ABSTRACT
The previous section focused on ‘self’, the central core of the individual, carrying with it ideas of individuality, uniqueness, and freedom to be one’s own person. This is the sense one feels when thinking about buying some thing and saying ‘no, that is not “me”, but this one is “me”, I will buy that’ ( PresskornThygesen & Bjerg 2014). However, this single sentence car ries a lot of baggage with it. The act of consumption, choosing one thing over another, citing preference for something that enhances the sense of me, becoming part of the collective bargaining around identity, marketing schemes, and the tangled web of finance: That act is all part of the indi vidual interacting with others. In this chapter I explore the complexity of this chimera of individual freedom and choice as it is compounded by the wider envisaged future of the free market and economic choice that emerged during the Velvet Revolution in central Europe.
