Seduced and Repressed

The division between the “seduced” and the “repressed” is to the consumer society what the division between the bourgeoisie (“the bosses”) and the proletariat (“the workers”) was to the producer society (industrial capitalism). This terminology, coined by Zygmunt Bauman, represents far more than a semantic exercise in relabeling existing social classes. It implies a fundamentally changed social structure, arising from mass production's reduced dependence on mass labor, such that most members of advanced capitalist societies engage with, and participate in, economies as much, if not more, in their roles as consumers than as producers. Those so engaged are seduced into compliance with a system that requires only that they act out the role of consumers, their demand for goods, services, and experiences ensuring that the ...