消費史
How Humans Became 'Consumers':
A History
《底下是谷歌翻譯》
“消費是所有生產的唯一目的和目的，”亞當•斯密在1776年的“國富論”中自信地宣布。史密斯的報價很有名，但實際上這是他明確處理這個話題的少數幾次之一。由於“國富論”的缺失，消費顯而易見，史密斯和他的直接學生都不把它當作政治經濟的一個單獨分支。
這是在早期的工作，1759年的道德情操的理論，史密斯指出社會和心理衝動，推動人們積累物體和小工具。他說，人們用“小方便”填充口袋，然後買更多口袋的外套，以攜帶更多。自己，鑷子盒，精緻的鼻煙盒和其他“小玩意”可能沒有太多的用途。但是，史密斯指出，重要的是，人們把他們視為“幸福的手段”。人們的想像是，這些物品成為和諧系統的一部分，使財富的樂趣“盛大，美麗和高尚。
在德國，婦女被罰款或在監獄裡投擲體育棉頸巾。
這種道德評估是朝向更複雜的消費理解邁出的巨大一步，因為它挑戰了追溯到古人的主導消極心態。從柏拉圖在古希臘到聖奧古斯丁和基督教的父親到作家在意大利文藝復興，思想家經常譴責追求的東西是邪惡和危險的，因為它破壞了人的靈魂，破壞了共和國，推翻了社會秩序。豪華的輝煌，拉丁語的“奢侈品”的字眼，。of了豐富多彩和水蛭。
“消費”一詞本身進入流通，負擔沉重。它最初來源於拉丁語的消費者，並在12世紀首先進入法語，從那裡進入英語，然後進入其他歐洲語言。這意味著使用了食物，蠟燭和其他資源。 （在這個意義上，身體也可以被消費，這就是為什麼在英語中，“消耗性疾病”，結核病被稱為“消費”。）使問題複雜化的是，在基督最後的話十字架上：“Consummatum
est”，意思是“它完成了。這個詞意味著用完，浪費和完成。
也許這些意義告訴了許多前現代政府規範公民消費的方式。在14和18世紀之間，大多數歐洲國家（和他們的美國殖民地）推出了一個更長的“奢侈法律”，以試圖阻止時尚和美術潮的更長的名單。威尼斯人的參議院在1512年規定，不超過六把叉子和六勺可以作為婚禮禮物;鍍金胸部和鏡子是完全禁止的。兩個世紀後，在德國，婦女被罰款或投入監獄，以體育棉頸巾。
對於統治者和道德家來說，對貨物世界的這種懲罰性的限制性觀點是非常有意義的。他們的社會生活在有限的資金和資源之前，在持續增長之前的一個時代。花在一個新奇物品上的錢，如印度棉花，是地方財政和地方生產者的錢;這些生產者，以及他們擁有的土地，被預言為力量和美德的來源。相比之下，消費者被視為富裕的財富。
上帝創造了一個富有礦物和外來植物的世界，如果他不想人們發現和利用他們？
亞當•斯密在1776年對這個群體的重新評估，正處在一個與文化相同的物質轉變之中。在15世紀和18世紀之間，貨物世界正在以驚人的和前所未有的方式擴張，這不是限制在歐洲的現像。晚明中國有一個黃金時代的商業，帶來了大量的瓷杯，漆器和書籍。在意大利的文藝復興時期，不僅是精英的帕拉齊，而是工匠們的家園，越來越多的服裝，家具和餐具，甚至繪畫和樂器。
然而，它在荷蘭和英國，勢頭變得自我維持。在中國，貨物因為他們的古代而被珍惜;在意大利，許多人作為禮物或儲蓄財富流通。相比之下，荷蘭和英國對新奇品，如印度棉花，異國情調的商品，如茶和咖啡，以及新產品，如抓住史密斯的小工具的注意新的溢價。
在1630年代，荷蘭的多元主義者Caspar Barlaeus讚揚貿易教授人們欣賞新事物，而這種世俗的論證，引入新的消費產品
- 無論是通過創新還是進口 - 都被宗教信仰所強化。上帝創造了一個富有礦物和外來植物的世界，如果他不想人們發現和利用他們？神學家為人類提供了“多樣化的慾望”的理由，寫的羅伯特•博伊爾，科學家著名的他的氣體實驗。不是引導人們偏離真正的基督徒道路，追求新的物品和慾望現在是合理的，表現出上帝的旨意。在十八世紀中葉，史密斯的親密朋友大衛•休謨完成了溫和奢侈的防禦。它不是浪費或毀滅一個社區，它被視為使國家更加豐富，更加文明，更強。
到18世紀晚期，那裡有許多道德和分析成分，用於更積極的消費理論。但法國大革命和隨後的反應阻止他們聚在一起。對許多激進分子和保守主義者來說，革命是一個危險的警告，過多的高生活已經消失在社會美德和穩定。緊縮和一個新的簡單的生活被舉起作為答案。
“我們必須從消費者的角度學習看一切。”
此外，當時的經濟作家沒有夢想，可能有類似持續增長的東西。因此，消費可以容易地被視為一種破壞性行為，用盡了資源或者最好重新分配。即使當作家感到他們對所有人的更高生活水平的想法，他們還沒有談到不同的群體作為“消費者”。一個原因是，與今天不同，他們還沒有選擇家庭購買的商品和服務，但通常還包括在消費量下的資源的工業使用。法國經濟學家讓
- 巴蒂斯特•塞 - 今天記得塞伊定律，其中指出，供應創造了自己的需求
- 是19世紀初為數不多的作家之一，他根據主題在他的政治經濟學論文中的一個特別部分，自己考慮消費。有趣的是，他包括了煤炭，木材，金屬和工廠使用的其他貨物的“生殖消費”以及客戶的私人最終用途。
在其他地方，其他經濟學家對設計統一消費理論沒有什麼興趣。作為英國維多利亞州的主要公共道德家，以及弱勢和弱勢群體的冠軍，約翰•斯圖亞特•穆勒自然地站起來保護無組織的消費者，免受有組織壟斷的利益。然而，在他的專業著述中，消費不足。米爾甚至否認它可能是經濟分析的一個有價值的分支：“我們不知道消費財富作為一個獨特科學的主題的任何法律，”他在1844年宣布“他們可以是除了法律人類享受“。任何人對消費的獨特分析都是有罪的，因為他們相信“消費不足”的可能性，認為Mill是可疑，錯誤和危險的。
它被一個受歡迎的法國自由主義者和作家FredericBastiat，支持消費者，據稱他在1850年的垂死的話是“我們必須學會看看一切從消費者的角度”。這可能聽起來很先進，但它幾乎沒有資格作為一種理論，因為巴斯蒂亞特認為自由市場最終會照顧一切。對於像社會正義關注的人和市場沒有發揮作用的情況下，這種自由放任的教條是壞政治，就像不良經濟學。
到19世紀中葉，物質和智力趨勢之間出現了奇怪的不匹配。消費市場在過去兩個世紀中大幅擴張。相比之下，在經濟學中，消費者仍然是一個邊緣人，主要在市場失靈的情況下引起注意，例如當城市公用事業失敗或欺騙他們的客戶，但很少吸引它，當它來到越來越重要的角色在現代經濟的擴張。
需求高的國家也是最有活力和最強大的國家。
理論終於追溯到1871年，當時威廉斯坦利傑文斯出版了他的政治經濟學。 “經濟學的理論”，他寫道，“必須以正確的消費理論開始”，他認為，磨坊和他的例子完全錯誤，因為他們的價值是他們的成本的函數，如布和汗水，做了一件外套Jevons從另一端看事情價值是由消費者，而不是製片人：外套的價值取決於一個人想要多少。
此外，這種願望不是固定的，而是變化的，並且取決於產品的效用函數。商品有一個“最終（或邊際）效用”，每一個額外的部分比以前的效用更少，因為最後一個不那麼強烈的期望，一個基本的經濟概念，可以直觀地通過蛋糕理解：第一個片可能味道奧地利的卡爾•門格爾（Carl
Menger）和瑞士的萊昂瓦爾拉斯（LeonWalras）大約在同一時間發展了類似的想法，他們一起把消費和經濟學的研究放在了全新的基礎上。邊際主義誕生了，任何給定好的效用現在可以作為一個數學函數來衡量。
是基於這些基礎的阿爾弗雷德•馬歇爾，在19世紀90年代，劍橋大學把經濟學變成了一門適當的學科。他指出，Jevons是絕對正確的：消費者是“需求的最終調節者”，但他認為Jevons對於需求的關注太靜態，Marshall寫道，是“生活在低等動物中的統治者”，人類的生命是區別在於“改變形式的努力和活動” - 他們爭辯說，隨著時間的推移，需求和願望也發生了變化，他們認為，人們努力實現自我改善，隨著時間的推移，
，從飲酒和閒暇變成體育鍛煉，旅行和藝術欣賞。
對於馬歇爾來說，文明的歷史類似於一個梯子，人們在這裡爬上更高的口味和活動。這是一個非常維多利亞時代的人性觀點。它反映了對商品世界的深深矛盾，他與批量生產的批評家，如設計師威廉•莫裡斯和藝術評論家約翰•魯斯金共享。馬歇爾熱切地相信社會改革和所有人的更高的生活水平。但與此同時，他也對標準化的大規模消費進行了深刻的批評。他的希望是，未來的人們將學習“通過高薪勞動購買一些好東西，而不是通過低工資勞動來賺取很多東西”。這樣，改善消費者的口味將有利於高技能工人。
對消費的日益關注不僅限於英格蘭自由主義者。在帝國的德國，國家經濟學家把它作為國家實力的指標：有高需求的國家也是最有活力和強大的，有人認為。然而，高消費社會的第一個一般性描述並不令人驚訝地來自具有最高生活水平的國家：美國。在1889年，沃頓商學院主席Simon Patten宣布，該國已經進入了一個“新的消費秩序”。第一次，有一個社會不再堅定的物質生存，但現在享受財富盈餘，並且可以考慮如何處理它的核心問題是美國人花了他們的錢和時間，以及他們賺了多少，人們，帕滕寫道，有休閒的權利，未來的任務不再告訴人們限制自己
- 保存或戴上一件髮型 - 而是發展習慣，以獲得更大的樂趣和福利。
這不僅僅是一個學術觀點。它對人們如何消費和思考金錢及其未來具有激進的影響。彭定康在1913年在費城教會中總結了一個會眾消費的新道德：
我告訴我的學生花費他們所有的東西，並藉用更多的東西，花費那個...當一個速記員，一周收入八十或十美元，穿著衣服，幾乎所有的收入，購買的速記員沒有證據。
恰恰相反，他說，這是“她的道德發展不斷增長的跡像”。它向她的雇主表明她雄心勃勃。
Patten補充說，一個“穿著好衣服的工作女孩...是許多幸福家庭的支柱，在她對家庭的影響下正在繁榮”。一神教會的一些成員憤怒，堅持，“你的一代”現在談論的是犯罪和無知的深度太深......聽從你。“紀律，不是花在信用上，是他們需要的。無論他們喜歡與否，未來將是帕滕更寬鬆，慷慨的消費觀。
經濟學家不是在19世紀末發現消費的唯一人。他們是一個更大的運動的一部分，包括國家，社會改革者和消費者自己。這些年是當輪船，貿易和帝國擴張加速全球化，工業社會中的許多工人開始從更便宜和更多樣化的食物和服裝中受益。現在註意力轉向“生活水平”，這是一個新概念，對波士頓到柏林和孟買的家庭預算進行了數千次調查。
這些調查背後的中心思想是，一個家庭的福利和幸福是由支出的習慣決定的，而不僅僅是收入。更好地了解金錢的使用如何幫助社會改革者教授審慎預算的藝術。在19世紀40年代的法國，FredericLe Play編輯了36卷關於歐洲工人的預算。在下一代，他的學生恩斯特恩格爾把方法帶到薩克森和普魯士，在那裡他專業化社會統計學的研究。他支持恩格爾的法律，認為家庭收入越高，用於食物的收入比例越小。對於那些擔心革命和社會主義的恩格爾同時代人來說，這裡有希望：減少食物支出轉化為更多的錢用於個人改善和社會和平。
最重要的是，公民和主體發現他們的聲音作為消費者。今天，Fin
de desiecle被它的大教堂的消費記住，由巴黎的BonMarche和倫敦的Selfridges代表。雖然他們沒有發明購物的藝術，這些商業寺廟是重要的擴大公眾形像和空間的購物者，特別是對於女性。
“19世紀是生產者的世紀。讓我們希望20世紀將是消費者。
有趣的是，它不是在那些閃閃發光的畫廊，而是在地下，通過氣體和水的新材料網絡，人們首先集體在一起作為消費者。
1871年在謝菲爾德發起了一個水消費者協會抗議水稅。此外，需要和希望自己正在改變，這擴大了權利和權利的概念。在英格蘭，中產階層的居民此時已習慣於洗澡，並拒絕為額外的水支付“額外”費用。洗浴是必要的，而不是奢侈，他們認為，所以他們組織消費者抵制。
第一次世界大戰前的歲月變成了消費政治的黃金時代。到1910年，大多數工人階層家庭和英格蘭每四個家庭是消費者合作社的成員。在德國和法國，這類團體有超過一百萬成員。在英國，婦女合作社是當時最大的婦女運動。組織作為消費者給婦女一個新的公共聲音和可見性;畢竟，這是“女籃的籃子”，因為這些工人階級的家庭主婦被稱為，誰做購物。
而且是在倫理消費主義的先鋒中前進的女性。消費者聯盟在紐約，巴黎，安特衛普，羅馬和柏林興起。在美國，聯盟成長為一個全國性的聯盟，有15,000名積極分子，由佛羅倫薩•凱利（Florence Kelley）領導，他們的奎格阿姨曾經反對奴隸制的貨物。這些中產階級的消費者利用他們的錢包的力量瞄準血汗工廠，並獎勵提供體面工作條件和最低工資的企業。
“消費者，”德國活動家解釋說，“是時鐘，它規定雇主和僱員之間的關係。”如果時鐘是由“自私，自利，無知，貪婪和貪婪，成千上萬的同胞生活在苦難和抑鬱“。另一方面，如果消費者認為產品背後的工人，他們提倡社會福利和和諧。換句話說，消費者被要求是公民。對於女性來說，這種作為公民意識消費者的新角色成為投票戰鬥的有力武器。這種對“公民
- 消費者”的呼籲在英國第一次世界大戰前夕在自由貿易的大眾運動中達到了它的巔峰，當時為了維護消費者的利益作為公共利益。
即使在這些運動形成之前，許多倡導者預測了整個20世紀的消費能力的穩步提高。 “19世紀是生產者的世紀，”法國政治經濟學家和消費合作社的冠軍查爾斯•吉德在1898年告訴他的學生。“讓我們希望20世紀將是消費者，願他們的王國來！“
市場，選擇和競爭現在被視為消費者最好的朋友，而不是政治代表。
吉德的希望成真了嗎？回顧21世紀初，不承認在上個世紀發生的消費者福利和消費者保護方面取得的巨大成就是愚蠢的，1962年由約翰•肯尼迪的“消費者權利法案”所代表。汽車不再因撞擊而爆炸。食品醜聞和欺詐行為仍在繼續，但與玷污維多利亞時代的地方性摻假醜聞相去甚遠。
消費者仍然是學術界的焦點。經濟學家們繼續辯論，人們是否會隨著時間的推移調整他們的消費，以獲得最多的生活，無論他們的消費是否取決於他們期望在未來賺取的收入，或者他們的支出是否更多地取決於他們的收入與他人的收入。消費仍然是大學課程的一個組成部分，不僅在經濟學和商業，而且在社會學，人類學和歷史，雖然最後幾個往往強調文化，社會習俗和習慣，而不是選擇和效用
- 最大化個人。
今天，公司和營銷者跟消費者一樣直接。對消費主義的批評，作為愚蠢，非人性化或異化
- 仍然是20世紀60年代的知識家具的重要組成部分
- 的翅膀被認識到如何產品和時尚可以提供身份，樂趣和飼料的全新的文化風格。特別是年輕一代創造了他們自己的亞文化，從20世紀60年代西歐的Mods和搖滾樂到日本的哥特式Lolitas。消費者不是被動的，而是為了積極地為媒體和產品增加價值和意義而慶祝。
然而，在其他方面，今天的經濟距離Gide的消費王國有很大的距離。消費者協會和行動主義繼續存在，但它們已經分散在許多問題之間，使它們不再承擔20世紀初社會改革運動的衝擊;今天有，例如，慢食，有機食品，當地食品，公平貿易食品，甚至道德狗食的運動。
在艱難的時期，例如第一次和第二次世界大戰，一些國家介紹了消費委員會和部委，但這是因為各國暫時有興趣組織他們的戰爭努力的購買力，並在打擊利潤和通貨膨脹的鬥爭中徵聘他們。在和平時期，市場和聲音商業遊說回來了，這樣的消費者機構也同樣迅速地重新開始。福利國家和社會服務已經佔領了消費者聯盟在一個世紀前戰鬥的許多原因。印度有一個小型的消費者事務部，但其主要作用是提高認識和打擊不公平的做法。在許多欠發達國家，消費者繼續是對水和能源的獲取和價格爭鬥的一個聲音政治力量。然而，在今天最富有的社會中，消費者很少或根本沒有有組織的政治聲音，而且四，五代以前的直接消費者代表的偉大運動也很少。市場，選擇和競爭現在被視為消費者最好的朋友，而不是政治代表。消費者同時比吉德預見的更強大和無能為力。
有許多預言和標題預測“高峰期”和消費主義的結束。
今天，氣候變化使消費的未來作用越來越不確定。
1990年代產生了可持續消費的想法，這是聯合國在1992年在裡約熱內盧倡導的承諾。希望價格激勵和更有效的技術能夠使消費者減輕其生活方式的材料足跡。從那時起，有許多預言和標題預測“高峰期”和消費主義的結束。他們說，富裕社會的人們已經厭倦了擁有很多東西。他們更喜歡經驗或是快樂的分享。非物質化將隨之而來。
這樣的預測聽起來不錯，但他們不能站起來的證據。畢竟，過去的許多消費也受到經驗的驅動，如樂園，集市和遊樂園的樂趣。在今天的世界經濟中，服務的增長速度可能快於貨物，但這並不意味著集裝箱數量正在下降
- 遠遠不如此。當然，服務經濟不是虛擬的，也需要物質資源。在2014年的法國，人們開車320億英裡做他們的購物 - 涉及大量的橡膠，柏油和氣體。數字計算和WiFi吸收越來越多的電力。共享像Airbnb這樣的平台可能增加頻繁的旅行和航班，而不是減少。
此外，人們可能會說，他們感到被他們的財產所淹沒或沮喪，但在大多數情況下，這並沒有使他們變得更簡單。這也不是一個特別美國或盎格魯撒克遜人的問題。
2011年，斯德哥爾摩的人們買了三倍於20年前的服裝和電器。
消費者如何適應氣候變化的世界仍然是21世紀的大問題。在1900年，許多改革者尋找關於社會改革，社會責任和消費者代表性問題的答案。氣候變化是其本身巨大的挑戰，但也許可以從消費者的早期歷史中吸取教訓。消費者被認為是解決社會不安和經濟不公的重要參與者。作為買家，他們對生產的產品，質量和數量有一些影響。組織他們的利益為公共政治舞台增添了重要的聲音。這些仍然是寶貴的見解：消費者可能不會擁有一切的答案，但這並不意味著他們應該被當作市場中的個人購物者。
How Humans Became 'Consumers':
A History
Until the 19th century, hardly
anyone recognized the vital role everyday buyers play in the world economy.
NOV 28, 2016
“Consumption is the sole end
and purpose of all production,” Adam Smith confidently
announced in The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Smith’s quote is famous, but in
reality this was one of the few times he explicitly addressed the topic.
Consumption is conspicuous by its absence in The Wealth of Nations,
and neither Smith nor his immediate pupils treated it as a separate branch of
political economy.
It was in an earlier work, 1759’s The Theory of Moral
Sentiments, that Smith put his finger on the social and psychological impulses
that push people to accumulate objects and gadgets. People, he observed, were
stuffing their pockets with “little conveniences,” and then buying coats with more pockets to carry even
more. By themselves, tweezer cases, elaborate snuff boxes, and other “baubles” might not have much use.
But, Smith pointed out, what mattered was that people looked at them as “means of happiness." It was in people’s imagination that these objects became part of a
harmonious system and made the pleasures of wealth “grand
and beautiful and noble."
In German states, women were
fined or thrown in jail for sporting a cotton neckerchief.
This moral assessment was a
giant step towards a more sophisticated understanding of consumption, for it
challenged the dominant negative mindset that went back to the ancients. From
Plato in ancient Greece to St. Augustine and the Christian fathers to writers
in the Italian Renaissance, thinkers routinely condemned the pursuit of things
as wicked and dangerous because it corrupted the human soul, destroyed
republics, and overthrew the social order. The splendour of luxus, the Latin word for “luxury,” smacked of luxuria—excess and lechery.
The term “consumption” itself entered circulation
with a heavy burden. It originally derived from the Latin word consumere and found its way first
into French in the 12th century, and from there into English and later into
other European languages. It meant the using up of food, candles, and other
resources. (The body, too, could be consumed, in this sense—this is why in English, the “wasting disease,” tuberculosis, was called “consumption.") To
complicate matters, there was the similar-sounding Latin word consummare, as in Christ’s last
words on the cross: “Consummatum est,” meaning “It is finished." The
word came to mean using up, wasting away, and finishing.
Perhaps those meanings informed
the way that many pre-modern governments regulated citizens’ consumption. Between the 14th and 18th centuries, most
European states (and their American colonies) rolled out an ever longer list of
“sumptuary laws” to try and stem the tide of
fashion and fineries. The Venetian senate stipulated in 1512 that no more than
six forks and six spoons could be given as wedding gifts; gilded chests and
mirrors were completely forbidden. Two centuries later, in German states, women
were fined or thrown in jail for sporting a cotton neckerchief.
To rulers and moralists, such a
punitive, restrictive view of the world of goods made eminent sense. Their
societies lived with limited money and resources in an era before sustained
growth. Money spent on a novelty item from afar, such as Indian cotton, was
money lost to the local treasury and to local producers; those producers, and
the land they owned, were heralded as sources of strength and virtue.
Consumers, by contrast, were seen as fickle and a drain on wealth.
Would God have created a world
rich in minerals and exotic plants, if He had not wanted people to discover and
exploit them?
Adam Smith’s reappraisal of this group in 1776 came in the midst of a
transformation that was as much material as it was cultural. Between the 15th
and 18th centuries, the world of goods was expanding in dramatic and
unprecedented ways, and it was not a phenomenon confined to Europe. Late Ming
China enjoyed a golden age of commerce that brought a profusion of porcelain
cups, lacquerware, and books. In Renaissance Italy, it was not only thepalazzi of the elite but the homes of artisans that were
filling up with more and more clothing, furniture, and tableware, even
paintings and musical instruments.
It was in Holland and Britain,
though, where the momentum became self-sustaining. In China, goods had been
prized for their antiquity; in Italy, a lot of them had circulated as gifts or
stored wealth. The Dutch and English, by contrast, put a new premium on
novelties such as Indian cottons, exotic goods like tea and coffee, and new
products like the gadgets that caught Smith’s attention.
In the 1630s, the Dutch
polymath Caspar Barlaeus praised trade for teaching people to appreciate new
things, and such secular arguments for the introduction of new consumer
products—whether through innovation or importation—were reinforced by religious ones. Would God have created
a world rich in minerals and exotic plants, if He had not wanted people to
discover and exploit them? The divine had furnished man with a “multiplicity of desires” for a reason, wrote Robert
Boyle, the scientist famous for his experiments with gases. Instead of leading
people astray from the true Christian path, the pursuit of new objects and
desires was now justified as acting out God’s will. In the mid-18th
century, Smith’s close friend David Hume completed
the defense of moderate luxury. Far from being wasteful or ruining a community,
it came to be seen as making nations richer, more civilized, and stronger.
By the late 18th century, then,
there were in circulation many of the moral and analytical ingredients for a
more positive theory of consumption. But the French Revolution and the
subsequent reaction stopped them from coming together. For many radicals and
conservatives alike, the revolution was a dangerous warning that excess and high
living had eaten away at social virtues and stability. Austerity and a new
simple life were held up as answers.
“We must learn to look at
everything from the point of view of the consumer."
Moreover, economic writers at
the time did not dream there could be something like sustained growth. Hence
consumption could easily be treated as a destructive act that used up resources
or at best redistributed them. Even when writers were feeling their way towards
the idea of a higher standard of living for all, they did not yet talk of
different groups of people as "consumers." One reason was that,
unlike today, they did not yet single out the goods and services that
households purchased, but often also included industrial uses of resources
under the rubric of consumption.The French economist Jean-Baptiste Say—today remembered for Say’s law, which states that
supply creates its own demand—was one of the few writers in
the early 19th century who considered consumption on its own, according the
topic a special section in his Treatise on Political
Economy. Interestingly, he included the “reproductive consumption” of coal, wood, metal, and other goods used in factories
alongside the private end-use by customers.
Elsewhere, other economists
showed little interest in devising a unified theory of consumption. As the
leading public moralist in Victorian England and a champion of the weak and
vulnerable, John Stuart Mill naturally stood up for the protection of
unorganized consumers against the interests of organized monopolies. In his
professional writings, however, consumption got short shrift. Mill even denied
that it might be a worthy branch of economic analysis: “We know
not of any laws of the consumption of wealth as the subject of a distinct
science," he declared in 1844. “They can be no other than the
laws of human enjoyment." Anyone pitching a distinct analysis of
consumption was guilty by association of believing in the possibility of “under-consumption," an idea that to Mill was suspect,
wrong, and dangerous.
It fell to a popular French
liberal and writer, Frédéric
Bastiat, to champion the consumer—supposedly his dying words in
1850 were “We must learn to look at everything
from the point of view of the consumer." That may have sounded prescient
but it hardly qualified as a theory, since Bastiat believed that free markets
ultimately took care of everything. For someone like Mill with a concern for
social justice and situations when markets did not function, such laissez-faire
dogma was bad politics just as much as bad economics.
By the middle of the 19th
century, then, there was a curious mismatch between material and intellectual
trends. Consumer markets had expanded enormously in the previous two centuries.
In economics, by contrast, the consumer was still a marginal figure who mainly
caught attention in situations of market failure, such as when urban utilities
failed or cheated their customers, but rarely attracted it when it came to the
increasingly important role they’d play in the expansion of
modern economies.
Nations with high demand were
also the most energetic and powerful.
Theory finally caught up in
1871, when William Stanley Jevons published hisTheory of Political Economy. “The theory of economics," he wrote, “must begin with a correct theory of consumption.” Mill and his ilk had it completely wrong, he argued. For
them the value of goods was a function of their cost, such as the cloth and
sweat that went into making a coat. Jevons looked at the matter from the other
end. Value was created by the consumer, not the producer: The value of the coat
depended on how much a person desired it.
Further, that desire was not
fixed but varied, and depended on a product’s utility function. Goods had
a “final (or marginal) utility," where each additional
portion had less utility than the one before, because the final one was less
intensely desired, a foundational economic concept that can be understood
intuitively through cake: The first slice may taste wonderful, but queasiness
tends to come after the third or fourth. Carl Menger in Austria and Léon Walras in Switzerland were developing similar ideas at
around the same time. Together, those two and Jevons put the study of
consumption and economics on entirely new foundations. Marginalism was born,
and the utility of any given good could now be measured as a mathematical
function.
It was Alfred Marshall who
built on these foundations and, in the 1890s, turned economics into a proper
discipline at the University of Cambridge. Jevons, he noted, was absolutely
right: The consumer was the “ultimate regulator of
demand." But he considered Jevons’s focus on wants was too
static. Wants, Marshall wrote, are “the rulers of life among
lower animals” and human life was distinguished by “changing forms of efforts and activities”—he contested that needs and desires changed over time,
and so did the attempts and means devoted to satisfying them. People, he
believed, had a natural urge for self-improvement and, over time, moved from
drink and idleness to physical exercise, travel, and an appreciation of the
arts.
For Marshall, the history of
civilization resembled a ladder on which people climbed towards higher tastes
and activities. It was a very Victorian view of human nature. And it reflected
a deep ambivalence towards the world of goods that he shared with such critics
of mass production like the designer William Morris and the art critic John
Ruskin. Marshall believed fervently in social reform and a higher standard of
living for all. But at the same time, he was also deeply critical of standardized
mass consumption. His hope was that people in the future would learn instead to
“buy a few things made well by highly paid labour rather
than many made badly by low paid labour." In this way, the refinement of
consumers’ taste would benefit highly-skilled
workers.
The growing attention to
consumption was not limited to liberal England. In imperial Germany, national
economists turned to it as an indicator of national strength: Nations with high
demand were also the most energetic and powerful, it was argued. The first
general account of a high-consumption society, however, came not surprisingly
from the country with the highest standard of living: the United States. In
1889, Simon Patten, the chair of the Wharton School of Business, announced that
the country had entered a “new order of
consumption." For the first time, there was a society that was no longer
fixated on physical survival but that now enjoyed a surplus of wealth and could
think about what to do with it. The central question became how Americans spent
their money and their time, as well as how much they earned. People, Patten
wrote, had a right to leisure. The task ahead was no longer telling people to
restrain themselves—to save or to put on a hairshirt—but to develop habits for greater pleasure and welfare.
This was more than an academic
viewpoint. It had radical implications for how people should consume and think
about money and their future. Patten summarised the new morality of consumption
for a congregation in a Philadelphia church in 1913:
I tell my students to spend all
that they have and borrow more and spend that … It is no evidence of loose
morality when a stenographer, earning eight or ten dollars a week, appears
dressed in clothing that takes nearly all of her earnings to buy.
Quite the contrary, he said, it
was “a sign of her growing moral development.” It showed her employer that she was ambitious. Patten
added that a “well-dressed working girl … is the backbone of many a happy home that is prospering
under the influence that she is exerting over the household.” Some members at the Unitarian Church were outraged,
insisting, “The generation you’re talking to now is too deep in crime and ignorance … to heed you.” Discipline, not spending on
credit, was what they needed. Whether they liked it or not, the future would be
with Patten’s more liberal, generous view of
consumption.
Economists were not the only
ones who discovered consumption in the late 19th century. They were part of a
larger movement that included states, social reformers, and consumers
themselves. These were years when steamships, trade, and imperial expansion
accelerated globalization and many workers in industrial societies started to
benefit from cheaper and more varied food and clothing. Attention now turned to
“standard of living," a new concept that launched
thousands of investigations into household budgets from Boston to Berlin and
Bombay.
The central idea behind these
inquiries was that the welfare and happiness of a household was determined by
habits of spending, and not just earnings. A better understanding of how money
was spent assisted social reformers in teaching the art of prudent budgeting.
In France in the 1840s, Frédéric Le
Play compiled 36 volumes on the budgets of European workers. In the next generation,
his student Ernst Engel took the method to Saxony and Prussia, where he
professionalized the study of social statistics. He fathered Engel’s law, which held that the greater a family’s income, the smaller the proportion of income spent on
food. For those of Engel’s contemporaries who worried
about revolutions and socialism, there was hope here: Less spending on food
translated into more money for personal improvement and social peace.
Above all, it was citizens and
subjects who discovered their voice as consumers. Today, the fin-de-siècle is remembered for its cathedrals of consumption,
epitomized by the Bon Marché in Paris and Selfridges in
London. While they did not invent the art of shopping, these commercial temples
were important in widening the public profile and spaces for shoppers,
especially for women.
“The 19th century has been the
century of producers. Let us hope that the 20th century will be that of
consumers.”
Intriguingly, though, it was
not there in the glitzy galleries but literally underground, through the new
material networks of gas and water, that people first came together
collectively as consumers. A Water Consumers’ Association was launched in
Sheffield in 1871 in protest against water taxes. In addition, needs and wants
themselves were changing, and this expanded notions of entitlements and rights.
In England, middle-class residents at this time were becoming accustomed to
having a bath and refused to pay “extra”
charges for their extra water. A bath was a necessity, not a luxury, they
argued, so they organized a consumer boycott.
The years before the First
World War turned into the golden years of consumer politics. By 1910, most
working-class families and every fourth household in England was a member of a
consumer cooperative. In Germany and France, such groups counted over a million
members. In Britain, the Woman’s Cooperative Guild was the
largest women’s movement at the time. Organizing as
consumers gave women a new public voice and visibility; after all, it was the “women with the baskets”, as these working-class
housewives were called, who did the shopping.
And it was women who marched in
the vanguard of ethical consumerism. Consumer leagues sprang up in New York,
Paris, Antwerp, Rome, and Berlin. In the United States, the league grew into a
national federation with 15,000 activists, headed by Florence Kelley, whose
Quaker aunt had campaigned against slave-grown goods. These middle-class
consumers used the power of their purses to target sweatshops and reward
businesses that offered decent working conditions and a minimum wage.
“The consumer,” a German activist explained, “is the
clock which regulates the relationship between employer and employee.” If the clock was driven by “selfishness, self-interest,
thoughtlessness, greed and avarice, thousands of our fellow beings have to live
in misery and depression.” If, on the other hand,
consumers thought about the workers behind the product, they advanced social
welfare and harmony. Consumers, in other words, were asked to be citizens. For
women, this new role as civic-minded consumers became a powerful weapon in the
battle for the vote. This call on the “citizen-consumer” reached its apotheosis in Britain on the eve of the First
World War in the popular campaigns for free trade, when millions rallied in
defense of the consumer interest as the public interest.
Even before these movements
took shape, many advocates had predicted a steady advance of consumer power
throughout the 1900s. “The 19th century has been the
century of producers," Charles Gide, the French political economist and a
champion of consumer cooperatives, told his students in 1898. “Let us hope that the 20th century will be that of
consumers. May their kingdom come!”
Markets, choice, and
competition are now seen to be the consumer’s best friend—not political representation.
Did Gide’s hope
come true? Looking back from the early 21st century, it would be foolish not to
recognize the enormous gains in consumer welfare and consumer protection that
have taken place in the course of the last century, epitomized by John F.
Kennedy’s Consumer Bill of Rights in 1962.
Cars no longer explode on impact. Food scandals and frauds continue but are a
far cry from the endemic scandals of adulteration that scarred the Victorians.
And consumers have remained a
focus of academics. Economists continue to debate whether people adjust their
consumption over time to get
most out of life, whether they spend depending on
what they expect to earn in the future, or whether their spending is
determined more by how their
income compares to others’. Consumption is still an
integral component of college curricula, and not only in economics and
business, but in sociology, anthropology, and history, too, although the last
few tend to stress culture, social customs, and habits rather than choice and the
utility-maximizing individual.
Today, companies and marketers
follow consumers as much as direct them. Grand critiques of consumerism as
stupefying, dehumanizing, or alienating—still an essential part of
the intellectual furniture of the 1960s—have had their wings clipped
by a recognition of how products and fashions can provide identities, pleasure,
and fodder for entirely new cultural styles. Younger generations in particular
have created their own subcultures, from the Mods and rockers in Western Europe
in the 1960s to Gothic Lolitas in Japan more recently. Rather than being
passive, the consumer is now celebrated for actively adding value and meaning
to media and products.
And yet, in other respects,
today’s economies are a long way from Gide’s kingdom of consumers. Consumer associations and activism
continue, but they have become dispersed between so many issues that they no
longer carry the punch of the social-reform campaigns of the early 20th
century; today there are, for example, movements for slow food, organic food,
local food, fair-trade food—even ethical dog food.
In hard times, like the First
and Second World Wars, some countries introduced consumer councils and
ministries, but that was because states had a temporary interest in organizing
their purchasing power for war efforts and to recruit them in the fight against
profiteering and inflation. During peacetime, markets and vocal business
lobbies returned, and such consumer bodies were just as quickly wound up again.
Welfare states and social services have taken over many of the causes for which
consumer leagues fought a century ago. India has a small Ministry of Consumer
Affairs, but its primary role is to raise awareness and fight unfair practices.
In many less developed countries, consumers continue to be a vocal political
force in battles over access and prices of water and energy. In the richest
societies today, though, consumers have little or no organized political voice,
and the great campaigns for direct consumer representation four or five
generations ago have come to very little. Markets, choice, and competition are
now seen to be the consumer’s best friend—not political representation. Consumers are simultaneously
more powerful and powerless today than Gide had foreseen.
There have been many prophecies
and headlines that predict “peak stuff” and the end of consumerism.
Today, climate change makes the
future role of consumption increasingly uncertain. The 1990s gave birth to the
idea of sustainable consumption, a commitment championed by the United Nations
in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Price incentives and more-efficient technologies, it
was hoped, would enable consumers to lighten the material footprint of their
lifestyles. Since then, there have been many prophecies and headlines that predict
“peak stuff” and the end of consumerism.
People in affluent societies, they say, have become bored with owning lots
stuff. They prefer experiences instead or are happy sharing. Dematerialization
will follow.
Such forecasts sound nice but
they fail to stand up to the evidence. After all, a lot of consumption in the
past was also driven by experiences, such as the delights of pleasure gardens,
bazaars, and amusement parks. In the world economy today, services might be
growing faster than goods, but that does not mean the number of containers is
declining—far from it. And, of course, the
service economy is not virtual, and requires material resources too. In France
in 2014, people drove 32 billion miles to do their shopping—that involves a lot of rubber, tarmac, and gas. Digital
computing and WiFi absorb a growing share of electricity. Sharing platforms
like Airbnb have likely increased frequent travel and flights, not reduced
them.
Moreover, people may say they
feel overwhelmed or depressed by their possessions but in most cases this has
not converted them to living more simply. Nor is this a peculiarly American or
Anglo-Saxon problem. In 2011, the people of Stockholm bought three times more
clothing and appliances than they did 20 years earlier.
How—indeed whether—consumers can adapt to a world of climate change remains
the big question for the 21st century. In 1900, many reformers looked for
answers to questions about social reform, social responsibility, and consumer
representation. Climate change is its own monumental challenge, but there may
be lessons that can be learned from that earlier history of the consumer.
Consumers were identified as important players in tackling social blight and
economic injustice. As buyers, they had some influence over what was produced,
its quality as well as quantity. Organizing their interests added an important
voice to the arena of public politics. These remain valuable insights:
Consumers may not hold the answers for everything, but that does not mean they
should be treated as merely individual shoppers in the market.
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