Consumer Culture and Post-Fordist Customization Anna Szabo

Modern societies are characterized by referents. The mass media in turn, plays a ‘dialectic penury’ (Baudrillard, 1998), significant role in enhancing and generalizing insatiable needs and a constant sense of the simulation process by the use of differentiation and competition and feeling of recombining of signs in their headlines and never having enough. Thus, Baudrillard articles of celebrities and gossip columns. attributed the underlying problem to ? social Even relationships in modern society are seen relationships and social logic, reflecting on? as simulated and as imitating intimacy that affluence of symbolic exchange, rather than isn’t actually there, such as the relationship condemning ‘luxurious and spectacular between advertisers and penury’. According to his potential customers in a theory, the modern world generalized game of human represents a series of relations (Baudrillard, 1998). simulations, whereby They put on a false pretence nature is carefully that they care about their managed, policed and customers, but in fact, their tailored to the needs of main concern and goal is to humans, offering an increase sales and profits. abundance of signs with Everything is about symbolic the false pretence of being exchange and consumption. real, i.e. in objects The aim of capitalist societies is referred to as ‘sham to produce excess, ‘la part objects’, that define our maudite’ (Bataille, 1988), consumer society which in turn is used for excess (Baudrillard, 1998). production of goods for This view is further surplus, in the forms of games, supported by Kitsch, who art and conspicuous contends that the development of society and consumption for full economic growths mass production brought about the loss of without end (Featherstone, 1991). originality and aesthetics of beauty and Modern consumer society’s main focus is the replaced these with simulations that accumulation of material objects and reproduce and imitate, i.e. gadgets simulating consumer goods, premised upon the functions without having real and practical expansion of capitalist commodity production 33 and its increasing capacity for ideological manufacturing of sameness and the manipulation from alternative social relations importance of image-based differences along (Featherstone, 1991) to benefit capitalism. with products to produce distinguishable Additionally, business success is judged by goods (Klein, 2000). GDP affected by its profits, further reinforcing However, the development of post-Fordism the idea of commodity fetishism, referring to gave rise to flexible specialisation and this as ‘Selfish Capitalism’ (James, 2007), as subcontracting (Kumar, 2005), whereby big well as the privatization of public utilities, such corporations are increasingly subcontracting as gas, water and electricity to benefit the smaller niche businesses to produce rich. specialised parts, i.e. Apple and Nike get all of Additionally, capitalism endorses the their products’ parts from different pleasures of excess by utilizing images and businesses around the world; that use their sites of consumption that blur the distinctions expertise to produce components for them. between art and everyday life with the mass Thus, post-Fordism can be said to encourage production of art, these become part of and favour small businesses that can be seen everyday life products, i.e. put on clothes and in the popularity of crafts, tattoo parlours and integrated as mass rather than ‘high’ cultural artisan bakeries, however, Fordism is still products. In this condition of life, new middle present, evident in the exploitation of small classes are the intermediaries of culture, businesses to an extent, i.e. the spreading ever-renewable lifestyles, with no standardization of scripts, such as McDonald’s rules but plenty of choices to the wider Fordist production, whereby workers are population (Shusterman, 1988). prompted on what to do. We are constantly bombarded with adverts Furthermore, post-Fordist theory implies on TV, train stations, buses and social media changes in consumption in that consumers to encourage us to ‘shop until we drop’ and want increasing volumes and quantities of especially for new products and these middle classes, to be more consumerism is customized to considered to be a their own needs leisure activity more and identities as than a necessity done opposed to out of indulgence and uniformed goods. pleasure, as opposed It encourages large to serving basic firms to want to human needs (Jones, collaborate with et al., 2005). Due to niche businesses in the increasing order to create consumption patterns more specialised and mass production, competitive branding and diverse products for consumers with the becomes a necessity in a pool of endless proposal for de-massification of production choices for consumption, characterized by process and subcontracting, i.e. AirBnBs uniformed mass production, the contract business owners under their branch.

34 However, modern capitalism is characterized proposed ideas of society’s acceptance of by profit-making and competition, even aesthetic life as morally good, whereby the volunteering is somewhat for profits, in that self and life itself are open to be shaped and charities compete for donations and reconstructed aesthetically, with no solid commodity fetishism is reinforced by concepts of human nature or true self increasing commercialization of education, (Featherstone, 1991). People’s senses of i.e. universities are profit-making institutions themselves develop out of the activities they who compete with one another for money. habitually engage in (Ransome, 2005), thus in The implications of these is a move away from the realm of consumption, manifested in manual jobs consumer choices and towards regarded as fluid so professional, individuals are able to white-collar construct and deconstruct occupations in a these as they please. ‘knowledge Identity to be sharply society’, in which defined has vanished with knowledgeability no solid grounds to and expertise are construct upon, creating increasing, thus anxiety prone conditions the need for without guidance or these workers support. Greater choice in are correspondingly increasing as well. This post-Fordism in work, i.e. working from home results in the traditional working-class to and individual freedom of self-identity become middle-class with middle-class construction represents flexibility but greater desires and consumer patterns, seen as an insecurity. expression of identity. Work becomes a Thus, the liquidity of the modern world secondary point of referent in identity creates uncertain and transient social, cultural construction in modern post-Fordism and sexual identities, whereby individuals (Ransome, 2005) due to the extensive wear identities ‘like a light cloak ready to be varieties of occupational groups and types, taken off’ (Bauman, 2004: 30), i.e. becoming a these cannot be categorized as strictly in citizen of a country other than the nationality contemporary societies, i.e. people working one’s born with or homemaker mothers going from home; corporate office jobs; or internet back into their careers. Douglas and influencers. This shows a level of deregulation Isherwood argue that consumerist modern and phasing out of Fordist production, societies make meaning through the use of manifesting in the flexibility of these material goods, in which consumption is a key employment patterns and cut-throat ritual process, whereby people lay claim of competition for recognition in the workplace, possession of the meaning of objects beyond as well as in expressing one’s self-identity to simple ownership (Bauman, 2004). be different. This means that the personalisation of objects Theoretical arguments around the growing enabled by post-Fordism provide the basis of importance of consumerism for identity have the establishment of self-identity (McCraken,

35 1988), with the aim of being different and identities, representing incarnations of avoiding uniformity by partaking in constant ambivalence which is why they are at the consumerism and consumption to constantly centre of individuals’ attention (Bauman, innovate oneself, in a vicious cycle where 2004). The inner truth of the self is everyone is trying to be different by materialised, leading to the idealization of conforming and becoming ‘cultural dopes’. objectified materials and consumer choices, in Furthermore, items of clothing communicate that individuals are able to pick and choose distinct social identities beyond material their identities by portraying themselves in objects and as a way of people expressing different lights on various social media their membership to particular social groups platforms (Bauman, 2007). Furthermore, the (Lury, 1996). consequences of consumerism and its use for Thus, consumerism is identity evidently of growing construction is that significance for identity, people are never demonstrated in the way satisfied, there are social media is used by young always things that people. They use social media they want to buy platforms to present an image because of enticing of themselves that they want adverts or feelings to reveal to other people, of constantly manipulating and constructing innovating and these based on their own changing oneself desires as to how they want and appearances others to seem them. This or lifestyles, so conforms to Goffman’s (1959) there is no end- performativity theory, in which he proposes point of happiness or satisfaction in this that individuals when they arere interacting condition. with one another, attempt to create an image There is an increase in plastic surgeries for of themselves. In this, interaction is example, showcasing this superficial way of considered as a performance between actor life, constantly wanting to be more beautiful and audience (Goffmann, 1959), where and aesthetically pleasing. Consumer choices individuals are able to influence the way in are not representations of individual agency which they present themselves and put on a or freedom but rather the commodities performance of who they see as desirable and themselves, leaving people without false acceptable, depending on the special setting autonomy and inauthenticity (James, 2007). they are in. the same applies to social media This demonstrates greater social control and where they are able to construct and corporate colonisation, provoking self- articulate their sense of identity. obsession. Concluding, consumer society and post- However, the implications of the importance Fordist customization of products means that of consumerism for identity is that this new people are able to express their self-identity in more varied ways and have more disposable liquid modern way of life creates troublesome

36 incomes to do so. However, these embody the Images: choices of commodity fetishism and capitalist https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gia profit-making businesses asserting their social nt_squid_Ranheim.jpg control, creating an illusion of these being the rational choices of consumers, thus creating a https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Be false sense of identity through consumerism. rgs_Supermarket,_Vegetables_(6355363571) .jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2570/39040097 16_0d7eb3911e_b.jpg Bibliography: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sh

op_Until_You_Drop_by_Banksy.JPG Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society:

Myths and Structures. London: SAGE Publications. Bauman, Z. (2004). Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2007). Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Featherstone, M. (1991). Consumer Culture & Postmodernism. London: SAGE Publications. Goffmann, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin. James, O. (2007). Affluenza. Reading: Vermilion. Jones, P. et al. (2005).' Sustainable retailing and consumerism'. Management Research News, Vol. 28(1): 34-44. Klein, N. (2000). No Logo. London: Flamingo. Kumar, K. (2005). From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern: New Theories of the Contemporary World. Second ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Lury, C. (1996). Consumer Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ransome, P. (2005). Work, Consumption and Culture. London: SAGE Publications.

37