Systems of Provision

Systems of provision is an approach to the study of consumption that recognizes the social and economic organization of the delivery of goods and services. Essentially, it is a holistic approach that situates the analysis of consumption in relation to processes of production, distribution, and retail. Moreover, it places consumption in historical context and so provides a useful way of thinking through changes in patterns of consumption and, more broadly, socio-economic change. It is most readily associated with the work of Ben Fine and was initially developed in The World of Consumption (1993), written in conjunction with Ellen Leopold. The systems of provision approach emerged as a critique of so-called horizontal approaches to consumption in which individual academic disciplines develop their explanatory accounts of consumption based on a limited selection of commodities and make generalizations about the consumption of all commodities across all societies. The problem with this, according to the systems of provision perspective, is that it overlooks the importance of other explanatory factors as well as the relationship between these factors and the differences that exist between different commodities by virtue of the different systems of provision in which they are located.

Eschewing the tendency to make generalizations, the systems of provision perspective positions itself as a vertical approach to the study of consumption. For example, it would not offer explanations about the consumption of peanut butter or blueberries based on theories that have been developed to explain the consumption of motor vehicles. Instead, it starts with the idea that each commodity, or group of commodities, should be understood in terms of a unity of economic and social processes that varies significantly from one commodity to another. As such, explanations of consumption are only ever specific to a particular commodity or group thereof. These unities of economic and social processes are best thought of as the distinct relationships between the material and cultural practices underpinning the production, distribution, circulation, and consumption of the commodities concerned. These factors and the relationships between them form a chain of activity that represents the system of provision for a particular commodity. It follows that each commodity should be analyzed according to the interaction between the factors that give rise to it. By way of example, Fine and Leopold (1993) offer an in-depth analysis of the food and clothing systems of provision, whereas Fine, Michael Heasman, and Judith Wright (1998) disaggregate their analysis of the food system even further to explore the specific systems of provision for meat, sugar, and dairy products.

Common to all these examples is the idea that disparate elements across the supply chain serve to configure the system as a whole such that more conventional or horizontal explanations are seen as failing to capture the complexities of socioeconomic organization underpinning different commodities. In this view, changes in food consumption would not be sufficiently explained by the consumers' love of variety or the need for convenience; rather, it would also call for (among other things) a focus on agricultural policies, relationships between various actors along the supply chain, and international regulatory frameworks. Another theme in Fine's analyses is that the norms governing the rules of appropriate consumption with regard to any given commodity are structured vertically by the system of provision just as the notion of consumer choice is a property of the system underpinning the delivery of the commodity in question. For example, Fine suggests that the quantity of [Page 1425]food that is consumed by individuals has less to do with individual choices and consumer sovereignty than it has to do with the historical evolution of the food system and the intersection between agricultural policies and the interests of food distributors and retailers. Given Fine's grounding in Marxist theory, it is perhaps not surprising that he suggests these systems serve to protect the interests of capitalism and perpetuate the consumer society.

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