Consumer society: The developed phase of industrial society

By Prof Dr. Sohail Ansari

Conceived and worded by Prof DR Sohail Ansari (originality of concepts and originality of words).

He believes that there can never be a zero scope for improvement and appreciates criticism if it is not for the sake of criticism.

The developed phase of the market-industrial society is the consumer society.  The dramatic rise in real incomes freed most individuals in the consumer society from concentrating on the bare necessities of life. Freedom from concentrating on the bare necessities of life; rise in discretionary spending, and leisure time led to other ‘freedoms’:

(a)        Freedom to think about issues other than bread and butter.

(b)        Freedom to pursue human wants not directly tied to basic necessities.

These freedoms developed new expectations in people. Newly found independence asserted in readiness to endorse anyone who could prove to be capable in effecting meaningful change in the quality of life by matching up to these new expectations.

‘Gradually the older patterns of life and culture fell apart. The unity and continuity of daily life in village settlements could not be sustained amid increasing urbanization, especially when workplace, domicile, and commerce were separated. And the highly restrictive codes of personal behavior shaped by the closed worlds of religious values and distinct ethnic communities could not survive the more subtle blows of industrialism: the cultural relativism resulting from the quick amalgamation of so many different groups; the erosion of the economic function of the extended family; and the drawing of a new type of leisure time highly individualized in nature and no longer bound to the traditional collective forms of popular entertainment or domestic routine”(1).

In the new basis of civilization lay expansion not renunciation of consumption. From the culture of consumption “emerged a new type of personality and ‘social self’ based on individuality. Gradually set loose from restrictive behavior codes by the crumbling of older cultures that measured persons against fixed standards of achievement and moral worth, this new social self was set against an open-ended scale of success set to whatever criteria happened to be applicable at the time”(2).            

In early twentieth century older extended family and ethnic community bonds were unraveling; urbanization and the personal anonymity it confers were proceeding apace. Tendency to other-directedness inevitably arose as the consequence of the dominants characteristics of this new social milieu in which entirely new social framework for need satisfaction specifically tailored to a market orientated society was constructed by consumer culture.    

Every component of political communication is superfluous in societies of ‘inner-directed’ characters but the shift to the ‘other-directed’ characters as the predominant character type in modern society paved the way for political communication. The restraint on worldly desires preached for so long made less and less sense as the factory system’s astonishing productive capacities became apparent. People needed more and more money to buy ever widening array of goods. They needed good jobs; conducive environment for business and security for their wealth. . Political communication was born based on the realization that individuals required help in learning how to find right leader who could help satisfy ever changing needs.

Ads of political marketing and political advertising; political debates; political rhetoric and oratory began invariably featuring all those concerns along with the pledge to address them. With the transition from industrial culture to consumer culture; the function of older cultural traditions in shaping perception of led for leader was taken over by media-based messages through which circulated a great assortment of cues and image about the relationship between leaders and expectation of people.                                                                         

In other words, through messages about manifestoes and their possible meanings for an individuals, parties gradually absorbed the functions of cultural traditions in providing guideposts for social/cultural identity_ telling one ‘who one is’ and ‘where one should belong’ was no longer  associated with ethnic identity of leader and led.

1          Leiss, Kline, Jhally “Advertising” United Kingdom, Routledge, 1990, P54

2          Diener, ‘Subjective well Being’, Toronto, MIT Press, 2002,  P57