CMNS 110 Chapter Notes - Chapter 21: Commodity Fetishism, Imitation, Consumer Capitalism

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Communication
• Course: CMNS 110
• Professor: Gary Mc Carron

Document Summary

You are what you buy: theories of the consumer. Marx observed that consumer capitalism depended great deal on importation of foreign. Often economists equate consumption w/ indiv purchases & have no real understanding of who consumer actually is. Become aggregate, hypothetical figure in imaginations of economists. Consumer - argues for significance of consumption in everyday life & moves from economic to symbolic explanations of consumer behaviour. By outlining theories of consumer in economics, chapter acknowledges importance of consumer & commodity in global political economy. Acts of consumption in late capitalism related to everyday life through eyes of consumer. Looking at concrete experiences of consumption & asking what kinds of things motivating our decisions to buy. Motivations seen as sacrosanct/encouraged/reproduced by mass media. Looking at both consumer & object in this way can highly important distinction b/w consumption & consumerism. Consumption - not simply serious of indiv acts of purchasing.