Hou Dongmei: The Theoretical Landscape of Western Consumer Culture

Consumer culture theory is a vital component of Western Marxist social critical theory and is one of the important theoretical resources for the contemporary development of Marxism. Clarifying the theoretical evolution of Western Marxist research on consumer culture and mapping its theoretical landscape helps promote the contemporary development of Marxist consumer culture theory. Furthermore, it assists in reflecting upon and critiquing practical issues in the contemporary sphere of consumption, thereby guiding the construction of a consumer civilization for the New Era.

The emergence of Western Marxist consumer culture theory has a profound theoretical foundation. First, the most important theoretical perspective and the most direct theoretical starting point derive from Marx and Engels. The theory of ideology and the theory of alienation proposed by Marx and Engels became the theoretical pillars for the critique of consumer culture, while Marx’s concepts of commodity fetishism and his discussion on the importance of consumption provided a perspectival reference for this critique. Second, Lukács’s theory of "reification" and Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony opened new horizons for cultural critique. Simultaneously, as Western societies gradually entered the era of the consumer society, economic Keynesianism gradually replaced the Protestant ethic, and capital accumulation shifted toward capital expansion. Consumption became the primary driving force for the development of capital, and the alienation of production gradually extended into the sphere of consumption. These new changes in the social life of capitalism continuously impelled the deepening of cultural critical theory, guiding the focus of critical theory from the sphere of production to the sphere of consumption, and shifting the critical trajectory from a macro-historical perspective to the perspective of everyday life. Western Marxist research on consumer culture presents diverse theoretical approaches.

First is the critical trajectory of consumer culture that combines the critique of mass culture with the critique of technology. In their critique of the culture industry, Horkheimer and Adorno pointed out that the culture industry refers not only to culture being brought into the orbit of industrialization and following the logic of rationalization, but also to culture becoming a commodity that follows the logic of the market economy. Cultural commodities replace pure use-value with pure exchange-value, seducing consumers with illusions of happiness, pleasure, and success created by exchange-value. Consequently, a universal change in order occurs in the world of commodities: consumption shifts from use-value to exchange-value. Through this change, capitalist society creates an overall social atmosphere of fetishism, anchoring human happiness and value to the consumption of exchange-values. The human being becomes a mere link in the continuation of the industrial production chain; human creativity, subjectivity, and individual emotions vanish entirely. People immerse themselves in pleasure and refuse to reflect, identifying more strongly with the existing social order.

Second is the critical trajectory of consumer culture combined with the critique of ideology. Marcuse explicitly termed developed industrial society a "consumer society," arguing that consumer culture has become a new form of social control. In a consumer society, ideology has not disappeared but rather exhibits new characteristics. Here, a commodity is not merely a material product; it also contains the ideology and values of the current ruling class and encompasses a social cultural background. To choose and purchase a commodity is simultaneously to accept the concepts contained within it. When these concepts are accepted by the majority, commodity consumption enforces an ideological way of life. To generate profit, capitalism imposes manufactured "false needs" on people and creates an image of a happy and free life which, fueled by the mass media, penetrates people's hearts in the form of commodity consumption. Immersed in abundant material life and illusory happiness, people entirely lose their capacity for reflection and critique as independent thinking individuals, becoming "one-dimensional" consuming persons.

Third is the critical trajectory of consumer culture combined with psychoanalysis. From the brand-new perspective of psychoanalysis, Fromm further explained the phenomenon of alienation in the sphere of consumption and its roots. He argued that alienated consumption is the essence of consumption in developed industrial societies, and that unhealthy psychological mechanisms and character structures are the internal causes of this alienated consumption. Alienation is not only a social state but also a psychological state. As human power has gradually grown, humanity has broken free from the external world that once bound it; however, the meaning of life and sense of security that originally relied on that external world have also been lost. Accompanied by this independence, individuals become increasingly alienated from nature and others, growing lonelier and feeling forced to choose the "escape from freedom" and the loss of self to seek tranquility. The strategy of conformity in the sphere of consumption reflects this point: in the process of consumption, consumers seek fashion through continuous imitation. Through consumption, they avoid developing aesthetics or tastes different from those of the masses, integrating into the group through a conformist mode of consumption. Consumption becomes a way of existence for many consumers to avoid loneliness; however, the consumption of objects is fundamentally a mode of possession, and under the continuous drive of desire, possession is limitless. The volatility of consumer trends fully illustrates this. Possession through consumption cannot form a healthy human nature; the human spirit remains in a state of perpetual deprivation.

Fourth is the theoretical trajectory of consumer culture from the perspective of cultural construction. Unlike the scholars of the Frankfurt School, Fiske places more emphasis on the dynamic significance of cultural struggle. He believes that struggle implies not only hegemony but also the significance of "reverse construction." On the one hand, mass consumers are not entirely one-dimensional; they still possess subjectivity. While the dominant ideology promoted by consumer culture is externally imposed, consumers are not purely passive recipients; rather, they respond by adopting different strategies. The fluidity, variability, and agency of the consuming masses provide the possibility for resisting the unilateral encroachment of consumer culture. Consumers may evade, resist, or even reconstruct the dominant ideology embedded in commodities. On the other hand, ideology is not completely unified, and interests within the ruling class are not entirely consistent. Not every commodity will carry the dominant ideology to the end. Driven by the profit-seeking nature of capital, producers will actively permeate commodities with ideology when ideological strategies aid sales; however, when such strategies do not help or even hinder sales, producers will not employ them. This leaves "blank spots" in the generation of commodity signs, providing the possibility for consumers’ reverse decoding and construction.

Fifth is the semiotic critical trajectory of consumer culture. In his early work, Baudrillard used semiotic methods combined with Marxist political economy to study the whole of consumer society. He argued that consumption is an active mode of relation; through objects, people establish relationships with others, collectives, and society. Consumption is a comprehensive response to society, and it is in the construction of these relationships that the cultural system is established. Commodities are signs within a system; to consume a commodity is not to consume its materiality, but its "difference." Thus, consumption is actually an activity manipulated by a sign system. He further critiqued the ideology of consumer society: the culture formed by consumer society shifts social-political democracy, equality, and happiness into the sphere of consumption. Once people have consumed, they mistakenly believe they have obtained the message conveyed behind the commodity sign. To pursue individualization and social recognition, people constantly chase commodity signs within the entire "system of objects," integrating into the society’s "system of objects" such that the ideology of consumer society silently controls the consumer. In his later period, Baudrillard saw the significant influence of the media on consumer society; the media intensified the control and dissemination of the sign system and determined the way people perceive the world. Based on this, he asserted that the whole of society had become a society of signs, subsequently abandoning the Marxist method of political economy in favor of semiotic analysis and post-structuralist methods.

Consumer society is an unavoidable historical reality of the contemporary era, and a spirit of profound critique toward consumer society has consistently run through the theories of Western Marxists. After Baudrillard, many Western Marxist scholars, such as Bauman and Lefebvre, reflected upon and critiqued consumption as a mechanism of social domestication. However, due to their lack of a historical materialist standpoint, their theoretical solutions manifested as a weak form of elitism. In essence, whether it is Marx’s critique of the logic of material production or the Western Marxist scholars’ critique of the logic of consumption, the substance is a critique of the logic of capital, and the solution must be the fundamental transformation of the relations of production. By abandoning the method of the critique of political economy and placing their hopes in aesthetic utopias or the self-awakening of a few individuals, Western Marxist scholars inevitably lack the theoretical courage to change the world because they have lost the realistic power of critique.