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Date Submitted: 06/23/2012 05:37 AM
Ideas and Practices in the Critique
of Consumerism
Andrew Gibson
Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;
5809 rue St-Urbain, Montréal, Québec H2T 2X4; andrew.gibson@mail.mcgill.ca
Drawing on the works of philosophers Charles Taylor and Joseph Heath, this paper
argues that the critique of consumerism is too often separated into an emphasis on
“ideas” or “practices.” Taylor’s critique is set against the backdrop of his interpretation
of the ideas and values that are constitutive of Western selfhood. To engage in excessive
consumption, on this view, is to betray the ideals underlying one’s cultural identity.
Heath, by contrast, argues that critics of consumerism must avoid this kind of ideasbased social criticism because it is not only unproductive, but also illiberal and elitist.
The phenomenon of consumerism must be approached, rather, by way of an institutional
critique that treats excessive consumption as a collective action problem arising within
the context of the market economy. The paper argues that while Heath makes an
invaluable contribution to the critique of consumerism, his misunderstanding of the
importance of ideas is such that his critique ultimately lacks vigor and persuasiveness.
The phenomenon of “consumerism” cuts across so many different
aspects of contemporary life that it is little wonder it generates so
much commentary. Rightly or wrongly, the drive to purchase an excess
of private consumer goods is considered to play a key role in a wide
variety of social ills. High upon this list is the view that consumerism
is linked to wasteful forms of industrial production that may well be
leading us toward “planetary ecocide.”1 Other commentators interpret
it as the manifestation of a form of cultural paralysis, where private
acquisitiveness is understood as part of a broader “capitalist ideology”
that eclipses the possibility of richer forms of community.2 Finally,
consumerism is also...