Consumption in the Age of Affluence
Consumption in the Age of Affluence

Author: Ben Fine

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-03-11

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1134779062

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With growing affluence in the developed world, food has become an increasing focus for attention. Here, the authors argue that in order to understand the extensive and dramatic developments in the world of food, a new interdisciplinary approach is necessary. The Age of Affluence successfully addresses food consumption in this way. The volume: * argues the importance of socioeconomic and cultural factors over diet, in influencing the production, marketing and consumption of different groups of foods; * places food systems theory on sound analytical foundations; * draws critically upon food systems literature; * includes case studies from the sugar, dairy and meat systems; * employs novel statistical techniques to identify and explain distinct patterns of food consumption; The book will help to revitalize the discipline of food studies and points the way forward for the continuing study of food consumption. As such, it will be invaluable to students, researchers and policymakers engaged in the world of food.

Mass Affluence
Mass Affluence

Author: Paul Nunes

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9781591391968

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first book to explain how the fundamentals of marketing strategy must change in response to this broad-based increase in wealth The authors specifically addresses how to fine tune a mass marketing approach that captures the value created from greater consumer affluence. After years of expensive and largely ineffective attempts at one-to-one marketing and other complex varieties of microsegmentation, the business environment is ripe for a switch back to the relative simplicity of a mass marketing mindset Flouts conventional wisdom: the authors in-depth research uncovered that today's moneyed masses are completely different than the mass market of decades past in terms of how much they have to spend and what they are willing to spend it on. Reveals the mass marketing strategies a range of companies have already successfully used to hit pay dirt with products ranging from oral care to laundry detergent to exotic automobiles.

An Affluent Society?
An Affluent Society?

Author: Lawrence Black

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-28

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1351959174

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

During an election speech in 1957 the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, famously remarked that 'most of our people have never had it so good'. Although taken out of context, this phrase soon came to epitomize the sense of increased affluence and social progress that was prevalent in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. Yet, despite the recognition that Britain had moved away from an era of rationing and scarcity, to a new age of choice and plenty, there was simultaneously a parallel feeling that the nation was in decline and being economically outstripped by its international competitors. Whilst the study of Britain's postwar history is a well-trodden path, and the paradox of absolute growth versus relative decline much debated, it is here approached in a fresh and rewarding way. Rather than highlighting economic and industrial 'decline', this volume emphasizes the tremendous impact of rising affluence and consumerism on British society. It explores various expressions of affluence: new consumer goods; shifting social and cultural values; changes in popular expectations of policy; shifting popular political behaviour; changing attitudes of politicians towards the electorate; and the representation of affluence in popular culture and advertising. By focusing on the widespread cultural consequences of increasing levels of consumerism, emphasizing growth over decline and recognizing the rising standards of living enjoyed by most Britons, a new and intriguing window is opened on the complexities of this 'golden age'. Contrasting growing consumer expectations and demands against the anxieties of politicians and economists, this book offers all students of the period a new perspective from which to view post-imperial Britain and to question many conventional historical assumptions.

A Consumers' Republic
A Consumers' Republic

Author: Lizabeth Cohen

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2008-12-24

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0307555364

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this signal work of history, Bancroft Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lizabeth Cohen shows how the pursuit of prosperity after World War II fueled our pervasive consumer mentality and transformed American life. Trumpeted as a means to promote the general welfare, mass consumption quickly outgrew its economic objectives and became synonymous with patriotism, social equality, and the American Dream. Material goods came to embody the promise of America, and the power of consumers to purchase everything from vacuum cleaners to convertibles gave rise to the power of citizens to purchase political influence and effect social change. Yet despite undeniable successes and unprecedented affluence, mass consumption also fostered economic inequality and the fracturing of society along gender, class, and racial lines. In charting the complex legacy of our “Consumers’ Republic” Lizabeth Cohen has written a bold, encompassing, and profoundly influential book.

How Much is Enough?
How Much is Enough?

Author: Alan Thein Durning

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780393308914

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

It discusses the use of resources, pollution, and the distortions created in the economies of both wealthy industrialized nations and Third World countries.

The Challenge of Affluence
The Challenge of Affluence

Author: Avner Offer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2006-03-09

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 0198208537

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have experienced rising material abundance, but also a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, obesity and addiction. Drawing on the latest cognitive research, Avner Offer presents a detailed and reasoned critique of the modern consumer society.

The Consumer Society
The Consumer Society

Author: Neva R. Goodwin

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2013-04-16

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 1597267902

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The developed countries, particularly the United States, consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources, yet high and rising levels of consumption do not necessarily lead to greater satisfaction, security, or well-being, even for affluent consumers. The Consumer Society provides brief summaries of the most important and influential writings on the environmental, moral, and social implications of a consumer society and consumer lifestyles. Each section consists of ten to twelve summaries of critical writings in a specific area, with an introductory essay that outlines the state of knowledge in that area and indicates where further research is needed. Sections cover: Scope and Definition Consumption in the Affluent Society Family, Gender, and Socialization The History of Consumerism Foundations of Economic Theories of Consumption Critiques and Alternatives in Economic Theory Perpetuating Consumer Culture: Media, Advertising, and Wants Creation Consumption and the Environment Globalization and Consumer Culture Visions of an Alternative This book is the second volume in the Frontier Issues in Economic Thought series, which provides surveys of the most significant writings in emergent areas of economics -- an invaluable aid in fast-growing fields where genuine new ground is being broken. The series brings together economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers to develop analyses that challenge and enrich the dominant neoclassical paradigm. The Consumer Society is an essential guide to and summary of the literature of consumption and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the deeper economic, social, and ethical implications of consumerism.

Protest Politics in the Marketplace
Protest Politics in the Marketplace

Author: Caroline Heldman

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2017-10-15

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 150171211X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Protest Politics in the Marketplace examines how social media has revolutionized the use and effectiveness of consumer activism. In her groundbreaking book, Caroline Heldman emphasizes that consumer activism is a democratizing force that improves political participation, self-governance, and the accountability of corporations and the government. She also investigates the use of these tactics by conservatives. Heldman analyzes the democratic implications of boycotting, socially responsible investing, social media campaigns, and direct consumer actions, highlighting the ways in which such consumer activism serves as a countervailing force against corporate power in politics. In Protest Politics in the Marketplace, she blends democratic theory with data, historical analysis, and coverage of consumer campaigns for civil rights, environmental conservation, animal rights, gender justice, LGBT rights, and other causes. Using an inter-disciplinary approach applicable to political theorists and sociologists, Americanists, and scholars of business, the environment, and social movements, Heldman considers activism in the marketplace from the Boston Tea Party to the present. In doing so, she provides readers with a clearer understanding of the new, permanent environment of consumer activism in which they operate.

Affluence and Freedom
Affluence and Freedom

Author: Pierre Charbonnier

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-06-22

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1509543732

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.