American Consumer Culture and its Society

“Men have become the tools of their tools” (Thoreau, 30) writes the American author, poet and naturalist Henry David Thoreau in Walden, first published in 1854. In his most famous book he reflects upon the simple living in a natural environment. However, the statement above shows what this study is based on; no longer does humanity have the stability to stay over what they used to control. Thoreau’s forward-thinking message follows an underlying concept of ‘consumer culture’ as seen when he argues that “[t]he man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper” (30). What Thoreau depicts is what Karl Marx writes in his monumental work Das Kapital in 1867. Marx revealed that originally most people were both, producers and consumers. However, after the industrial revolution however social relations shifted. Marx analyzed this conflict and defined people into ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’, into those who owned the means of production, and those who worked for them. Taking these statements into account, a perceptible tendency will become apparent. In the case of ‘consumerism’ and its culture I will establish that American economy depends on the consumption of commodities to later examine that American society is overwhelmed by consumer items and therefore becomes a slave of its own product: ‘consumer culture’. Ann Smart Martin from the University of Wisconsin states that the interest in the study of consumerism shifted “from the traditional historical interest in producers (farmers, laborers, makers, factory owners) to consumers (buyers and users)” (Martin 142). This comment refers to a change from a Marxist “disinterest in bourgeois and nonutilitarian goods and services” (142) to a study of market segments and the interest back to the individual.

In general, one can speak of a culture whenever one talks about a society as an agent or as having an intention. When talking about culture or consumer culture it is important to understand that I am not referring to everyone in the given society. I am not saying that everyone shares the same values, ideologies and understanding of the discussed content. In the following paragraphs I will show that culture refers to values people can reject but mostly at a price. In addition, I will show that ‘consumption’ is a central value in ‘consumer culture’.