Consumer Culture

Consumer Culture: Why Do We Want Goods?

The concept of consumer culture is often discussed in the context of capitalism, industrialization, and modernity. Initially, discussion centered on recognition of the effect of consumption on the economic situation. John Maynard Keynes, who was both an economist and a proponent of this view, was in favor of promoting consumption, claiming that together with (industrial) investment, it would result in increasing the total income of a society. With the expansion of capitalism, which saw the focus shift from production to consumption, along with the increasing acquisition of goods and places of and for luxury and leisure, it has been recognized that the concept of consumption is not simply a derivate of production but also a behavior rooted in individual (and sometimes collective) wants and needs.

A further aspect of the question “Why do we want goods” is the relevance of the increase in both satisfaction and status gained from the display of goods and services. More and more emotional desires can become fulfilled by the experience of consumption itself; for example, the comforting familiarity, emotional stimulus, and material reward of shopping malls, the “temples of consumption,” per se. This is where the act or experience of consumption is celebrated, for shopping malls serve as symbols and meanings that are consumed, rather than simply places in which actual tangible goods and services can be purchased.

Why do we want goods? Consumer culture is the representation of a perceived “good life”—the term good here being understood as a high-quality and achievable life, inasmuch as the consumer is able to consume products that not only fulfill her or his basic needs but also provide additional luxury and leisure—a life based on the consumption and exhibition of goods and possessions. It is what Thorstein Veblen so aptly termed the way of life or lifestyle of the “leisure classes” and the “show-offs.” The buying pattern he is noted for labeling is “conspicuous consumption.” Thus, consumer culture is a basic function of the need for fashion. Without fashion—the nigh-ostentatious owning and showing off of an [Page 82]acquisition—we would not consume on this grand scale: We would not consume items that do not fulfill any need other than to make one feel “somebody,” that allow one to make one's mark both individually or within a group.

At the same time, the existence and degree of consumer culture is a perceptual entity rooted in the perceptions and motivations of the people investigating and talking about it. This is how advertising visualizes consumers' emotions, wants, and needs to sell the symbols, signs, and meanings of consumption. Although the basic assumption underlying consumption includes “free” (rational or irrational) choice of the consumer, consumer culture tends to imply the mass marketing of products and services accompanied by subsequent limited free choice. Concomitant with the merging of the cultural and commercial spheres, art too has come to be viewed as a commodity. Commercialized art such as advertising, for example, has now come to be regarded as goods.

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