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• Second, luxury consumption was important for its social meaning. No longer was consumption tied to subsistence or specific religious ceremonies; rather, consumption was part of the creation of an individual identity, a phenomenon still present in many parts of the world (Slater 1997; Sassatelli 2007; Lury 2011; McKendrick et al. 1982; Mintz 1985; B...
• With this discussion in mind, we now turn to the rise of “mass consumption” in the nineteenth century. As employment shifted from farming to industrial wage labor for much of the population, and as industrial and transport technologies advanced, Europe and the U.S. experienced a massive expansion in the availability of factory-made goods. In an eff...
• As noted in the previous chapter, several authors argue that post-World War II consumption was increasingly standardized across social groups in countries such as the U.S., France, Germany, and Japan. We can find illustrations of this view in the prototype of the American suburban subdivision with similar houses, a homogeneous white, middle-class p...
• fashion. In the U.S., since the early 1980s, an important segment of the middle classes has moved back from the suburbs to cities in search of an “authentic” experience or more “diversity” than might be found in the suburbs.
• One explanation of these changes looks to the 1960s counterculture. Hippies and other members of the youth counterculture in the Global North challenged the styles and attitudes associated with standardized mass consumption of the postwar era. While their penchant for used, inexpensive, and craft goods might suggest that hippies had an anti-consump...