Who Are the Winners and Losers in a Consumer Society?

TMA 02

Who are the winners and losers in a consumer society?

We live in a materialistic age where shopping has become a big part of our lives. Very often our status in life, our identity as well as our lifestyles are determined by what we buy, where we buy it and how much we spend. As Hetherington points out ‘Shopping is a part of what social scientists call consumption and many social scientists suggest we now live in a consumer society.’(Kevin Hetherington, 2009, p13). Since the quality of our lives is so dependent on money and material things we can only imagine the differences and inequalities it creates between people and societies all around the world. Even though, we all take advantage of the market and the goods that are available to us, it is becoming more and more obvious that this system has flaws and that a lot of us miss out or lose in this race for prosperity. In my assignment I am going to look at the theory of the seduced and repressed, the influence of supermarkets on small businesses, as well as, the issues involving rubbish and waste.

So who wins and who loses? Zygmund Bauman (1988) seems to have an answer (Kevin Hetherington, 2009, p25). According to him the consumers in Western societies can be described as the seduced and the repressed. The seduced ones are the ones who have the means to take full advantage of goods and services available to them on the market. Bauman thinks that only people with money and access to things like Television, a mobile phone, or a car can be seen as valuable members of our consumer society. In addition, the repressed would be everybody else who does not consume or access services in the same way as the rich do. People with limited funds, mobility or communication, who are not in tune with mainstream trends, are being discriminated against and excluded both, by the shops and by other consumers. But is it really so? Can we generalise about people in such a broad way? Even though, the concept of the seduced and...