The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Politics and Consumer Culture

FAYE LINDA WACHS

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs193

Theories focused on consumer culture are intimately related to politics. The development of consumer culture is necessarily tied to the expansions of industrial and postindustrial capitalism that have included both an expansion of democracy and inhibitions on democratic principles. Consumer culture results from the advent of mass production and global trade and the requisite systemic need for mass consumption (Lury 2011). This shift emerges with the transition, for some, from feudalism to capitalism, and for others, from colonialism to postcolonialism. For the colonizers, the advent of consumer culture coincided with the move to industrial production methods and then eventually postindustrial production. For those in core nations, this shift brought with it a rise in the credo of individualism and the rights of the individual. The movement away from feudal monarchical relations to democratic nation-states, codified in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, laid the groundwork for the development of the modern concept of sovereignty, nation-states, international relations, and multinational corporations. For those in the core, sovereignty, citizenship, and neoliberal business interests came to predominate as political ideals. For those in the periphery, the shift from colonial to postcolonial relationships saw a removal of direct intervention by foreign ...