ABSTRACT
That ours is a consumer society (with equal emphasis laid on both those words) is the central contention of this book. It will take a good deal of effort to pin down precisely what this means, but it should be noted at once that it puts it in opposition to a significant body of recent work on consumption. Miller (2000, 210), for example, resolutely refuses the (allegedly) ‘homogenizing term “consumer culture” or “consumer society” ’ in favour of undertaking ‘the original task of [reconstructing (?)] an empathetic experience of moments of consumption’. For me, however, this kind of thinking is in grave danger of missing precisely what is most important about consumption today. We will broach this issue more fully in Chapter 1, but to state baldly what is involved at the outset, it might be proposed that it is the way in which consumption has increasingly assumed a central systemic role in the reproduction of capitalist society that is crucial. The implications of this deceptively simple contention are immensely wide reaching. What is certain, however, is that they can hardly be grasped by limiting our concerns to ‘empathetic experiences’ of consumption alone. A far more rigorous conceptualization of the consumer society is vital to understanding both the nature and consequences of consumption today. The kind of conceptualization I have in mind has been developed to its fullest extent in the early work of Jean Baudrillard and the recent work of Zygmunt Bauman. For this reason, the present book leans especially heavily on their writings. Such an approach may not, of course, be to everybody’s taste. Nonetheless, the level of insight their work generates is, for me, sufficient justification for a close examination and sustained deployment of their arguments. Part I of the book provides a detailed assessment of precisely what is at stake in the conception of consumption developed by these authors. Let me state at once, however, that I am not slavishly following their ideas out of some naive conviction that ‘they know best’. Whilst some might perceive an undue reliance on the authority of others in the strategy of close textual reading adopted here, such a perception would be mistaken. Such a strategy is intended to do nothing more than to bring out the strength of the arguments themselves. I should add that, whilst the book hopefully manages to provide a coherent exposition of many of their arguments, I am not necessarily an entirely constant disciple of either Baudrillard or Bauman. There is a considerable degree of selectivity in the portions of their arguments I choose to deploy, and a certain degree of spin put on particular lines of
thought that it would be inappropriate to attribute to the authors themselves.1 Furthermore, whilst the conception of the consumer society derived from Baudrillard and Bauman forms a vital part of the book, it is nonetheless intended primarily as a means to an end. It is subsequently put into service, in Parts II and III, to provide a better understanding of the so-called ‘postmodern city’.
