Table of Contents
1 Cover
6 1 The Meanings of Consumption What Are We Talking About? Consumption and Political Economy Competing Themes in the History of Consumption The Rest of the Book
7 2 An Aspiration for All the World: Championing Individual Freedom of Choice Introduction From Classical to Neoclassical Economics: Consumers as Rational Maximizers Friendly Amendments: Alterations to the Theory with Similar Implications Conclusion
8 3 The System: Capitalist Consumerism Introduction Capitalist Commodity Production: Naming the System Commodity Fetishism Consumption and Jobs The Evolution of Capitalist Commodity Consumption in the US after World War II Conclusion
9 4 Private Choices, Social Problems Introduction What You Don’t Know Might Hurt You: Information Asymmetry You’re Not as Clever as You Think: Behavioural Economics Relative Consumption Created Wants The Androcentric Consumer Conclusion
10 5 The Shopocalypse? “Ten Ways to Reduce Your Impact” Blindfolded Bloated: The Problem of Scale Embedded Consumption and the Limits of Consumer Environmentalism Conclusion: Consumption as Ecological Practice Note
11 6 Consumption, Power and Liberation Class and Consumption Consumers of the World, Express Yourselves! Consumption and Gender
12 7 Shopping Police Shopping as Power Easy on the Surface, Hard Underneath Terror of the CEO? Saviour of the Worker, Farmer or Forest? Too Much to Bear: The Trials and Tribulations of a Label The Commodification of Politics? Conclusion
13 References
14 Index
List of Illustrations
2 Chapter 5Figure 5.1 World domestic material consumption, 1970–2017, by material groupFigure 5.2 This is your mobile phoneFigure 5.3 Marine cargo and tanker traffic, 23 May 2019
3 Chapter 7Figure 7.1 Anti-slavery consumer labels, 1820 and 2019Figure 7.2 Malling is a thing: as malls suffer in many places due to the rise of online sho...
Guide
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2 Table of Contents
Pages
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