ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the logic of individualism. In doing so, it returns to work from the 1960s to expose how ‘possessive individualism’ is entrenched in contemporary consumer culture and call into question dominant representations of success, hedonism, and the myth of the ‘entrepreneurial ubermensch’. The chapter then explores recent attempts to reclaim the individual subject as an agent of emancipatory social change. It notes the challenge for critical marketing communications if we are to build social alternatives not rooted in individual material abundance and wealth accumulation. Possessive individualism refers to the idea that the individual as “solely an owner of himself, for which he owes nothing to society” means that the breaking of social ties and moral obligations to others. The logic of individualism plays a pivotal role in the values orientation of materialism. Materialism occurs within and as a result of the institutions that prop up and maintain competitive markets.
