ABSTRACT
Consumerism permeates the global North having fully embraced the principles of neoliberalism. It has forced change upon many modern institutions and transformed cultures and expectations of collective life. Criminologists must try to understand consumerism's impact on individual drives, desires and social motivations. Productivity began to rise, which prompted labour unions to become more strident in their demands. The growth of consumer culture during the post-war period is indicative of a number of fundamental changes in political economy. The 1990s are often represented as the decade in which neoliberalism solidified its reputation for growth and prosperity, but the economic reality of those times is more complicated. Consumerism appeared to facilitate a 'rebellion into style', to bring choice and stylistic diversity to a dour and rather homogenous post-war cultural vista. Theories of the crime-consumer nexus are ignored by right-wing criminologists, and either ignored or met with various degrees of suspicion and hostility by a sub-dominant liberal-left paradigm.
