ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter is slightly misleading in that the simple answer to the question is that we have no choice: humans must consume to live. However, the real question behind the title is why do humans seem to consume so much in capitalist societies. We have to disentangle these two versions of consumption if we are to answer the second question. Karl Marx distinguishes between ‘production in general’ and specific historical modes of production. As he explains it, production in general ‘is common to all social conditions, that is without historic character, human’ (1973: 320). But the human need to produce is always located historically in a particular mode of production: humans have always produced but how they produce is always historically situated. In other words, there is a difference between a slave mode of production and a capitalist mode of production. If we think of Marx’s distinction in terms of consumption, we arrive at a similar conclusion: there is ‘consumption in general’ and there are specific modes of consumption. What is called consumerism (we will discuss it and consumer society in more detail in Chapter 8) is a particular historical mode of consumption unique to capitalism. In an attempt to understand this particular historical mode of consumption we will address three theoretical explanations. Each offers an influential theoretical framework to explain its relatively recent explosive growth: Karl Marx’s theory of alienation, the social emulation model and Colin Campbell’s theory of the Romantic ethic.
