Work, Consumption and Culture

Affluence and Social Change in the Twenty-first Century

Paul Ransome

The central question in Work, Consumption and Culture is whether consumption has now displaced production as the defining factor in the lives of those in the industrialized West. This book offers a comprehensive review of the key issues in the production/consumption debate, and where it might lead in the future.

Key to Paul Ransome?s argument is the hypothesis that affluence is the crucial factor in the shift away from work and towards consumption. Uniquely emphasizing the links between work, consumption and culture, rather than keeping each element separate, the author looks at:

- the changing significance of work in society

- the meaning, growth and significance of affluence

- the growing importance of consumption as a source of identity and its implications

the impact of the shift to consumption on work/life balance

Work, Consumption and Culture engages the reader with its lively debating style. It is an essential introduction for sociology and cultural studies students on courses relating to consumption and the role of work in contemporary society.

`This book offers a balanced account of the changing importance of work and consumption in contemporary industrial society. Clearly written, the author identifies the central role that affluence plays in the relationship between work and consumption, and in the development of social life and individual identity? - Professor Paul Blyton, Cardiff Business School

1	Introduction: the affluence hypothesis

The key elements in this book are work, consumption and culture. The purpose is to look again at the increasingly popular idea that the lives of people now living in the industrialised West are determined much more by the way they consume things than by how they produce them. That consumption has displaced production as the leading factor in shaping the kind of society people are now living in.

So why would it matter if the realm of consumption had displaced the realm of production or work as the dominant realm of activity from which people construct their lives and why might such a change be of interest to sociologists? The short answer is that since the production side of human activity provides the foundation of human activity in general, it is no small matter to suggest either that production is no longer as important as it once was, let alone that some other realm has become more important even than work. If consumption has become emphatic in determining how people live their lives, how they relate to others and how they express their identity, this would mean that a pretty major shift has taken place in the character of modern society (for example: Campbell, 1987; Featherstone, 1991; and Millar, 1995). An apparent decline in the importance of work for people and for society re-opens fundamental questions about why people do the activities they do and the purposes or goals they hope to fulfil through doing them (Slater, 1997a and 1997b). In proposing that production-side activities no longer have the priority they once had, it is not so much a matter of showing that work is no longer important, since clearly human activity in general still depends on the satisfactory discharge of production-side responsibilities, but of saying clearly why the activities of consumption have become more important, how has it come about that ‘the figure of the consumer and the experience of consumerism is both exemplary of the new world and integral to its making’ (Slater, 1997b: 9)?

Production versus consumption

In arguing the case for the rise of consumption then, we need to explain why people now seek the outcomes of consumption-type activities more vigorously than the outcomes of production-type activities. Compared with other kinds of activity, the meaning and purpose of working activities and the reason why they are given priority is clear, since work is the primary means of satisfying our survival needs. The meaning of work is a largely practical matter and so are the consequences of it for a person’s social and economic position, and their status in society more generally. To the extent that consumption is a necessary corollary of production we can explain acts of simple consumption wholly or partly in terms of the same motivations and expectations which we refer to in explaining acts of production – in order to achieve this or that outcome, I need to produce and consume this or that commodity. And if this is the limit of our analysis there would be no need to invoke the idea of a transition from a work-based to a consumption-based social type since limited consumption is part and parcel of production.

Many acts of consumption however, are much more complex than this and administer to desires and expectations which are not always clear and which often vary from one individual to another. In order to support the case for the rise of consumption one would have to show that people seek outcomes through consumption which are somehow outside or beyond what they can achieve through work and that people really do believe in the meaning and purpose of consumption and in a measure which surpasses that attributed to working activities. If these developments had taken place, then a reasonably strong case could be made for describing a type of society, a way of living, in which people give priority to the outcomes of consumption rather than of production. A consumption-based society would be one in which people’s lives are largely structured by consumption, and where the activities of consumption are seen as carrying the highest levels of meaning and purpose. As Cross expresses it: ‘Consumerism is not only the basis of both the modern economic order and public culture, but it defines how most people organise their time around working and spending’ (Cross, 1993: 184).

Sociology and consumption

In answer to the second question, if one accepts that sociology is all about trying to understand the forms and meanings of human social action,¹ then sociologists are bound to be interested in the boundaries which lie between one realm of activity and another. If the realm of activities we call work, a realm which is believed by many to dominate human social action, has been superseded by its apparent opposite, this is bound to attract a good deal of attention (Warde, 1990a: 1990b). Whether as sociologists or not, we are able to make pretty accurate judgements about where people stand in society and how we should interact with them, along the various ribs which lead off from the spine which working life provides. It represents a considerable departure from all conventional sociological accounts of modern society to suggest that something other than work and production gives society its basic character and structure (Featherstone, 1990). Modern societies are so-called because of their position in the historical sequence, but what makes them ‘modern’ is the fact that they are characterised by a particular way of producing things. What we are trying to do in this book is to see not only if modernity is also characterised by a particular way or consuming things, but whether a point has been reached where the consumption side has become dominant.

Actions speak louder than words

As one might expect then, much of the discussion in the following chapters will be taken up with an account of differences in the types of things people do when they are producing things and when they are consuming them. Continuity from one phase of social development to another is a consequence of the fact that people keep on doing many of the same things, and in this instance, that means work. This must be the case since certain of our actions are unavoidable if we want to keep ourselves alive. Basic needs are not negotiable and so neither are the basic survival-making or, in our kind of society, income-getting, activities. Continuity is also maintained because the same people are involved in production and in consumption; these activities are not carried out by different sets of people who only ever meet at the moment of exchange. Unless one holds to the idea that people living in these societies are suffering from mass schizophrenia, it follows that the needs and desires which motivate one part of their activities are going to have an impact on other parts of it. Another of the arguments we will be making is that understanding the relationship between work-based and consumption-based society means that we have to understand how production and consumption are interrelated. More often than not they are two parts or phases of a larger single whole and so consequently, ‘production and consumption must be analysed as a unity rather than as a simple opposition’ (Fine and Leopold, 1993: 253).

The meaning of it all

Although we will need to spend some time describing and evaluating physical similarities and contrasts in the activities of the two realms, we are also interested in similarities and contrasts in the ways which people understand and justify their activities as producers and as consumers. Differences in the ways which such understandings are arrived at, and in the contents of those understandings, tell us a good deal about whether, and how, consumption-based society might differ from work-based society. We will work from the premise that the understanding people have of their activities is made up partly of practical meaning in the sense that some physical outcome emerges, an outcome which confirms or validates that activity, but that it is also made up of a cognitive or ideational meaning in the sense that intellectually, we try to justify or legitimate our actions by reference to our value system.²

The search for meaning is carried out on a number of fronts and often at the same time. One of the fronts in which this volume is particularly interested is the front along which people struggle to understand the meaning of activity as it affects their sense of personal and social identity. Accepting that an important aspect of the meaning people find in or give to their activities is how it enables them to express their sense of self, it follows that one of the key respects in which the activities of work and of consumption might be thought to differ one from the other is in terms of their impact on how people develop a sense of identity. If it is the case that ‘[modern] identity is best understood through the image of consumption’, that the resources ‘through which we produce and sustain identities increasingly take the form of consumer goods and activities …’ (Slater, 1997b: 85), then it is important to know whether such a change really is taking place and what may have become of the identity-meanings associated with production.

THE AFFLUENCE HYPOTHESIS

Not only are we interested in the kinds of activities and experiences which we take to be constitutive of work-based and consumption-based social types, we are also interested in the mechanism by which one type might develop into the other type. Many factors are implicated in such a change (and many of them have been discussed at length),³ but in this account we want to single out the decisive role played by ‘affluence’ defined in the first instance, and quite simply, as ready access to surplus income. The basic argument we hope to support is that affluence – a capacity and expectation to spend freely – increases the range and variety of people’s experiences because surplus income gives people choice over the commodities and services they consume. Choice signifies autonomy and autonomy signifies an awareness that things do not have to remain as they are. If we accept that choice and autonomy are universally desirable features of human social life, the prospect of living in an affluent society will be regarded by many as ‘a good thing’, as ‘better than’ living in one where freedom to spend has yet to be achieved. (Affluent) consumption becomes ‘… the privileged site of autonomy, meaning, subjectivity, privacy and freedom’ (Slater, 1997b: 31). Both in terms of the kind of activity it is (at the level of formal rationality), and in terms of the meanings people attribute to consumption as they try to understand and justify their activities as affluent consumers (as a form of substantive rationality), affluence is an enabling force in social development.

In order to argue convincingly that affluence influences social development in this way one would need to show not only that there is such a thing as affluence and that it is has become a general characteristic of the way of life of people living in that kind of society, but also that it has materially altered the balance between work and consumption as the primary influence over people’s lives. The basic argument here is that as people are more easily able to satisfy their basic survival needs, they have devoted an increasing proportion of their disposable income to consumption and leisure activities, and have consequently come to regard work as of secondary rather than primary importance. Rather than living in a society in which our orientation to self and other is largely determined by activities carried out in the realm of work, we are now living in one in which these orientations are largely determined by activities in the realm of consumption: a society wherein ‘consumption now comprises the labour by which we appropriate goods and prise them out of the anonymous and oppressive conditions under which they are manufactured and exchanged …’ (Millar (ed.), 2001a, Vol. I: 7). The significant thing about affluence and choice is that under conditions of affluence we are able to consume things because they bring pleasure and satisfaction in and of themselves without always being tied to the satisfaction of basic needs. Affluence allows consumption for purposes other than simple subsistence. As a result ‘the meaningful or cultural aspect of consumption comes to predominate, and people become more concerned with the meanings of goods than with their functional use to meet a basic or “real” need’ (Slater, 1997b: 133).

Whilst recognising that the analysis of needs and wants, of survival and satisfaction deserves close attention (standard points of departure are Soper, 1981; Doyal and Gough, 1991) and may be something which should be central to a critical evaluation of ‘how we live in consumer society’ (Slater, 1997a and 1997b) we will simply state two things which guide the discussion in this book. One is that particular actions, whether of production or consumption, can provide more than one type or aspect of satisfaction or pleasure and often at the same time. For example, eating tapas in a trendy wine bar satisfies private as well as social needs; nutritional as well as symbolic ones and, even if in different measures, simultaneously. Second, that the desire for satisfaction is very often something which is constantly renewed because many needs are only ever temporarily fulfilled. However completely I satisfy my hunger at breakfast time, I will have to do so all over again at supper time. In saying that such-and-such an action satisfies this-or-that need we have to accept the multi-faceted nature of satisfaction and the rarity of needs which can actually be satisfied once and for all.

A counter argument would be that even if an increasing proportion of the population can afford to spend more of its resources on consumption-type activities this does not mean that everyone is able so to do. Affluence is a fortunate circumstance for the minority but is not universally achievable. In addition, it is logical to assert that a consumer ethic has to be based on a work ethic of some kind, since people still have to earn enough money to support their consumer lifestyle. Maintaining high levels of disposable income might actually reinforce the work ethic, and motivate people to work more rather than less energetically. As we shall see in the following chapter, there is strong support for this view amongst economists and sociologists. Reviewing explanations of why hours of work have tended to increase rather than decrease during the twentieth century despite increases in the efficiency of production, Voth concludes for example that this was because ‘of the lure of new and increasingly affordable consumer goods’ (Voth, 1998: 157). Similarly, Cross concludes that consumer society is characterised by a preference for goods rather than for free time such that people prefer to work the same hours (or more) in return for the capacity to buy more consumer goods: ‘The triumph of consumerism meant a rejection of the progressive reduction of worktime and of “democratic leisure”. It realised instead the dominance of a work-and-spend culture’ (Cross, 1993: 5). As far as economic position, social status and identity are concerned, whilst these are undoubtedly affected by our behaviour as consumers, they are also and already affected by participation in the realm of working activities. To the extent that consumption is one of the ends to which work is the means, work must retain a primary rather than subordinate role in people’s lives.

PLAN OF CHAPTERS

The discussion roughly divides between Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 which describe the basic differences between our two proposed types of society, and three further chapters (6, 7 and 8) which attempt to understand how these differences might affect particular aspects of life and society. If these consequences are sufficiently large – if a turn to consumption really does alter the basis of social and personal identity and give rise to a different kind of culture – then this would support the argument that a general change is taking place in the nature of society: that the social form based on work is being superseded by one based on consumption.

Work-based society

In considering whether the position of work in the hierarchy of activities has changed, whether the realm of working activities is as important as it used to be, we need to know what position it used to hold and why, and to what extent it has slipped and why. We need to say clearly what the principal characteristics of work-based society are. What is it about this society that allows us to designate it as a particular type we have called work-based?

We will say that a work-based society is one in which the ends to which work is the means are given clear priority over the ends of activities performed in all other realms. One would have to show that people regard work as their central life interest in the sense that they attribute great significance to the benefits which come from working, that their lives are somehow saturated by work. Quantitatively, we can look at data on working hours and other measures of work dependency and work intensity to see what the patterns of time use and distribution are within a work-dominated society. Qualitatively, we can briefly review evidence of the intrinsic benefits people expect to be able to fulfil through working. Adopting a Weberian style of analysis, the main contention of this chapter will be that the realm of working activities has become dominant because it is accepted as being both formally rational in terms of the means it employs, and substantively rational in terms of ends to which those means are directed. Moving outside or beyond the realm of work is difficult because this would mean resisting these rationalities and developing new ones.

Whilst one would have to accept that not all work-based societies, or societies passing through a work-dominant phase, will exhibit each of these features in their most extreme or purest form, these elements would certainly need to be there in some concentration or we would not be justified...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface and acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: the affluence hypothesis
• 2 Work-based society
• 3 Affluence
• 4 Consumption-based society
• 5 Acts of consumption
• 6 Work, consumption and social identity
• 7 Identity crisis – workers versus consumers
• 8 The cultures of work and consumption
• 9 Concluding comments: the affluence hypothesis revisited
• Bibliography
• Index