7 - Mass Consumption

Summary

Along with economic development and a broadening middle class come changes in buying and spending patterns — or mass consumption. Greater disposable income and more leisure time, together with the influx of imported products, have created an insatiable demand for consumer goods such as cars, washing machines, refrigerators, personal computers, television sets, mobile phones, and trendy street apparel in many of the capitals in Southeast Asia. The ubiquity of global brands like Nike, SONY, McDonalds, Toshiba, GAP, DKNY, Levis in highly populated urban centres has also made material consumption more conspicuous than ever before.

One fundamental trend of modernization is capitalism's ability to turn a society of diverse cultures and ethnic groups into a society of consumers. Mass consumption not only indicates the rising income levels of a consumer society, but its patterns also provide a vivid picture of the society's desires, values, and fantasies. In other words, the things people buy, the reason they buy them, and what these things mean to them, tell us about the character of a modern consumer society.

Mass Consumption

The study of mass consumption is a relatively new field. It emerged in the mid-1970s as a mode of inquiry that linked materialism with notions of identity and cultural behaviour. The study of consumption rejects classical Marxism, which asserts that capitalists use mass consumption to transform individual workers or proletariats into consumers for their own gains, that is, capital accumulation. This is largely in line with the belief that consumers blindly buy into advertising mantras and have little choice in what they consume.

Instead, consumption theorists argue that consumers are capable of endowing personal meaning on impersonal consumer goods, and of using such goods as symbols of identity or lifestyles. Consumers, far from blindly buying into the manufactured dreams put out by advertisers, are using goods in unique ways (or styles) to express themselves.