ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter establishes the focus of Consumer Society and Ecological Crisis: examining the contribution of marketing, broadly understood, and distribution to ecologically damaging overconsumption. The book will explore promotional and logistical aspects of commodity packaging and delivery, and the fossil fuel dependence characteristic of the capitalist system. Chapters on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and plastic packaging, e-commerce and Big Logistics, and fossil fuel corporations’ sustainability ‘ambitions’ each offer ways into understanding environmental problems produced by a blinkered pursuit of convenience and speed. These materials, activities, and forces help accelerate the circulation of commodities. This chapter introduces these cases and key terms, debates, and the critical approach adopted. Employing a Marxian lens that draws on thinkers such as David Harvey, Nancy Fraser, and the Frankfurt School, the book advances a critique of how the production, distribution, exchange, consumption, and disposal of commodities contribute to climate, plastic pollution, and other ecological crises. It invites advertising students, researchers, and practitioners to reflect on the business practices that advertising works alongside – a suite of activities that keep commodities selling and moving, delivering the economic growth that capitalism requires, but in so doing, imperilling the planet.
