SOCY 306 Chapter Notes -Private Sphere, Free Range, Ethical Consumer

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Social Sci, Edu and Soc Work - Sociology
• Course: SOCY 306
• Professor: Ryan Martin

Document Summary

Consumers did not arrive with markets, they are made. Consumer identity is contested- by consumer groups, the state, through advertising. Eg environmentalists see consumers as a problem and wasteful. Consumer can have rational choice, or they can imitate others. Luxury- was seen s beyond human needs and also a public good enabling economic growth. Human nature- shift from finite desires to infinite desire (david hume)innocent luxury- things contribute to aesthetics, Blame able luxury- things that didn"t contribute to aesthetics, or improvement. Moral compromise- consumer is rational, but some goods are decent and some are not. Eg consumption of coffee is associated with sobriety. Working lower middle class become consumers of colonial commodities produced by slave labour. Separation between the consumer and goods, goods coming from foreign places. Individualistic materialism- satisfaction of western desires, linked in the public sphere (eg family) The dominant model of consumer behaviour is economic.