Theories on Sociology of Consumption

A detailed Summary of Theories on Sociology of Consumption

As society changes, so too must the theories that are based on that society. Thus, the sociology of consumption just developed in the 1980s with an emphasis on material, mostly mass, culture in advanced Western societies. The proponents of this theory attest that it provides an additional avenue of studying urban society, especially with inequality and political alignments. They believe that sociology has too long been dominated by 19th century issues of classical theorists such as alienation, social class, division of labor and the like. These issues stress production as a source of social meaning and basics of social order or conflict (Marshall 1998, p. 112).

However, individuals such as H.F. Moorehouse stated "It should no longer be possible for analysts to operate with a notion of an alienation based on paid labor pervading all of contemporary life, nor should it be possible to privilege the factory, office, shop or mine as the crucial site of human experience and self understanding, though this is continually done in a lot of sociological and Marxist theorizing" (Marshall 1998, p. 113). In other words, too many sociologists place emphasis on what it is like to work for a car company and too few on what it takes to drive, ow

Feminists have looked at this from another angle, for instance, if social reproduction were studied as work in a productive sense, then the unpaid labor that women do in domestic situations is crucial for wage workers to sell their work in the labor market. If there is no one to clean the house, wash the clothes and take care of the children, who can go out and work? Thus, this new approach of reproductive sociology changed the Marxian ideas of reproduction to include biological reproduction and stress women's important role in both the reproductive and productive areas.

Some believe there's a consumption cleavage in advanced capitalistic societies between the majority of people who provide for consumption requirements through the market and the minority who remain reliant on increasingly inadequate state goods and funding (Marshall 1998, p. 113). The consumption cleavage points to differences in patterns of consumption of goods and services, especially in areas of social life such as housing and medical care. Thorstein Veblen argues that people often buy things as a way to indicate to others that they have a superior or unique status in life. He calls this "conspicuous consumption" (Johnson 1999, p. 60).

It is understood that consumption is required by a society, especially to fulfill basic needs for survival. According to Marx, precapitalistic society involved production of use-values directly for cons

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Laslett Brenner, Thorstein Veblen, According Marx, , HF Moorehouse, Becoming Mother, Women Confined, Ann Oakley, reproduction gender, marshall 1998, social reproduction, 1998 113, involved production, consumption cleavage, class inequality, society especially, becoming mother, marshall 1998 113,

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