ABSTRACT
To make a fresh start on the subject, an anthropological definition of consumption would help. To speak sensibly of consumption here, in industrial society, in terms that also apply without strain to distant tribal societies that have barely seen commerce, still less capitalism, is indeed a challenge. But unless we make the attempt there can be no anthropology of consumption. We need somehow to extract the essence of the term, while ignoring the potentially misleading local effects. One boundary may be drawn by an idea essential to economic theory: that is, that consumption is not compelled; the consumer’s choice is his free choice. He can be irrational, superstitious, traditionalist, or experimental: the essence of the economist’s concept of the individual consumer is that he exerts a sovereign choice. Another boundary may be drawn by the idea central to national bookkeeping that consumption starts where market ends. What happens to material objects once they have left the retail outlet and reached the hands of the final purchasers is part of the consumption process. These two boundaries raise various problems and borderline cases for economics and do not make a completely satisfactory definition. Together they assume that consumption is a private matter. Consumption that is provided by government as part of its functioning is not properly part of consumption. Central heating or cups of tea drunk in bureaucratic offices count as part of the cost of administration, in the same way as cups of tea or central heating provided by businesses count as costs of production, not as output, when they make their income tax returns. As to consumption being uncoerced, this is not a straightforward matter either. When a city is proclaimed a smokeless zone by law, householders are not free to burn
log fires if they choose; nor are car purchasers free to ignore government regulations as to safety, noise, and so on. But by and large the two boundaries capture the essence of the idea and the detailed tidyingup is a matter of convention. So if we define consumption as a use of material possessions that is beyond commerce and free within the law, we have a concept that travels extremely well, since it fits parallel usages in all those tribes that have no commerce.
