The developed countries, particularly the United States, consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources, yet high and rising levels of consumption do not necessarily lead to greater satisfaction, security, or well-being, even for affluent consumers.

The Consumer Society provides brief summaries of the most important and influential writings on the environmental, moral, and social implications of a consumer society and consumer lifestyles. Each section consists of ten to twelve summaries of critical writings in a specific area, with an introductory essay that outlines the state of knowledge in that area and indicates where further research is needed. Sections cover:

Scope and Definition
Consumption in the Affluent Society
Family, Gender, and Socialization
The History of Consumerism
Foundations of Economic Theories of Consumption
Critiques and Alternatives in Economic Theory
Perpetuating Consumer Culture: Media, Advertising, and Wants Creation
Consumption and the Environment
Globalization and Consumer Culture
Visions of an Alternative

This book is the second volume in the Frontier Issues in Economic Thought series, which provides surveys of the most significant writings in emergent areas of economics -- an invaluable aid in fast-growing fields where genuine new ground is being broken. The series brings together economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers to develop analyses that challenge and enrich the dominant neoclassical paradigm.

The Consumer Society is an essential guide to and summary of the literature of consumption and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the deeper economic, social, and ethical implications of consumerism.

Contents

Note To The Reader
Authors Of Original Articles
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Volume Introduction
PART I. Scope And Definition
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of Asking How Much Is Enough
-Summary Of Consumption, Well-being, And Virtue
-Summary Of The Original Affluent Society
-Summary Of The Limits To Satisfaction: Examination
-Summary Of Will Raising The Incomes Of All Increase The Happiness Of All?
-Summary Of The Expansion Of Consumption
-Summary Of New Analytic Bases For An Economic Critique Of Consumer Society
-Summary Of Consumption: The New Wave Of Research In The Humanities And Social Sciences
PART II. Consumption In The Affluent Society
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of Traumas Of Time And Money In Prosperity And Depression
-Summary Of The Insidious Cycle Of Work And Spend
-Summary Of Work, Consumption, And The Joyless Consumer
-Summary Of The Study Of Consumption, Object Domains, Ideology, And Interests And Toward A Theory Of Consumption
-Summary Of Notes On The Relationship Between Production And Consumption
-Summary Of The Political Economy Of Opulence
-Summary Of The Increasing Scarcity Of Time
-Summary Of Social Limits To Growth: The Commercialization Bias
-Summary Of Changing Consumption Patterns: The Transformation Of Orange County Since World War Ii
PART III. Family, Gender, And Socialization
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of The Domestic Production Of Monies
-Summary Of Sitcoms And Suburbs: Positioning The 1950s Homemaker
-Summary Of Gender As Commodity
-Summary Of Gender And Consumption: Transcending The Feminine?
-Summary Of Meanings Of Material Possessions As Reflections Of Identity
-Summary Of Friendship Or Commodities? The Road Not Taken: Friendship, Consumerism, And Happiness
-Summary Of Playing With Culture: Toys, Tv, And Children's Culture In The Age Of Marketing
PART IV. The History Of Consumer Society
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of The History Of Consumption: A Literature Review And Consumer Guide
-Summary Of Changes In English And Anglo-american Consumption From 1550 To 1800
-Summary Of Pictorial Prints And The Growth Of Consumerism: Class And Cosmopolitanism In Early Modern Culture
-Summary Of The Quaker Ethic: Plain Living And High Thinking In American Culture
-Summary Of The Consumer Revolution Of Eighteenth-century England
-Summary Of Consumerism And The Industrial Revolution
-Summary Of Learning To Consume: Early Department Stores And The Shaping Of The Modern Consumer Culture (1800''"1914)
-Summary Of From Salvation To Self-realization: Advertising And The Therapeutic Roots Of Consumer Culture
-Summary Of The Consumer's Comfort And Dream
PART V. Foundations Of Economic Theories Of Consumption
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of Materialism And Modern Political Philosophy
-Summary Of The History Of Economics From A Humanistic Perspective
-Summary Of Capital, Labor, And The Commodity Form
-Summary Of Institutional Economics And Consumption
-Summary Of Keynes' Economic Thought And The Theory Of Consumer Behavior
-Summary Of A Reformulation Of The Theory Of Saving
-Summary Of Bandwagon, Snob, And Veblen Effects In The Theory Of Consumers' Demand
-Summary Of The Standard Of Living And The Capacity To Save
-Summary Of The Imperatives Of Consumer Demand And The Dependence Effect
PART VI. Critiques And Alternatives In Economic Theory
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of Alternative Approaches To Consumer Behavior
-Summary Of The Separative Self: Androcentric Bias In Neoclassical Assumptions
-Summary Of Economics, Psychology, And Consumer Behavior
-Summary Of The Psychology And Economics Of Motivation
-Summary Of The Neglected Realm Of Social Scarcity
-Summary Of The Demand For Unobservable And Other Nonpositional Goods
-Summary Of Change And Innovation In The Technology Of Consumption
-Summary Of Procrastination And Obedience
PART VII. Perpetuating Consumer Culture: Media, Advertising, And Wants Creation
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of The Distorted Mirror: Reflections On The Unintended Consequences Of Advertising
-Summary Of Modern Consumerism And Imaginative Hedonism
-Summary Of Social Comparison, Advertising, And Consumer Discontent
-Summary Of Limits To Satisfaction: Diagnosis
-Summary Of Goods As Satisfiers
-Summary Of Introduction To Fables Of Abundance
-Summary Of Advertising
-Summary Of The Emergence Of American Television: The Formative Years And Toward A New Video Order: The 1980s
-Summary Of Television And The Structuring Of Experience
-Summary Of Theories Of Consumption In Media Studies
-Summary Of Household Debt Problems: Toward A Micro-macro Linkage
PART VIII. Consumption And The Environment
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of The Allocation And Distribution Of Resources
-Summary Of Market And Nonmarket Determinants Of Private Consumption And Their Impacts On The Environment
-Summary Of Consumption: Value Added, Physical Transformation, And Welfare
-Summary Of Creating The Affluent Society
-Summary Of Natural Resource Consumption
-Summary Of The Environmental Costs Of Consumption
-Summary Of Creating A Sustainable Materials Economy
PART IX. Globalization And Consumer Culture
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of Development And The Elimination Of Poverty
-Summary Of Third World Consumer Culture
-Summary Of Positional Goods, Conspicuous Consumption, And The International Demonstration Effect -Reconsidered
-Summary Of Advertising In Nonaffluent Societies: Galbraith Revisited
-Summary Of The Culture-ideology Of Consumerism In The Third World
-Summary Of Transnational Advertising: Some Considerations Of The Impact On Peripheral Societies
-Summary Of Transnational Corporations And Third World Consumption: Implications Of Competitive Strategies
-Summary Of Gross National Consumption In The United States: Implications For Third World Development
PART X. Visions Of An Alternative
-Overview Essay
-Summary Of Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren
-Summary Of Alternatives To Mass Consumption
-Summary Of Exiting The Squirrel Cage
-Summary Of How To Bring Joy Into Economics
-Summary Of Qualitative Growth
-Summary Of The Poverty Of Affluence: New Alternatives
-Summary Of A Culture Of Permanence
-Summary Of Living More Simply And Civilization Revitalization
Subject Index
Name Index

The Consumer Society

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