ABSTRACT
Consumption that is provided by government as part of its functioning is not properly part of consumption. These are consumption choices which may well involve heavy costs, and which, when made, may determine the evolution of culture. Structuralism is a convergent movement whose implicit theory of knowledge transcends the efforts of the individual thinker, and focuses upon social processes in knowledge. Private hygiene is probably a small item in the sum of consumption goods. Consumption uses goods to make firm and visible a particular set of judgments in the fluid processes of classifying persons and events. Consumption is an active process in which all the social categories are being continually redefined. For anthropologists the word potlatch sums up this characteristic of feasting, inviting guests, and competing in hospitable honors. There are many variants of the potlatch described in American Northwest Coast ethnography.
