SOC 202 Lecture 5: Week 5
5 Jun 2016
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Document Summary
Consumer culture is a stage in the historical development of industrial capitalism. It follows a long history of the production of commodities dating back to the industrial revolution and the replacement of craft-based production in rural communities with the machine-based production in emerging cities. Before mass production, objects were valued according to their use. E. g. boots were valued for protecting feet from the elements. Objects were often consumed or used by the people who produced them. Around the mid-19th century, machines started playing a greater role in the production of commodities. The goal for most industrialists was to maximize productivity of the work force in order to increase the output of products. Through technology, such as the assembly line first used by henry ford to manufacture cars, industrial output increased significantly. This highly mechanized and standardized manner of production became known as fordism.
