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Outline the argument that a consumer society makes and remakes inequality

A consumer society is an argument brought forward by sociologists, for example Bauman (1988), that indicates that societies in many western countries, such as the United Kingdom, have seen a shift from being an industrial based society to being a consumer based society that drives self-value and self-identity from the consumption of products and services and the conations to which are attributed to them. However, through consumption inequality can be made within western societies in the form of accessibility to products, the exploitation of individuals who provide the services or in the in the production of the products in third world countries. Through the continual need for consumption inequality is remade repeatedly to facilitate the wants of others.

One’s ability to obtain and use products and services varies depending on many factors, but primarily economic or geographic factors. For example, the impoverished, working class may not have the same accessibility that the middle or high class members of society have due to their wealth. Bauman argued that consumption of products and services offers the sense of membership within a consumer society or a form of self-expression and without the ability to partake in consumption individuals can be excluded from society. Bauman’s argument lends itself to the theory of the Zero-sum game coined by Wrong (1997). It could be argued that a consumer society in its essence must make losses for one section of society for the gains of another, at least in a capitalist model, to remain profitable for corporations to continue producing products and services at widely affordable rates.  

For example, the zero-sum game could be argued in the production of products such as clothing and food. To make products accessible to a wider market via the reduction of the cost of a product to a consumer, companies may outsource the manufacturing to countries with a significantly lower minimum wage than the countries that they sell within. The charity War on Want published evidence (2006) to support that the wages payed to the out-sourced manufacture workers of Bangladesh are payed below the living wage. Due to geographical circumstances, individuals in Bangladesh and other third world countries are exploited in comparison to the western counterparts due to the latter’s want for consumption of the products. Furthermore, workers in third world countries are not only financially exploited but also in terms of poor working conditions as described in Dying for a bargain (The Open University, 2016).  Marion Young (2003) argues that within a capitalist, consumer based society, consumers are inherently intertwined with a system that makes inequality in other regions of the world, that a consumer society makes itself at the expense of another, where one can reap the benefits of the productions of goods that the other manufactures.

However, without access to cheap labour many products would increase in cost and become potentially financially inviable to some consumers. In turn the availability of products diminishing one’s choice is deprived to a certain extent and some consumers are forced to choose lower-priced products of potential unequal quality or to not be able to buy the product at all. With Bauman’s argument of self-identity from consumption, this would remove a key factor of one’s self-perception within a consumer society. Alternatively, the zero-sum game can be evidenced by Ryan Watkins from Making Lives who due to his economic situation has his choices constrained on what is consider a necessity, food. Whilst through the welfare system he is provided the ‘product’ he is not allowed through financial constraints to self-express, whereas another individual can use such necessities to make ethical decisions as a form of self-expression, such as supporting local business or purchasing fair-trade products at a higher cost. Not only can individuals use consumption of products to make ethical purchases but by the mass production of products can allow for previously unattainable products to be a financially viable option for consumers, for example mobile phones which in the 1980’s where items of luxury and unavailable to many consumers’ bar wealthy bankers and businessmen. Mobile phones are now common place in our society and between brands such as Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy which can be seen as an extension of one’s self, some may define themselves as ether an Android user or iPhone user. It could be argued that through the consumption of products, even necessities, individuals can benefit from their economic situation to extend their self-identity and in return reciprocate back to society either in the form of ethical consumption or through economically through the tax on their purchases resulting in a positive-sum game.

Karl Marx (1844) argued that in an industrial society where the bourgeoisie control the means of production the proletarians labour is exploited. Marx’s argument can be applied to a consumer society, whether through the employment within the service industry in places like the United Kingdom or through the products that an individual may buy with their wages. Through further deindustrialization in the post-war United Kingdom, a study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016), shows the United Kingdom had the largest fall proportionately in comparison to other advanced economies in the G7 for the number of people employed within the manufacturing sector. By the 1970’s manufacturing, mining and quarrying sectors comprised 26.4% and by 2015 it was at 8.1%, whereas in the same time frame the services industry grew from 62.3% to 83.1%. However, the service industry also utilities zero-hour contracts and many of the contracts have stipulations that an employee must work when required but the company is not obliged to offer a minimum number of working hours. A report by the House of Commons (2013) estimated that in 2011, 19% of the service industry utilised zero-hour contracts. Marx’s argument of the exploitation of the proletarians can be argued for the service industry within a consumer society. A society that relies on the industry for not only self-expression but for social activities must require a large proportion of the workforce dedicated to the sector but in turn the companies, much like the clothing and food manufactures, must remain profitable and thus operate flexibly based on supply and demand for services. Inequality is created in the form of workers’ inability to achieve sustained, reliable work in return for the consumption of services by consumers.

Quantifying the level of inequality created by consumerism to the benefits and opportunities for self-expression from easily accessible services and products depends on many variables, including the value one attributes to consumption. If we consider ourselves a global society, then invariably per Bauman’s argument of the zero-sum game then inequality is made and remade consistently and continually at the expense of individuals. If we view ourselves as a society by geographic limits, it could be argued that in favour of the majority, consumerism allows those who have the financial means to access products and services that without forms of exploitation would not be finically viable otherwise. In a geographically-limited society inequality is still made and remade however, for the improvised members of our society the limitations of self-identity via product selection and inclusion in social activities that incur consumption can create disconnections to other parts of society for an individual through external, uncontrolled factors.

Score = 72%

Modules results are sometimes issued on a graded basis, consisting of pass grades 1 (threshold 85%,a distinction), 2 (70–84%), 3 (55–69%) & 4 (40–54%), and fail (below 40%). This grade is calculated as the lower of the overall continuous assessment score (OCAS) and overall examination score (OES).

References:

Bauman, Z. (1988) Freedom, Milton Keynes, Open University Press

MARX, K., ENGELS, F., MOORE, S., & MCLELLAN, D. (1992). The Communist manifesto. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Pyper.D and Harari.D (2013) Zero Hour Contracts, House of Commons Report. Available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/contractsthatdonotguaranteeaminimumnumberofhours/september2016 (2017)

The Open University (2016) Dying for a bargin [Video] DD102 Introducing the social sciences. Available at https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=855408&section=6 (2017)

War on Want (2006) Fashion Victims: The True Cost of Cheap Clothes at Primark, Asda and Tesco, London, War on Want.

Wrong, D. (1997) Power: Its Forms, Bases and Uses, New Brunswick, NJ, and London, Transaction Publishers

Young, I.M. (2003) ‘From guilt to solidarity: sweatshops and political responsibility’, Dissent, Spring, pp. 39-44.