Consumer culture

Malls have been a huge impact on the consumer culture. Shown in the picture is the Mall of America, one of the largest malls in the USA.

Consumer Culture focuses on the spending of the customers money on material goods to attain a lifestyle in a capitalist economy. One country that has a large consumer culture is the United States of America. Over the past hundred years, 1900 to 2000, market goods came to dominate American life and for the first time in history, consumerism had no practical limits. Consumer culture has provided affluent societies with peaceful alternatives to tribalism and class war, it has fueled extraordinary economic growth. The challenge for the future is to find ways to revive the valid portion of the culture of constraint and control the overpowering success of the all-consuming twentieth century.

Types of culture

According to Social scientists Berger, Aaron Wildavsky and Mary Douglas suggest that there are four political cultures, which also function as consumer cultures: hierarchical or elitist, individualist, egalitarian, and fatalist."

1. An elitist, is a person who believes that a system or society should be ruled or dominated by an elite.
2. An individualist, is a person who does things without being concerned about what other people will think.
3. An egalitarian, believes in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
4. A fatalist, is someone who feels that no matter what he or she does, the outcome will be the same because it is predetermined.

Consumer culture is based on the idea of demographics, which is targeting a large group of people with similar interests, traits or cultural attributes.

Mass market theory

Advertisements like this one help capture the attention of consumers to get them to spend money.

Advertising and strategies

Over the years, people of different age groups are employed by marketing companies to help understand the beliefs, attitudes, values, and past behaviors of the targeted consumers. This creates a more effective advertisement than the normal data gathering strategy that is used.

A quote by Shah states that, "The sophistication of advertising done methods and techniques has advanced, enticing and shaping and even creating consumerism and needs where there has been none before."

Richard Wilk has written an article about bottled water and the consumerist basis it has in society. The base point of this article is to point out how water is free and it is abundant, but over time it has become a point of marketing. The debate has always existed if there is a real difference in taste between bottled water and tap water. When it comes down to it, during many blind tastes, people can not even tell which was tap and which was bottled, and more often than not tap water won for better taste. Water has always been regarded as this pure substance and has connections in many religions. Throughout history, it has been shown that control over water is equivalent to control over untamed nature, and this has been shown in movies as well. To build on this idea, Wilk points out how having bottled water enforces the idea of this control over nature and the need that humans have for water. To further enforce this idea of natural and pure water, a 1999 report by the National Resources Defense Council found that many water companies use words like “pure” and “pristine” to aid in marketing. Wilk explains that it is more than just the marketing of it being pure, but that people want bottled water because they know the source. Public water comes from an anonymous source and Wilk concludes that the home is an extension of ourselves, so why would we want to bring an unknown specimen into our home. This is where the bottled water preference comes in, according to Wilk, because people can trace it back to where it came from. In addition to this idea, many brands and companies have started marketing water towards specific needs like special water for women, for kids, for athletes, and so on. This increases competition between brands and takes away from customers being able to choose what water they really want. This is due to the larger companies being able to make more connections and pay the expensive fee to be sold on the shelves. Wilk concludes that since it is hard to trust either, it comes down to which is distrusted least.

Labor

After this consumer culture developed, the life of workers changed forever.

Wage work

As you can see in this picture, both men and women working in the factory together.

Before the Industrial Revolution, home was a place where men and women produced, consumed, and worked. The men were high valued workers, such as barbers, butchers, farmers, and lumbermen who brought income into the house. The wives of these men completed various tasks to save money which included, churning butter, fixing clothes, and tending the garden. This system created an equal value to all of the jobs and tasks in a community. Once the Industrial Revolution began, there was no such thing as an equal and high valued work(er) in a mass production industry. The only value these workers had were the wage they made. That meant the wives lost their value at home and had to start working for a living. This new system created the thought of everyone being replaceable.

Life of a worker

The life of a worker was a challenging one. Working 12- to 14-hour days, 6 days a week, and in a dangerous environment. The worst part was the infrequency of pay or not being paid at all. At times, employers paid their workers in script pay, or non-U.S. currency, or even in-store credit.

See also

• Consumer Culture Theory
• Mass-Market Theory
• Consumerism
• Consumer Choice
• Consumer Protection
• Advertising
• Industrial Revolution