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L5, Consumption within the history of economic and social thought

Q: What was according to Weber the the determining force in consumption?

Religion (protestant asceticism) prevented people from consuming since they could not justify their purchases against God. So religion determined people’s minds and behaviours alike, modifying materialistic thought.

53 important questions on L5, Consumption within the history of economic and social thought

What was according to Weber the the determining force in consumption?

Religion (protestant asceticism) prevented people from consuming since they could not justify their purchases against God. So religion determined people’s minds and behaviours alike, modifying materialistic thought.

What did Abraham Maslow use as a mechanism for consumer behavior or consumption choice?

He argued that the more affluent societies become, the stronger people’s degrees of freedom to satisfy their desires + the more relative, manipulative and open the fulfillment of an individual’s higher needs. He conceptualized the pyramid of needs:

- First level of the pyramid: food, shelter, sleep and sex
- Second level: safety & stability, system or rules, laws and boundaries
- Third level: respects, accepted, values by others
- Fourth level: appreciation and esteem
- Fifth level: self-actualization, the desire to grow personally

Explain ''the division of labour and money in society'', which is a main point of Marx' capitalism.

The division of labour and money in the market is that way because capitalist own the means of production. When you work in a capitalist system you have to obey the law, otherwise you can’t keep up with the capitalist.

Explain ''accumulation of capital'' (commodity fetishism), which is one of the main points of Marx's capitalism.

Capitalism is about the formation and continuous increase of capital as an end itself. Labourers create value and thus capital, however capital is often considered as concealed labour since it is often not visible who or how it has been created > labourers are obscured from the final product = commodity fetishism.

Explain ''relation of dominance and dependency between workers and capitalists'', which is one of the key points of Marx' capitalism.

Both sides need each other by an exchange relationship that is build of dominance and dependency (‘enabled exploitation of workers’). The capitalist need the working class to keep the system working, but the labourers also don’t own means of production so the exchange relationship shows that they don’t work without each other.

What happens when innovation drives the economy to new needs? (Schumpeter)

The new needs may destroy the old; creative destruction (e.g. uber and yellow taxi). Without creative destruction you do not have capitalist development according to Schumpeter.

Innovation also leads to ambitious people in leadership positions.

Explain ''dissolves everything traditional'', which is one of the key points of Marx' capitalism.

He is afraid that capitalism dissolves everything traditional and will spread out even in non-economic areas. This will shape society, culture and politics.

What is innovation according to Schumpeter?

It is the mechanism by which the economy changed characterised by the production of something new out of a combination of elements, resources and opportunities.

Innovation drives economy and this means that it drives us to new needs.

What is described with Schumpeter’s theory of the business cycle?

Innovation triggers growth and waves of expansion, which will eventually lose its importance as many other join. A new innovation is asked for and the cycle starts again.

What is one of the most important aspects about innovation according to Schumpeter?

Credit. Innovative entrepreneurs need credit/capital to fulfil ideas. It is contracted as debt.

What are common grounds between Schumpeter and Marx and on what point do they differ about capitalism?

Schumpeter is not as negative as Marx, but both think that capitalism’s expansion in other spheres of life would cause its downfall. Eventually capitalism will decline and destroy things it has made possible > capitalism will destroy itself by itself.

What is problematic about staged authenticity? Like fake slums

It is commodification, not realistic and there is no difference between fake or real which means we deny the real reality or sometimes forget that there are actually people in these bad situations.

What is an important distinction made by Cohen when defining leisure?

The distinction between the ‘centre’ and the ‘centre-out-there’.

The centre is our everyday life and the centre-out-there is a point situated outside the home environment culture. When one moves from one mode of experience to another, one could gradually move away from the centre and to the centre-out-there.

Why does one want to shift more from font-familyfont-sizethe centre to font-familyfont-sizethe centre-out- there?

1 alienation from everyday life: not satisfied and wanting to escape things

2 interest in the Other

Marx: what are 3 arguments as to why and how production produces consumption?

1 by creating the material for it (:object)

2 by determining the manner of consumption (:manner)

3 by creating the products in the form of a need by the consumer (:motive)

>> production produces the object, manner and motive of consumption.

Marx: What are contextual determinants of consumption? And what is their effect?

Time and space. The relationship between production and consumption is always dependent upon the concrete conditions of time and space. Consumption is therefore always changing historically.

What is described by staged authenticity?

Locals use particular markers of authenticity to commodify their culture as such and make money. The locals are active agents who commodify consumer culture by performing ‘exotic Otherness’ to sell to tourists. They are not only passive victims of tourism. (fake slums, native tribes)

What are the several stages of Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid?

Stage 1: physiological and biological needs
Stage 2: safety and stability
Stage 3: social - sense of belonging, respect and value radiated by others
Stage 4: appreciation and esteem
Stage 5: self-actualisation

When do people search for authenticity and when not?

This has to do with staying in the environmental bubble; degree to which a tourist exposes himself to the strangeness of the host society. People search for authentic experiences to break out of this bubble, which happens in later modes of experiences. Staying in? Then you want to retain familiarity and avoid strangeness.

What is the difference between front stage and back stage?

In the front stage we know we are being watched and act accordingly (to impress). We follow rules in the stage, behaviour is appropriate to norms and expectations, following a particular social script and routinized. (Emotional labour and management)

These could be seen as commodity fetishism since all kinds of practices that make your experience somewhere are obscured e.g. housekeeping.

In the back stage we know no one is watching which frees us from expectations and rules. This is the moment we prepare ourselves for front stages.

What is mostly associated with Karl Marx (also in relation to consumption)?

Karl Marx is associated with a form of crude materialism that represents “material being determines consciousness”. According to this, cultural phenomena like consumption could be regarded as a reflex of the material situation of society.

In what two senses does consumption generate production, according to Marx?

1 twofold consumption: the individual not only develops his abilities in production but also expands them and uses them up

2 consumption of the means of production, which eventually wear out

What are two arguments as to why and how consumption effects production? (n Marx' perspective)

1 a product becomes a real product only by being consumed (= its main function; being used)

2 consumption creates the need for new production

How is the hierarchy of needs pyramid related to the organization and direction of consumption?

All needs above the basic needs are socially constructed. Their significance is defined by society and thus they cannot be classified as right or wrong.

What is a contrasting view on consumption in society by Marx?

He says that production does not seem to be the sole basis of society, but society rather is organised form a “circular flow” perspective.

What is described with “the lonely crowd”? (Riesman, Glazer, Denney)

The lonely crowd describes the change in human character from self-disciplined, self-motivated individuals to actors whose (re)actions are determined by social pressure. These changes are caused by variations in basic conditions that influence an individuals life.

How could one describe a society with Marx' circular flow perspective?

Close interrelations exist between the spheres of societal production and societal consumption. The principle is; no consumption exists without production and no production exist without consumption.

Why has food not been prioritized when considering tourists?

Tourism theorists have taken a sightseer as the prototype for tourists, which led to the prioritization of attractions as main focus in sociology of tourism.

What did Bell mean with new capitalism?

In this new form consuming seems to be even more important than producing. Means of consumption and their presentation are a mirror of society.

What is a physical contrast concerning vision and taste?

Vision involves rarely bodily involvement and risk to the body is low. Contrastingly, activities mediated by taste involve the body directly and pose potential risk.

What is the difference between blue-collar workers and white-collar workers?

The blue-collar worker is perceived to make less than the white-collar worker. The white-collar worker might work behind a desk in the service industry, while the blue-collar worker gets their hands dirty doing manual labour or working in a division of manufacturing.

What do tourists need in order to enjoy their experience?

They need a degree of familiarity in the form of an “environmental bubble” of their home environment.

What is Fischler’s distinction in tendencies of taste?

A distinction between neophobic and neophylic tendencies. They either dislike/fear unfamiliar food or they tend to search for novel/strange food.

Experiential vs recreational tourists

What is one of the reasons eating unfamiliar food will make neophobic tendencies more prominent?

Eating involves actual bodily involvement with the unfamiliar environment, which may appear eating as more threatening and involving greater risk than most other kinds of contact with the environment.

Describe three historical stages that can be seen as a type of behaviour conformity. (Riesman et al)

1: character was based on individual orientation towards values which were adopted from older generations and which symbolized general goals like wealth, fame and power.

2: focuses its meaning of life most on leisure, entertainment and pleasure. Try to meet social requirements and adapt to role expectations. Consumption becomes the basis of the social meaning of life.

3: consumption becomes social meaning of life

What are the 2 ways local food could be viewed by tourists?

As an attraction or as an obstruction/impediment; it is difficult to produce nutritious, accessible and culturally acceptable food to tourists.

What do Westerners do to get acquainted with former cuisines? And why does this still not work?

They add food from remote cuisines to their life and have plenty of sources of information to learn about other cuisines.

However, previous acquaintance in their own environment will not deal with the actual encounter with the local culinary situation. They do not only face unfamiliar food, but a whole unfamiliar culinary institutional set-up. Contextual features of the local culinary situation may act as impediments to the taste of the food.

What are 3 factors that could act as impediments on tourists that do have neophylic tendencies and want to try?

1 Hygiene and health: the fear of illness. If one gets ill on a trip, various anticipated experiences cannot go through.

2 local eating habits and manners

3 communication gap: difficulty in identifying and ordering dishes

What are reasons for the fact that the presence of ethnic restaurants in the tourist’s country of origin serve a limited significance in the preparation of dealing with the local culinary situation in the the particular restaurant's country of origin?

1 represent only a few cuisines, that have become familiar now

2 not many people use these opportunities to try unfamiliar dishes; don’t go or choose familiar ones.

3 only few tourists have enough cultural capital to try the foods

4 restaurants only feature limited selection of popular dishes

5 ingredients might have been switched

6 adapted taste/recipes to suit preferences of western

What are chains like McDonalds and KFC called and what is their purpose?

Implanted culinary establishments; they are not specifically tourism-oriented but seek to attract the younger set of locals, but they also serve as convenient environmental bubbles for foreign tourists seeking familiar food.

What do tourism-oriented culinary establishments do?

They constitute environmental bubbles which are not permeable to local influences. They serve tourists authentic, local food under those environmental conditions that filter out those aspects of the local culinary situation which are repulsive to tourists.

Keeping in mind preparation, presentation and consumption of food.

What did Cohen and Avieli found when it came to health and hygiene and tourists consideration of eating out abroad?

The tourists’ apprehensions regarding the safety of local food at the destination constitute a significant impediment to novel culinary experiences. Even when they do not suffer from neophobia, tourists are often reluctant to eat, or even sample, local food out of health worries or disgust caused by its unhygienic appearance. To this should be added another common impediment: repulsion from the ways foods are consumed locally.

According to Cohen and Avila (2004) what did theorists of tourism assume that was incorrect?

They take the ''sightseer'' as prototype of ''the tourist''. This led to the prioritization of attractions as the principal focus of analysis.

How did local eating habits and table manners influence travelers decisions or tendencies to try new foods?

Eating habits could be thought of as gross, for example eating with your hands in India vs cutlery in the west. Even when not repulsed by local eating habits, tourists may feel intimidated by their unfamiliarity (think about the use of chopsticks!).

It was also found that there often is a communication gap, which leads to travelers not understanding locals or menu's and therefore refraining from (new) local food experiences.

What does the term 'commodity fetishism', coined by Marx, mean?

It refers to the ways that various facets od production are obscured at the final end-point of consumption. A commodity us ''fetishized' when its production process - especially the labour embedded in the process - is invisible to the casual consumer.

Makes us blind to certain issues:
- Exploitation in factories;
- How nature, communities are treated (e.g. Land and water grabbing);
- Health problems (e.g. Childhood obesity)

What is according to Schumpeter the core of capitalist development?

Creative destruction: New means replacing and sometimes destroying the old! Think of Uber replacing normal taxi's, this case not destroying because there still are yellow cabs in NY.

What were Schumpeter's concerns when it comes to capitalisms expansion?

Capitalism’s expansion in other spheres of life would cause its
downfall.

E.g. the social institution of the extended family, long a source
of motivation and energy for capitalist entrepreneurs, was
undermined by instrumental rationality and individualism.

What is the definition of leisure given during the lecture?

Overarching notion: Time, in which we are free of all kinds of duties and tasks. -> breaking routines and stepping out of everyday duties to behave differently for a certain time. In consumption society, time for consumption!

Erik Cohen described leisure by defining modes of experience, shortly explain his view.

He made a distinction between the 'centre' and the 'centre-out-there'.

Where the 'centre' is the environment and values that form thee casualness of the everyday world. And the 'centre-out-there' as an orientation point situated outside the culture of the home environment.

This shift in orientation comes both from an alienation from everyday life as well as from an interest in the other.

What is staged authenticity and what role do the locals play in this?

Staged authenticity - using particular markers of the authentic to commodify particular cultures. -> here locals act as active agents, it is the locals who commodify consumer culture by performing 'otic otherness' to meet the Western preoccupation with the pre-modern!

This is opposite of the commodification of cultural difference, where the locals are seen as passive victims - loss of culture + negative social impacts such as begging, stealing and prostitution. Here you can think of the fake slums video.

What can you tell about the quest for authenticity and the environmental bubble?

People are trying to have 'authentic' experiences. And the environmental bubble can be described as the degree to which a tourist exposes himself to the strangeness of the host society. In other words: Extent to which tourists try to retain familiarity and avoid strangeness during travel. (mostly in experiential, experimental, existential modes)

Enchantment is according to the lecture a key word connecting leisure with consumption, explain this.

Enchantment - being captivated by the beautiful. When one is enchanted he or she is more likely to consume more.

What different measures of enchantment were mentioned during the lecture and how do they affect consumption?

1. Spectacle - increasingly made for, not made by and with people; not an end in itself but stimulus of consumption; ever more spectacular. -> conceals economic rationality: hidden labour - what happens in the front and backstage.

2. Theming - Create setting with certain theme, think of santa's land.

3. Simulation - mimicking a reality to enchant consumers. Statue of Liberty of Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas or China rebuilding Austrian city! for example.
Ever more spectacula

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Lifestyle and consumption

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