- Savings rates obviously vary considerably across diferent capitalist economies. To the extent that this is so, arguably the argument of this book best fits a specific variety of capitalism—Fordist mass consumption–driven capitalism rather than, for example, the export-driven capitalism of newly industrializing countries. However, the pattern of accumulative consumption could conceivably be a condition on a capitalist economy developing a largely internally driven market (in which domestic efective demand is suficient to support mass production). Export-led growth tends to be seen as a stage on the way to developing a mature economy, led by endogenous aggregate demand. Note the importance attached, for example, in contemporary China on transitioning from an export-led economy to one driven by an internal market for consumer goods.
- The time-utility intensive (as opposed to extensive) dimension of the utility conferred by objects can be framed in a quite abstract and prospective way. One could use a concept similar in spirit to a measure dear to health economists—the quality-adjusted life year, or QALY—to capture the idea that increments of free time vary in value according to how productive they are of utility (Pliskin, Shepard, and Weinstein 1980). Thus, we could speak of quality-adjusted leisure time units (QALTUs). As commodities become more eficient at generating utility, the value of each QALTU increases.
- This is not an exhaustive list of approaches to consumption. It does not include Bataille’s (1988) theory of consumption as sacrifice, which has been influential on anthropologists of consumption such as Daniel Miller (1998). I also leave out Colin Campbell’s (1987) neo-Weberian account of modern consumerism. The discussion does cover what I take to be the main paradigms researchers on consumption have worked within. It should be mentioned in passing that both Miller and Campbell fail to provide adequate explanations for the materialistic bias underpinning modern mass consumption. While Miller might account for the role of shopping in the ritual reproduction of the family as a transcendent value in modern life, his theory cannot explain the historical pattern under investigation in this book. Campbell’s approach is more historical than Miller’s, yet his theory does not explain why hedonic expectation should fix on things, rather than practices, as foci for exercises of the imagination. More is said about this in Chapter 4 of this book.
- My discussion of the behavioral economics literature, which is large, diverse, and fast growing, is by necessity extremely truncated and selective. The aim is simply to give some sense of the general orientation of the approach where consumer behavior is concerned.
- This assumes that interest payments are compensation for delayed gratification. Since interest is paid at an exponential rate, this suggests that the discount function is also exponential.
- Ainslie suggests, interestingly, that the two modes of behavior, exponential and hyperbolic discounting, can be mapped onto Freud’s distinction between the reality principle (concerned with long-term outcomes) and the pleasure principle (concerned with immediate gratification).
- Kahneman (2011) has set out a very general account of this kind of view of the architecture of the human brain.
- Status is what economists call a positional good, competition for which is a zero-sum game—for a given person to improve their position in a status hierarchy, the status of others must decline. This means that the status value of goods is also positional. As increasing wealth broadens access to a given good, its status value will decline.
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Notes to Pages 30–37