ABSTRACT
Inequality produces social discontent. Unlike the past, when it implied ignorance, subordination, and hard physical work, today's inequality is most evident in the limitation of consumer spending. It is being unable to engage in consumer spending that creates diversity and makes it unbearable. Consumerism has long been the parameter which progress is measured against, linked to the growth, production, expansion of markets, and well-being. Having effectively deprived the great majority of the population of the role of homo faber, writes Bauman, the profit-operated industry must do its best to train them in the role of consumers; in practice, this amount to the continuous channelling of all and any social grievance and disaffection into demands for a greater share in some or other consumer goods. Bauman has highlighted the phenomenon a phenomenon passed over in silence by the economists whereby a large multinational company that announces large-scale layoffs, benefits from an immediate rise in share prices.
