Consumer society

A society in which purchasing and using consumer goods play central economic and cultural roles. Consumption shapes production, everyday life, and expressions of identity.

Mass production: The manufacture of large quantities of standardized goods using organized labor and machinery. Lower unit costs and abundant goods make widespread consumer purchasing possible.
Industrial Revolution: A period of major economic and technological change beginning in Britain in the late eighteenth century. Industrial production created the capacity for markets in goods at unprecedented scale.
Thorstein Veblen: An American economist and sociologist who analyzed status competition and conspicuous consumption. His account of status-seeking made display through purchases a central social mechanism.
Conspicuous consumption: The purchase or display of goods to signal wealth or social status. It shows how buying can communicate rank beyond a product's practical use.
Advertising: Paid communication designed to promote products, services, or ideas. It creates demand and attaches meanings and identities to goods.
Department store: A large retail store organized into departments selling a wide range of goods. Nineteenth-century department stores made shopping a public spectacle and leisure activity.
Theodor W. Adorno: A German philosopher and sociologist associated with the Frankfurt School and its critique of mass culture. He argued that commercial culture standardizes entertainment and shapes consumer desires.
Consumer identity: The formation and expression of personal or social identity through consumption choices. Brands and goods can become materials for presenting a sense of self.
Consumer credit: Loans and deferred-payment arrangements that let people buy goods before paying their full cost. Credit brings purchases forward and expands access to durable goods.
Fordism: A system of mass production and consumption associated with standardized goods, assembly lines, and relatively high wages. Its production model linked factory output to workers' purchasing power.

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