Consumer society

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Showcase of an electrical household goods store in St. Gallen, Switzerland.

In the human sciences , the term consumer society refers to societies in which the satisfaction of as many needs as possible is only possible through consumption in return for appropriate payment.

This definition is accompanied by an evaluative use. The term describes various aspects of modern lifestyles in industrialized countries, e. Sometimes with critical or derogatory intent. The terms affluent society , affluent society or throwaway society are used similarly . This usually means a society that is characterized by the industrial mass production of short-lived disposable products, so that original consumer goods are treated like consumer goods . Targeted advertising “Legitimizes” this behavior (e.g. by providing incentives to exchange an old cell phone for a new one).

Various ideological and professional standpoints represent points of view that are critical of consumption:

The media and communication theorist Norbert Bolz , on the other hand, takes the view that a global consumer society can pacify the world.

Characteristics of a consumer society

  1. Rapid increase in goods available for money due to an increase in labor productivity with simultaneous standardization of products and increasing influence of consumers on the type and quantity of goods produced ( consumer demand ).
  2. Increasing consumption orientation in society as a whole, differentiated according to the type and quantity of goods consumed (class-specific consumption standards).
  3. Consumption tending to be directed by large, dominant companies: According to JK Galbraith , consumer sovereignty is restricted by power.
  4. The integration of consumers through the awakening and reshaping of needs (see The Secret Seducers by Vance Packard ; manipulation according to Herbert Marcuse's book The One-Dimensional Man ) and through market-based forms of satisfaction.
  5. Brands are generated through advertising and branded products are offered whose appearance has nothing to do with production and use.
  6. Products serve as conveyors of meaning and a sphere of taste, socially demonstrative consumption becomes a status symbol .
  7. The emphasis on leisure over work. The focus is more on the consumer, less on the producer.
  8. Occasionally the expanded social consumption is seen as a consequence of the increasing need for security and as a characteristic of the consumer society.
  9. With increasing education and income, increasing market transparency (e.g. through product tests, consumer associations), resistance to advertising and the emergence of buyers' markets .
  10. An ambivalent attitude towards consumption, consumer criticism or the rejection of excessive consumption are also considered to be characteristics of a consumer society.

Trickle-down effect

The “ trickle-down effect ” is understood to mean the percolation processes in which, in the case of the consumer society, former luxury products and higher-value consumer goods spread from the upper to the lower social classes and thus contribute to a general improvement in consumer and living conditions. An example of this is the spread of cotton clothing in Germany. This was first grown and processed abroad. They had to be imported at great expense and expense, so that they were not available to the lower classes of society. Only through the technological progress of industrialization was it possible to produce on a larger scale and more cost-effectively, which led to the spread of cotton clothing.

Engel's law

Ernst Engel (1821–1896) was director of the Royal Prussian Statistical Office from 1860 and was primarily concerned with statistics on consumption and demography . The law he established describes a law according to which the proportion of income that a private household spends on food decreases with increasing income. This surplus income is then available for consumption and thus for the satisfaction of needs that go beyond basic needs.

Consumer society in art

The consumer society was reflected in art. a. in Pop Art , which thematizes and depicts the phenomena of the everyday consumer world or works with found finished objects ( e.g. as readymades ). She does not necessarily criticize the appearance of the colorful world of goods - at first it is sometimes unclear whether she ironizes or criticizes this, or whether works of Pop Art even have an affirmative effect. Artists like Andy Warhol did not criticize the consumer society, they unrestrainedly affirmed, sometimes grotesque:

“When I had a lot of money, I shot out straight away and bought my first color television. The advertisement for the 'shiny furniture gloss' in black and white drove me crazy. I thought that if I saw the advertising in color, maybe everything would look new and I would feel more interested in shopping again. "

- Andy Warhol : The philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and back

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dieter Haller (text), Bernd Rodekohr (illustrations): Dtv-Atlas Ethnologie. 2nd Edition. dtv, Munich 2010, p. 157.
  2. ^ Jack D. Forbes: The Wétiko plague. An Indian philosophy of aggression and violence. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1981, ISBN 3-87294-172-0 .
  3. ↑ In memoriam Jack D. Forbes (1934-2011). In: Coyote. No. 91, autumn 2011, ISSN  0939-4362 .
  4. ↑ John Brewer: What can we learn from early modern history for modern consumer history? In: Hannes Siegrist et al. (Hrsg.): European consumer history. On the social and cultural history of consumption (18th to 20th centuries). Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1997, ISBN 3-593-35754-2 , pp. 51-74.
  5. ^ Christian Kleinschmidt: Consumer Society: Basic Course . UTB, Stuttgart 2008, p. 20.
  6. ^ Christian Kleinschmidt: Consumer Society: Basic Course . UTB, Stuttgart 2008, p. 22.

See also