Consumer Culture

Consumer Culture focuses on the spending of the customers money on material goods to attain a lifestyle in a capitalist economy. One country that has a large consumer culture is the United States of America. Over the past hundred years, 1900 to 2000, market goods came to dominate American life and for the first time in history, consumerism had no practical limits. Consumer culture has provided affluent societies with peaceful alternatives to tribalism and class war, it has fueled extraordinary economic growth. The challenge for the future is to find ways to revive the still valid portion of the culture of constraint and control the overpowering success of the all-consuming twentieth century. Consumer Culture focuses on the spending of the customers money on material goods to attain a lifestyle in a capitalist economy. One country that has a large consumer culture is the United States of America. Over the past hundred years, 1900 to 2000, market goods came to dominate American life and for the first time in history, consumerism had no practical limits. Consumer culture has provided affluent societies with peaceful alternatives to tribalism and class war, it has fueled extraordinary economic growth. The challenge for the future is to find ways to revive the still valid portion of the culture of constraint and control the overpowering success of the all-consuming twentieth century. According to Berger, 'Social scientists Aaron Wildavsky and Mary Douglas suggest that there are four political cultures, which also function as consumer cultures: hierarchical or elitist, individualist, egalitarian, and fatalist.'