14 - Changes in Consumption as Social Practice in West Germany During the 1950s

Summary

At the beginning of the 1950s, West Germany had not yet started to develop into a “consumer society.” The preconditions for this development, at least in embryonic form, could nevertheless already be seen. By the end of the decade, even people on very limited household budgets were able to afford some of the new consumer products flowing from the country's prodigious factories. Consumption of these products, however, required people to learn new skills. Accordingly, to examine the development of consumption during the postwar years, it is necessary to look at the multifaceted changes in people s everyday practice.

In this chapter, “consumption” is used in a broad sense and incorporates not only the “production of consumption” but also what Marx, in his Theses on Feuerbach, called “sensual” human activity or “practice.” The term must connote more than the mere consumption of food or possession of goods. Analyzing the “practice of consumption” does not mean simply chronicling the quantitative consumption patterns of working-class families - what and how much they generally ate - but also examining how food was bought and cooked and how cooking technology changed. Finally, we must also investigate the fabrication of representations and associations connected with food and consumption, that is, the “production” of embedded cultural meanings.