancipating and prestigious. For example, in the 1940s and 1950s, advertisers presented new appliances to women as a means to be liberated from housework and drudgery. These material goods began to take on meanings well beyond their functional value. With happiness and social status achieved (previously through family, church, or friends) but through the consumption of goods and services such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners.
Once again, in the consumer society, individuals were seen as powerless with only the option to work harder and borrow more money to achieve their goals of status via consumption. This position of perceived helplessness against the forces of the market is discussed by many authors on the topic of consumption. Opposing the view of the sublimation of the individual is the belief in individual self-determination.
The Individual and Self-Determination
The alternative to powerlessness is the concept of self-determination, where individuals are able to make real choices to achieve their goals (regardless of market forces). This idea is based on the individual rather than mass movements and is described by Elif Izberk-Bilgin as a creative movement emphasizing consumption as a means of self-expression and identity construction.7 Individuals therefore have the ability to form their own lives within the market. In this paradigm, there are three forms of capital—economic, social, and cultural capital—all with a particular value and influence, which can be used by individuals as tools, fuel, and direction for creating a world for themselves. Under theories of self-determination, for example, women can use new appliances to free themselves from time-consuming physical labor in the home.
A difficulty with this approach is that some consider the market so dominant and omnipresent that it can overwhelm any individual’s actions. Along the continuum of resistance, individuals can take steps to remove themselves completely from the market in order to be free of its control (known colloquially as “going off the grid” or “dropping out” into a subsistence lifestyle). There are many examples of withdrawing from the consumer society, from the extreme to the symbolic. Some individuals will attempt to not consume at all, whereas others will resist by selecting only from goods and services that meet their specific resistance criteria.
In our research, we came across examples of individuals looking to free themselves from some of the perceived burdens of consumption. For example, Jill Chivers spent a year without buying any clothes.8 She recorded the experience in a blog:
I used to spend a lot of money on clothes. I love clothes (some of them even love me) and have a converted bedroom as a walk-in wardrobe to prove it. In 2009, my life changed but my spending didn’t. I started to feel bad about what I was spending, and on December 15 of that year, I started a year without clothes shopping.
If you’re fed up with bringing home ‘mistake’ purchases that don’t really suit you, let alone will still be in style a few months from now…. If you sometimes hide your purchases from your partner and don’t know how much you really spend on clothes, shoes, bags, accessories…. If you suspect that you shop to fill a need you don’t quite understand … then help is at hand.9
In discussing the topic of consumer resistance with Chivers, it was clear that resistance to consumption can provide a sense of control and a freedom not available when the individual is enmeshed in the consumer society and seeking happiness through more active consumption.
However, readers of this book have been raised or spent much of their lives within a consumer society. This can make considerations of other ways of living a challenge. The history of the consumer society is not a regular discussion topic in business schools. Alternatives to the consumer society are outside the experience of most people. It is not the goal of this book to take a position on the pros and cons of the consumer society. Rather, it is our goal to highlight the changes that have occurred as a result of the rise of capital and the Industrial Revolution and may provide a background for the particular views of modern consumers and consumer groups.
The impact of the consumer society on the individual may be debated, as some consider it liberating whereas others consider it oppressive. This background on the current retail environment is important for understanding consumer resistance, whether passive or active rebellion, and whether individual or collective.
To summarize, the Industrial Revolution changed the focus of society from that of production to pervasive consumption.
To further understand consumer resistance, the next chapter is dedicated to the history of shopping. The development of retail directly reflects social change. All members of the retail industry, including customers, suppliers, manufacturers, and staff members, are entangled in consumer society. The history of shopping is a fascinating topic, as shopping has responded to social, economic, political, and technological changes, and in the future, it will likely respond to continued environmental changes. In social history, more than anything else, shopping is a story of women and how their lives have changed in the last two centuries. The next chapter looks out how the Industrial Revolution (and the resulting social changes) led to the creation of shopping facilities designed to attract women (in addition to men) to purchase.