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The Consumer Society Reader
A unique and definitive reader on our "national passion"―buying stuff―and its consequences for American society. We are citizens, owners and workers, believers and heathens, but today more than anything else we are consumers. How this came to be and its consequences for us all is the subject of this pioneering reader on the rise―and continued rise―of consumerism. The Consumer Society Reader features a range of key works on the nature and evolution of consumer society. It includes classics such as the Frankfurt School writers Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse on the Culture Industry; Thorstein Veblen's oft-cited writings on "conspicuous consumption"; Betty Friedan on the housewife's central role in consumer society; and John Kenneth Galbraith's influential analysis of the "affluent society." The book also includes much-discussed recent work by such leading critics as Pierre Bourdieu, Thomas Frank, bell hooks, Bill McKibben, and Janice Radway. A landmark in social criticism, The Consumer Society Reader is sure to become the standard book on the subject.
502 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2000
22 people are currently reading
277 people want to read
About the author
Juliet B. Schor
34 books168 followersJuliet Schor’s research over the last ten years has focussed on issues pertaining to trends in work and leisure, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women's issues and economic justice. Schor's latest book is Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Scribner 2004). She is also author of The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure and The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting and the New Consumer. She has co-edited, The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience, The Consumer Society Reader, and Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century. Earlier in her career, her research focussed on issues of wages, productivity, and profitability. She also did work on the political economy of central banking. Schor is currently is at work on a project on the commercialization of childhood, and is beginning research on environmental sustainability and its relation to Americans’ lifestyles.
Schor is a board member and co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream, an organization devoted to transforming North American lifestyles to make them more ecologically and socially sustainable. She also teaches periodically at Schumacher College, an International Center for Ecological Studies based in south-west England.
from http://www2.bc.edu/~schorj/default.html
Schor is a board member and co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream, an organization devoted to transforming North American lifestyles to make them more ecologically and socially sustainable. She also teaches periodically at Schumacher College, an International Center for Ecological Studies based in south-west England.
from http://www2.bc.edu/~schorj/default.html
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 31, 2014
Collected classic essay's on the topic, most of which I've seen referenced before (but I had never read the originals). As such, a good teaching resource. Some of the articles were so archaic in their language as to only be assignable to grad students, but others were utterly accessible to undergrads (and I can see using at least 3 or 4 in my classes).
Towards the end, starting after Marx's fetish consumption chapter from Das Kapital it gets HORRIBLY political to the point where I was getting utterly frustrated and had to quit reading some essays midway (something I almost never do, but really go preach to someone else -- I began to feel like the author was thinking her readers were idiots; maybe it showed the age of the book but I doubt there's a reader out there who at this point needs to be lectured to about the evils done to the planet by over-production, etc.)
Towards the end, starting after Marx's fetish consumption chapter from Das Kapital it gets HORRIBLY political to the point where I was getting utterly frustrated and had to quit reading some essays midway (something I almost never do, but really go preach to someone else -- I began to feel like the author was thinking her readers were idiots; maybe it showed the age of the book but I doubt there's a reader out there who at this point needs to be lectured to about the evils done to the planet by over-production, etc.)
February 25, 2021
From Marxist view, commodities are important for the analysis of capitalism, social relationship, and how the society works as a circuit process. Firstly, capitalism changed the human relationships by commodity. In other words, commodities which represent products of labor are indistinguishable and that’s why humans are alienated. Secondly, commodities are not objects because they are treated with their use-value. In this way, social relationships exist in the relationship of commodities or commodity exchanges. For a worker, his relationship with another worker relays on the commodities through the bridge of labor; neither of them own the products, but they both get wages as a representation of labor. Capitalism deprives humans of the right to ‘own’ something, and everything is commodified.
Production and consumption are not separable from each other. This is not only a reflection for Marxist theory in macro level, but also presents in micro level- whether a company can make profits standing out of many other opponents. The circularity of coolhunting is a good example. Some coolhunters make it faster to make design idea realistic and to follow the mainstream on the street. On the one hand, consumers purchase fashionable apparels for one season and another; on the other hand, the designers rely on coolhunters who go out and take back the style of cool kids on the street. It’s a two-way intensification. It turns out that the faster the new apparels produced the more fanatical is the consumers to pursue fashion. The competitions enable capitalism to develop itself making lots of progress. Another contributor is advertisement. The analysis of DDB is distinct from many others because Bernbach adopted cultural criticism way for persuasion. Though they seem to be critical, I think they just disguise themselves to be innocent or critical. Making something authentic and realistic is exactly what an ad agency wants to do, and obviously Bernbach succeeded.
Production and consumption are not separable from each other. This is not only a reflection for Marxist theory in macro level, but also presents in micro level- whether a company can make profits standing out of many other opponents. The circularity of coolhunting is a good example. Some coolhunters make it faster to make design idea realistic and to follow the mainstream on the street. On the one hand, consumers purchase fashionable apparels for one season and another; on the other hand, the designers rely on coolhunters who go out and take back the style of cool kids on the street. It’s a two-way intensification. It turns out that the faster the new apparels produced the more fanatical is the consumers to pursue fashion. The competitions enable capitalism to develop itself making lots of progress. Another contributor is advertisement. The analysis of DDB is distinct from many others because Bernbach adopted cultural criticism way for persuasion. Though they seem to be critical, I think they just disguise themselves to be innocent or critical. Making something authentic and realistic is exactly what an ad agency wants to do, and obviously Bernbach succeeded.
January 27, 2018
I was introduced to this book in an educational setting, and after finishing it I could understand why. The reader is a collection of essential essays and papers from leading critics in the study of consumption. It was very useful to me as a student because it exposed me to variety of perspectives and authors into which I could dive deeper. Without this book, I would not even know of the critics/authors to follow this field. So this just might be my appreciation of readers in general.
November 27, 2011
Collected classic essay's on the topic, most of which I've seen referenced before (but I had never read the originals). As such, a good teaching resource. Some of the articles were so archaic in their language as to only be assignable to grad students, but others were utterly accessible to undergrads (and I can see using at least 3 or 4 in my classes).
Towards the end, starting after Marx's fetish consumption chapter from Das Kapital it gets HORRIBLY political to the point where I was getting utterly frustrated and had to quit reading some essays midway (something I almost never do, but really go preach to someone else -- I began to feel like the author was thinking her readers were idiots; maybe it showed the age of the book but I doubt there's a reader out there who at this point needs to be lectured to about the evils done to the planet by over-production, etc.)
Towards the end, starting after Marx's fetish consumption chapter from Das Kapital it gets HORRIBLY political to the point where I was getting utterly frustrated and had to quit reading some essays midway (something I almost never do, but really go preach to someone else -- I began to feel like the author was thinking her readers were idiots; maybe it showed the age of the book but I doubt there's a reader out there who at this point needs to be lectured to about the evils done to the planet by over-production, etc.)
May 11, 2014
This is a book that I started years ago and finally finished! A fascinating anthology looking at consumption from multiple angles. There are some wonderful essays here; some were better than others. I realized within the first year of reading this that I would not be able to finish it promptly simply because of the depth and breadth of the project. I do wish there were more stories of collective resistance to the consumer society, but at the same time, that didn't seem to be Schor's direction. So I read an essay or two every couple of months and finally got it done. I highly recommend it, maybe not reading it cover to cover but selecting articles that have relevance to what you're looking at.
June 12, 2010
Lots of really great essays in this anthology, ranging from serious theoretical stuff to hot postmodern cultural critiques. Some of the essays touch on issues of consumerism, the environment, and waste; some touch on identity issues, and some deal with crises of representation. Authors range from Adorno & Horkheimer, Baudrillard, and Bordieu, to Kalle Lasn, Ann DuCille, and Susan Bordo. Great anthology.
March 29, 2007
An excellent and comprehensive introduction to the works of cultural theorists such as Horkheimer and Adorno, Jean Baudrillard, Susan Bordo, Dick Hebdige, Thorstein Veblen, Pierre Bourdieu, James Twitchell, and Malcolm Gladwell.
September 26, 2007
Amazing collection of critical essays.
January 17, 2008
Good essays about consumerism and the history of the consumer society. Most of the essays are very readable, even for people without degrees in economics or consumer research.
October 1, 2012
Turrible
November 18, 2015
Great selection and breadth in the collected essays.
August 15, 2016
Some of the articles had gone a bit past their best-before date (amusingly, those with the latest dates), but by and far this is an excellent collection of articles. See the notes I made of the book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews