ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of consumption as it relates to the pervasive policies of neoliberalism permeating the global market. The structures of neoliberalism distance the consumer both from the harms of the system and from their own complicity—i.e. the harms to others with lesser means, and the social consequences of deregulation and defunding, such as less access to necessary drugs and an increase in communicable diseases. While the spectacle of the violence associated with the extreme example of capitalist consumption is abhorrent, the violence of consumerism is not limited to the particular shopping events, but rather it is more pervasive and inherent in everyday purchases. The role of the consumer has been viewed as separate from, and independent of, the harms resulting from the neoliberal capitalist market, insofar as there is little acknowledgment of the complicity of those who reap the rewards of violence, harm and inequality that allows for their market consumption.
