Critique of Consumerism

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...