ABSTRACT
Moral denigration of consumption appears to be coeval with the literature on economic development itself (Leiss 1983). In many areas of social and political commentary, indeed, the strength of hostility revealed in the literature (and from left-inclined critics in particular) can be positively disconcerting. An early book of essays with the promising subtitle ‘Social and economic problems from the hitherto neglected point of view of the consumer’ could begin by describing consumers as having ‘some of the characteristics of a mob…. This [mob] instinct displays itself openly in bargain-hunting at sales, in mass-response to “cheap lines” and in the innumerable coupons, prize-giving, and debt-creating schemes degrading to trade’ (though the author concedes that ‘there we touch the lower levels…’) (Co-operative Wholesale Society 1930:4).
