Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
JÖRN LAMLA
CONSUMER AUTONOMY AND ITS POLITICAL MANIFESTATIONS
TOWARDS A SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY OF THE CONSUMER CITIZEN
Krisis, 2012, Issue 1
www.krisis.eu
Facing serious problems in the advanced consumer society, democracy
must find new solutions to civilize and regulate market practices and orders. Thus a new experimental stage of democratic development has already begun (cf. Lamla 2011). Many approaches to solving these problems
do not only address big corporations and their social responsibilities, but
also the consumer, who – as a citizen – should actively participate in the
political processes of gaining more reflective control over the market, its
interdependencies and unintended consequences (cf. Heidbrink/Schmidt/
Ahaus 2011; Devinney/Auger/Eckhardt 2010; Kneip 2010; Baringhorst et al.
2007; Stehr 2007; Trentmann 2007; Lamla/Neckel 2006; Giddens 2003). But
the link between consumer and citizen is anything but clear and is conceived of in a number of different ways (Schudson 2006). Often it is simply
a normative claim or attribution which regards the consumer as a person
with political virtues. It is supposed that she has the biographical dispositions and only needs the institutional opportunities, organizational resources, and rights to act as a responsible citizen in a sustainable and justifiable way (cf. Beck 2007; Micheletti 2003). But are such conceptions of the
new ‘consumer citizen’ realistic?
Empirically we find distinct types of consumer-and-citizen-combinations
(Lamla 2012) with very different sets of dispositions and (political) meth32
ods of acquiring some autonomy in everyday life, (which is a precondition
of their responsibility for the public weal). In order to highlight these differences, it is helpful to reconsider the three classical theories of the modern consumer and his cultural background which David Riesman and his
colleagues (1), Michel de Certeau (2) and Albert O. Hirschman (3) contributed to the debate. There is empirical evidence that we still find a traditional and inner-directed type of personality as well as the newer otherdirected type of consumers (Riesman), and also a third type of tactically
operating actors, whose dispositions are inclined not to follow the ‘structured’ or ‘directed’ path of action, but to look for the ‘holes’ in the normative or conventional structure and for the opportunities to fill them by
‘creative’ or ‘subversive’ consumption practices (de Certeau). While all
these types offer some qualities ‘consumer citizens’ would need to help
solve the problems of our consumer society, their discrete realization
within different types of behavior and decision-making first of all increases
these problems. Not least, these difficulties of equilibrating the necessary
dispositions of a consumer citizen are traceable by recognizing the ‘shifting involvements’ (Hirschman) some people show in their life cycle between consumption practices on the one hand and their engagement as
citizens on the other. Thus the ethical strength, public sensitivity, subversive tactics, and shifting involvements could be important political qualifications of autonomous consumers. Up to now, however, this consumer
autonomy tends to be blocked by separating one attribute from the other
in disparate cultural milieus and their market segments.
This directs the search for appropriate political forms and frames which
are helpful for enabling the autonomy of responsible consumers to evolve
(4). And this question has to be answered with regard to the very different
originating conditions of contrasting types of consumers. The tasks for
building a responsible consumer society should therefore not only be
delegated to the individual market actors. Much more institutional
imagination is needed today. In order to heighten the political autonomy
of consumers, educational programs as well as public mediations which
try to foster and combine the qualities of the different types – like the sensitivity and public orientation of the other-directed personality, the ethical strength of the inner-directed type, and the political creativity of the
tactical consumer – could be some of the many building blocks needed
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
for the enhancement of such a ‘consumer democracy’. But to understand
this challenge, a clear picture of the possible different modes of acquiring
some consumer autonomy, (and also of the implications for scientific use
of this concept), is first of all required. That is the main reason why I recommend consulting here the three opposing theoretical ways of looking
at the political aspects and manifestations of consumer orientations. In
addition these approaches – although not continuously written as typological classifications – help very much to highlight the empirical varieties
of the so-called ‘consumer citizens’. However, here in this article I have to
limit myself to the first, more preliminary work.1
1. The autonomy of the other-directed personality – David Riesman’s typology
In Riesman’s work, the consumer appears as a typical figure of advanced
modernity which is contrasted with earlier types. His distinction of three
personality types – the tradition-directed, the inner-directed, and the
other-directed personality – intends to empirically generalize personality
traits that have been dominant in American society at certain points in
historical time. In so doing, he emphasizes that they rarely surface as
clearly as conceived in their ideal-type abstraction, but rather appear in
manifold shades and composite forms (Riesman et al. 1961: 31). The typological approach is effective in accounting for distinctions between various
cases; it expects the coexistence of different personalities, forms of involvement, and of differences in the zeitgeist of an era. It takes as its main
problem the identifying of the empirically appropriate level at which to
generalize characteristics in order to arrive at typologies that allow the
grouping of the multitude of individual cases in a clear-cut and theoretically convincing manner.
In Riesman’s typology, the modern consumer appears in the form of the
other-directed personality. This personality type differs significantly from
the inner-directed type marked by strict adherence to principles and ideals, which Riesman defines – as do many after him – by drawing on Max
Weber’s reconstruction of the Protestant ethic inherent to the spirit of
33
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
modern capitalism.2 An essential trait of such persons of vocation
(Berufsmensch) by conviction, whose ascetic nature, determination, and
restlessness Weber traced back to spiritual needs springing from the Calvinist belief in election by divine grace, is an inner sense of orientation,
which renders their actions independent of the alternating opinions and
views of their contemporaries. Riesman (1961 et al.: 15-25) contrasts action
guided by an inner ‘gyroscope’ to that of the other-directed type whose
mode of operation he relates to the nautical image of a ‘radar set’ designed
to pick up signals from its environment in order to adapt action in the
most beneficial manner. ‘Beneficial’ in this context refers to winning the
favor of others, and not necessarily depending on economic calculation:
the other-directed person needs the continuous recognition and reassurance from the respective reference groups.
The social terrain for developing these personality traits is not production
– thus, not the nexus of profession and vocation (Beruf and Berufung).
Rather, in light of abundant resources in prosperous societies, the significant social domains in this respect are, to an increasing degree, leisure, the
areas where social harmony can be experienced, and the fluctuating
worlds of consumption. Learning to be a consumer, according to Riesman, becomes functional3 in societies where a decline in population sets in
and must be viewed as a process that brings forth the other-directed personality type. It starts in the early stages of socialization by understanding
parents and teachers, whose influence recedes in the course of childhood
and youth in favor of the peer group, and eventually also involves other
entities, as represented by modern mass entertainment media and customer-oriented marketing that shape public opinion. The individual
learns to flexibly adapt to external expectations, that is, to change opinions and taste accordingly, and specializes in interpersonal communication in leisure and work by developing minor distinctions in personal style
(marginal differentiations), thus rendering itself fit for ‘antagonistic cooperation’ in these areas.
The individual’s other-oriented consumption behavior also affects other
areas of action and shapes its political views as well. Riesman reconstructs
the modes of political involvement that fit the different personality types
and their subtypes. Among the other-directed, Riesman argues, there are
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
indeed many who are indifferent toward political affairs. A significant minority, however, celebrates a pronounced political interest. They are the
‘inside-dopesters’ who transfer their other-directed consumption behavior to politics: ‘The inside-dopester may be one who has concluded (with
good reason) that since he can do nothing to change politics, he can only
understand it.’ (Riesman et al. 1961: 181) This ‘consuming citizen’ makes
an effort to maintain the impression of always being well informed, takes
a worldly-wise and tolerant stance toward others, and confines him- or
herself to self-manipulation. In pursuit of its interest in consuming politics, this type supports the, in reality, staged illusion, spread by the mass
media, of politics as something made by ‘celebrities’. In the course of time,
the consuming citizen lacks the ability to take a clear stand on matters of
public opinion, since he or she is unable to make and interpret connections between politics and his or her own personal experience: ‘The other
directed inside-dopester is unable to fortify any particular judgment with
conviction springing from a summarized and organized emotional tone.’
(Riesman et al. 1961: 224). It is the hybrid figure of a consumer citizen who
has for the most part lost its sources of autonomy. The fusion of political
and consumption orientations, and the desire to always keep all options
open, render it prone to becoming a ‘drifter’ (Sennett 1998) who has
largely lost its ability to make decisions (Rosa 2005: 381-390).
Riesman, however, is not content with this conclusion, which is why, in
the third main section of his book, he asks about the reserves that the
other-directed personality – and the other types as well – may have to
draw on in order to fend off pressures to conform. He refuses to simply
equate inner-directedness with the autonomous citizen, and otherdirectedness with a consumer who is at the whim of fashionable trends.
All personality types, each in their own way, represent conformist patterns of action: ‘The ‘adjusted’ are (…) the typical tradition-directed, inner-directed, or other-directed people – those who respond in their character structure to the demands of their society class at its particular stage
on the curve of population.’ (Riesman et al. 1961: 241; emphasis omitted,
J.L.). To the adjusted and autonomous Riesman adds the anomic. Accordingly, the inner-directed type who, under contemporary conditions,
stands up for his or her principles on grounds of an ethic of ultimate ends
(‘Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise’) may well be engaging in a self34
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
destructive form of non-conformity. The solution to the problem can
thus hardly be sought in reviving traits characteristic of the old bourgeoisie, even if the autonomy reserves were greater in that era of innerdirection (Riesman et al. 1961: 251). Riesman therefore takes up the search
for hidden reserves that may serve to put the consumer in a position to
gain autonomy in the era of the other-directed personality. Although he
mainly proceeds by identifying obstacles to this autonomy – hence tackling the problem by means of determinate negation – his efforts nevertheless provide an excellent source for any contemporary theory of the consumer citizen (see part 4 below).
Riesman locates the main obstacle to the emergence of an autonomous
consumer citizen in the erroneous concentration of all efforts on the
realm of work. Obsessive productivism, firmly engraved in the institutions
of modern welfare society, hinders its citizens in immersing themselves in,
and taking advantage of, the opportunities for leisure. Instead, work life is
targeted by vast demands for self-realization, while it rarely provides a
fruitful terrain for realizing such aspirations. The realm of work provides
a stage for professed friendliness and sincerity everywhere, which is unable
to rid itself of the taint of strategic rationale associated with the market
context from which it arises. Conspicuous consumption (Veblen), as Siegfried Kracauer (1971) observed in studying white-collar employees, their
obsession with distinguishing themselves from the old working class with
their ‘very refusal to get involved in the work situation’ (Riesman et al.
1961: 268), the feeling that vacations must always be justified in terms of
representing a form of productive investment, and many other observations of similar nature, all lead Riesman to conclude that autonomy can
be gained only by distancing oneself more clearly from the sphere of productive work. But even if this negative freedom could be established – for
instance by means of a basic income – this does not mean that autonomy
would emerge automatically. Riesman is clearly aware of this problem.
Nevertheless, it does not prevent him from seriously considering ‘the possibility of an organic development of autonomy out of other-direction’
(Riesman et al. 1961: 260):
‘However, just as there is in my opinion a greater variety of attitudes toward leisure in contemporary America than appears on the surface, so
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
also the sources of utopian political thinking may be hidden and constantly changing, constantly disguising themselves. While political curiosity and interest have been largely driven out of the accepted sphere of the
political in recent years by the focus of the press and of the more responsible sectors of public life on crisis, people may, in what is left of their private lives, be nurturing newly critical and creative standards. If these people are not strait-jacketed before they get started (…) people may some
day learn to buy not only packages of groceries or books but the larger
package of a neighborhood, a society, and a way of life.’ (Riesman 1961:
306-307)
The heightened sensitivity and responsiveness related to other-direction
represent personality reserves that could be tapped in leisure. However,
these reserves would have to be used to arrive at a refined interpretation
of the self, that is, to recognize and respect one’s own feelings, one’s own
potentialities, and one’s own limitations (Riesman et al. 1961: 259), instead
of constantly submitting to external demands. While the inner-directed
consumer comes with an ethical strength in all of her economic decisionmaking, and the tradition-directed personality resists a lot of commercial
offers due to her deep-rooted consumer habits, the other-directed consumer comes without ‘natural’ capacities with which to actively set out
limits against the flood of views and opinions in the market and political
sphere. While the traditional habits and ethical beliefs are sometimes a
burden on the required adaptations and innovations of consumer behavior, the problem of the recognition-seeking consumer is the other way
around. He has to learn to resist it all. Today we find a lot of evidence for
this type of consumer in the digital world of social network sites. Within
these, the exchange of recognition between peers and its merging with
new forms of advertisement are ubiquitous. But while it can be stated that
all three types of consumer autonomy and their political manifestations,
as Riesman distinguishes, can be found empirically in consumption patterns today, and that the other-directed personality still broadens her
dominance, it remains an open question if this typology of modes and
problems of consumer autonomy is completed with this comparison of
the traditional, the inner- and the other-directed consumer. Are there
other types of consumer autonomy which manifest themselves in different forms of political behavior?
35
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
2. Consumer tactics – Michel de Certeau’s theory of consumption practices
An abstract and, for this reason, very wide-ranging conception of consumer autonomy can be derived from Michel de Certeau’s (1984) socialtheoretical considerations on the ‘art of action’. Although de Certeau
does not speak of a consumer citizen, his theory nevertheless sheds light
on a distinct political quality of consumer action that may take effect in
any particular instance of everyday practice. Therefore it is not limited to
just one special type of consumer. But this does not mean that a fourth
type of consumer cannot be distinguished by such tactical skills. As an
ideal type, as well as in empirical cases, consumers are conceivable and
ascertainable in the first instance as those that are characterized by their
loss of any directedness – and therefore build an opposition to all three of
Riesmans x-directed modes of consumer behavior. In the anonymous
market settings of the internet for instance, the violation of ethical principles, as well as existing law or conventional rules, is common practice for
a widespread type of tactically calculating consumers. These consumers
have in some sense refined those autonomous potentials of consumer
practices on which Michel de Certau sheds light.
His approach is quite unusual inasmuch as consumption is neither determined in terms of economic categories, such as commodity exchange,
budget use, household, scarcity, or affluence, nor in socio-psychological
terms, such as needs, status competition, curiosity, etc. Rather his notion
of ‘consumption practices’ owes something to Wittgenstein’s philosophy
of normal speech. It is the way de Certeau models the everyday usage of
language, the speech act, and language-games that lends a fundamentally
political nature to consumer action (de Certeau 1984: 8-12). This theoretical focus on usage gives consumption a connotation of activeness, in contrast to common conceptions of the term, as opposed to production or
investment with all the implications of passivity and destructivity. In consequence, this leads to revising the usual classifications inasmuch as the
working person can also be conceived as a consumer, who may act on the
given conditions of his or her working life, the available choices, the constraints, the available means, etc., and who must therefore actively appropriate them by making use of them. At the same time, everyday practices
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
associated with consumption lose the air of being a homogenous activity,
since they can be politically or commercially charged with different
meanings.
The object put to use is always a something given prior to use, but which,
nevertheless, has social effect only by being used. Its prior existence and its
use stand in a relationship of mutually conditioning or constituting one
another. Karl Marx already thought about the nature of this relationship
in his The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. In a well-known section he states, ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it just
as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past’ (Marx 1963: 15). Although this passage has been quoted
many a time throughout the history of sociology, it has not raised many
doubts as to the dominance of the work and production paradigm. In the
manner of de Certeau, however, we may claim that the individual in the
first instance is always user or consumer to the extent that any expression
of life always and necessarily relies on given opportunities, and that any
form of productive activity the individual may choose to engage in requires putting such opportunities to use. Therefore, what needs to be
clarified is how, and in which areas, these ‘users’ may turn into agents capable of autonomously shaping their conditions of life, without a priori
conceiving of work, politics, and consumption as opposites.
The theory of speech allows us to specify this consideration. Speaking,
writing, and reading are all ways of using language (‘parole’) that are only
possible due to the prior existence of language as a complex structure of
symbols and rules (‘langue’). Yet, this edifice of language only exists in a
state of potentiality as long as it does not take practical effect in time and
space by being put to use. This recursive relationship is also the starting
point of Anthony Giddens’ (1984) theory of structuration, which also
draws on Wittgenstein’s philosophy.4 The focus is on the notion of a rule
as crucially depending on the actor’s knowledge of how to apply it. Actors
must have practical knowledge of how rules are ‘to be used’ in context,
since it is impossible for rules to define all circumstances of their own application in advance. The – by necessity – generalizing nature of any kind
of rule (otherwise it would not be one) stands against the singularity of its
36
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
application in time and space. Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology also emphasizes these active and creative adjustments actors make in applying rules,
continuously leading to modifications, shifts, and transgressions of social
rules. There is no reproduction of structure without transformation of
structure. This indeed constitutes a source of power in the reach of any
actor, a capability that affects the most ordinary daily routine. Compared
with Giddens’ theory, de Certeau’s notable achievement is that he provocatively calls this actor a ‘user’, thus opening a new view on consumption practices.
Certain differences emerge if one takes a closer look at the way the two
theories treat the issue of power. In Giddens’ view, power refers to the
ability to reshape objects or other tangible phenomena (allocative power),
or the ability to condition other actors’ range of options (authoritative
power). The transformative capacities that take effect at such points
would be misconceived if seen solely as qualities of actors. Rather, they
must be viewed as largely a consequence of how resources are distributed,
hence representing a reflection of institutional structures (cf. Lamla 2003:
45-62). De Certeau would not disagree on this point. He does, however,
place different emphases. He draws a distinction between (power-political)
practices that make use of resources related to structures, and practices
that are supported by sources of autonomy that are not institutionally
provided for.5
For instance, considering usages of language, he opposes writing to reading, the latter representing a typical consumptive usage of language; reading appears to merely make use of something given, not producing anything of its own, thus confirming the image of the passive consumer as
compared to the active author. ‘The social and technical functioning of
contemporary culture hierarchizes theses two activities. To write is to
produce the text; to read is to receive it from someone else without putting one’s own mark on it, without remaking it. (…) What has to be put
in question is unfortunately not this division of labor (it is only too real),
but the assimilation of reading to passivity’ (de Certeau 1984: 169). According to de Certeau, it is the other way around: the process of writing separates itself from the outside world, upon which it acts to construct something starting from an empty page. In so doing, it subjects itself to a
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
‘scriptural economy’, which, as a mythical practice, reproduces the modern technocratic power structure. ‘Revolution itself, that ‘modern’ idea,
represents the scriptural project at the level of an entire society seeking to
constitute itself as a blank page with respect to the past (…)’ (de Certeau
1984: 135, emphasis omitted, J.L.). De Certeau opposes the practice of reading to forms of the political that become enmeshed in the codes from
which they derive their power and effectiveness; reading, on the other
hand, is free to appropriate a text at will, since nothing must be created.
In objection to structuralist thought, the autonomy of practice is emphasized, which takes place in space and time and cannot be fully controlled
or disciplined.6 De Certeau distinguishes practices in terms of how they
relate to orders of structure, codes, and language systems. The differentiation of time and space is crucial in this respect, since, as de Certeau claims,
the dominance of place over time is a mark of institutional power practices, whereas consumption practices must grant time priority over place.
In de Certeau’s reasoning, place stands for planning, for a home base providing the grounds for strategic action and a refuge to take time out for
reconsidering, for restructuring relations, etc. For place-related practices,
it is therefore crucial to demarcate their own against other territories.
Preparing for action, however, requires time. For this reason, the flow and
passing of time seems the natural enemy of this form of exercising power.
Conversely, practices of consumption do not have such a base; they have
no place for actors to conceive themselves as subjects. Since they are confined to making use of the given, they can exercise some degree of autonomy only by exploiting favorable opportunities as they emerge in time. De
Certeau claims that any usage by necessity embodies precisely this type of
autonomy, thus providing a safeguard against attempts at colonizing
practices of use that are rooted in principles of order. ‘The practices of
consumption are the ghosts of the society that carries their name. Like the
‘spirits’ of former times, they constitute the multiform and occult postulate of productive activity.’ (de Certeau 1984: 35, emphasis added by J.L.).
These considerations lead to a differentiation of political forms, which
holds considerable potential for constructively dealing with the problem
of autonomy as related to the consumer citizen. De Certeau distinguishes
tactics and strategies in order to conceptualize the specifically political in
37
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
everyday consumption practices. Let us first take a look at the definition
of strategies:
‘I call a strategy the calculation (or manipulation) of power relationships
that becomes possible as soon as a subject with will and power (a business,
an army, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated. It postulates a place
that can be delimited as its own and serve as the base from which relations
with an exteriority composed of targets of threats (customers or competitors, enemies, the country surrounding the city, objectives and objects of
research, etc.) can be managed.’ (de Certeau, 1984: 35-36).
In modern consumer society, strategic analysis can, for instance, be applied to marketing or trend research insofar as both start from a safe place
and attempt to structure space to get ahead of time. Typification and observation of others – the ‘panoptical view’ of objects – are essential to strategic practices, and classification of these objects mobilizes power based on
the knowledge thus generated. Even if these strategic endeavors penetrate
ever deeper into the realm of private experience and narrations, at some
point they must nevertheless strip this narrative fabric of its specific meaning and cast it in the guise of fashionable language (Barthes 2006), which
then may spread like a rumor (advertising) and take on a life of its own.
Owing to pressures of structuring and presenting this realm in such language – these pressures being rooted in the economic logic of production
– marketing strategies continuously reproduce a discrepancy between
fabricated stories, seeking to impose their fashion code upon the body (de
Certeau 1984: 147-150), and traces of an existentially experienced historicity, accompanying these bodily practices as if they were a kind of disturbing noise. Inasmuch as marketing denies, seeks to discipline or eradicate
the element of intractable autonomy in consumer activity, it exemplifies
the modern ‘informing technician’ who is ‘increasingly ignorant of users’
(de Certeau 1984: 167).
‘By contrast with a strategy (...) a tactic is a calculated action determined
by the absence of a proper locus. No delimitation of an exteriority, then,
provides it with the condition necessary for autonomy. The space of a tactic is the space of the other. (…) It does not, therefore, have the options of
planning general strategy and viewing the adversary as a whole within a
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
distinct, visible, and objectifiable space. It operates in isolated actions, blow
by blow. It takes advantage of ‘opportunities’ and depends on them, being
without any base where it could stockpile its winnings, build up its own
position, and plan raids. What it wins it cannot keep. The nowhere gives a
tactic mobility, to be sure, but a mobility that must accept the chance offerings of the moment, and seize on the wing the possibilities that offer
themselves at any given moment.’ (de Certeau 1984: 36-37, emphasis by
the author)
Accordingly, the potential for the consumer citizen’s tactical autonomy
would lie not in dichotomous acts of choosing, but in putting such
choices to use and to other uses than anticipated by design. Politicizing
these acts would have far-reaching consequences for the conceptions of
civil society and civic engagement that would result in activating consumers. For, according to Certeau, ‘popular tactics’ establish a ‘sociopolitical ethic’ within the economic system; an ethic that has already freed
itself from the illusion that anything will change anytime soon (de
Certeau 1984: 26). These tactics do not aim at entering into strategic alliances with those holding power; neither are they about initiating and establishing an entire counterculture. Rather, they seek to maintain spaces
for practices that do not succumb to the rules of the market or the law.
From this vantage point, consumers refusing to pay for digital goods that
file sharing services on the Internet allow to download for free can be
viewed as a political act. We may assume that de Certeau would take this
as an exemplification of the survival of potlatch, as an indication of an alternative economy, under conditions of advanced liberal capitalism – although in illegitimate form. ‘Because of this, the politics of the ‘gift’ also
becomes a diversionary tactic. In the same way, the loss that was voluntary in a gift economy is transformed into a transgression in a profit economy: it appears as an excess (a waste), a challenge (a rejection of profit), or
a crime (an attack on property)’ (de Certeau 1984: 27, emphasis omitted,
J.L.).
This does, however, raise the question of whether this political type of
consumer autonomy can be adequately secured. Are tactics and strategies
only conceivable as mutually exclusive alternatives or might they also
function in concert (Parmiggiani/Musarò 2005)? On the one hand, con38
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
temporary social analyses indicate that civil society is losing the ability to
pursue strategic options and that the future lies in flexible movement
within loosely knit socio-spatial networks characteristic of our era
(Castells 2003; Boltanski/Chiapello 2003; this is discussed in Lamla 2005).
On the other hand, it is currently impossible to make out whether, in the
case of fragmented consumers, ‘sheeplike’ tactics (de Certeau 1984: 200)
can be forged into a political project that is still somehow linked to the
civic idea of safeguarding democratic autonomy. De Certeau, too, has
doubts in this respect. Whereas under traditional conditions tactics were
tied to everyday rituals, in the atomized city of present-day liberal capitalism consumption practices may emerge anywhere at any time. They
wander about as ‘immigrants’, and it is quite uncertain whether they are
in any condition to have an effect worth mentioning at all.7 Therefore a
wide spectrum of empirical manifestations of tactical consumer autonomy is opened up in contemporary society. It ranges from egoistic or even
anomic behavior and more conventional forms of breaking some rules, to
a subversively operating political engagement. Empirically all such subtypes of the tactical consumer citizen can be detected, but a stable political
orientation seems to be at risk, because an individualistic culture is dominant which does not reach far beyond the private weal (cf. Lamla 2012). To
further elaborate this dilemma one should now turn the attention to a
third approach on consumer autonomy and its political manifestations.
3. ‘Shifting Involvements’ – Albert O. Hirschman’s cyclical theory of the
consumer citizen
The ambivalence, supported by the uncertain political or economical dynamic of consumer tactics, could recur in the ‘alternating’ of consumer
citizens between ‘private and public interest’, which Albert O. Hirschman
made an object of study. In contrast to de Certeau, Hirschman, however,
assumes that the cyclical and periodically shifting forms of consumer or
citizen involvement are complemented by consumption and politics as
correspondingly differentiated arenas of action. His thesis that disappointment inherent to experience in these arenas motivates shifting involvement assumes that we are dealing ‘with consumers who are also
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
conscious of being citizens and who live in a culture where the private and
the public are important dichotomous categories permanently vying for
the attention and time of the ‘consumer-citizen’’ (Hirschman 1982: 63).
Hirschman compares and confronts the different options facing consumers and citizens. Exit and voice are the most familiar options, which are
opposed to loyalty as the third one which can be displayed, for instance,
toward a brand, a company, or a political party (cf. Hirschman 1970). Exit
and voice are strategic options inherent to the structure of the market or
the democratic state that allow for reactions to perceived failure in performance. Hirschman criticizes liberal market theories of welfare production by showing that free competition does by no means necessarily result
in optimal output; it is even possible for output to be inferior to what may
be achieved in a planned economy under the control of an authoritarian
state. Even if consumers do effectively command an exit option – that is,
market conditions are such that no monopoly exists – abstaining from
exercising voice may result in conditions leading to a general deterioration in the quality of products on the market. Advancing general welfare,
Hirschman claims, thus requires finding a balance between the market,
on the one hand, and feedback enabling democratic institutions, on the
other.
In ‘Exit, Voice and Loyalty’, Hirschman operates at the level of institutional analysis of strategic options and their welfare effects, since the lines
of action in question are engraved in the design of the institutional orders
of markets and politics. However, Hirschman is also interested in motivations, and he reckons with conflicting actor dispositions that are not adequately accounted for in an economic theory based on rationally calculating actors.8 He sets out to find a convincing explanation for different
degrees of individual involvement, and, drawing on Tibor Scitovsky
(1977), he discovers one in a cyclical theory of shifting emotions. In modern society, according to Hirschman, the consumer citizen’s various motivations and orientations automatically hold one another in check over
time. While alternating between private interests and public interests, one
or the other may indeed dominate at some point. However, self-interested
consumers or politically involved citizens will change their preferences in
light of disappointment experienced in the respective areas of action.
39
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
Hirschman explores the endogenous logic of this process starting from
experiences in the realm of private consumption, through the shifting of
involvement to the political arena, to redirecting attention back to private
interests again. In focusing on endogenous factors, he does not deny the
fact that external events (such as wars or economic crises) often go a long
way toward explaining collective behavior changes. Rather, he attempts
to call ‘attention to the neglected push factors that may lie behind the
noted behavior changes. These are precisely the factors that make for a
transformation of the preferences of large masses of individuals when they
dwell for some time in either the private or the public sphere and then
evaluate the ensuing experiences’ (Hirschman 1982: 5). To start with,
Hirschman counters the preconception that consumption as a passive
activity is opposed to the active nature of political action. He argues that
both are in fact ways of leading an active and committed life: ‘one is the
traditional vita activa which is wholly concerned with public affairs; and
the other is the pursuit of a better life for oneself and one’s family, ‘better’
being understood primarily in terms of increased material welfare’
(Hirschman 1982: 7, emphasis by the author). The second form of involvement does not imply a productivist mentality that is fixated on work
and that measures happiness only in monetary terms, Hirschman argues,
since satisfaction with the various areas of activity depends more on satisfaction with life as a whole than the other way around. He points out that
beyond the abstract measure of money there is also the practical use of
goods, which holds manifold surprises of a positive or negative kind
(Hirschman 1982: 25f). Hence, the conduct of everyday life in all its complexity becomes the actual object of research. This analysis starts by addressing the issue of disappointment experienced in consumption by referring to formal criteria of different classes of goods, much as has been
done in the case of ‘positional goods’ (Hirsch 1976). Hirschman distinguishes non-durable consumer goods, such as food, whose consumption
holds fairly little potential for disappointment, from different kinds of
durable goods and services that have greater significance for the gradual
transformation of preferences. Disappointment emerges from experiencing a discrepancy with the expectations attached to certain goods, which
in the case of long-lasting material companions or social services cannot
easily be remedied by exit strategies or suppression (in the sense of the
theory of cognitive dissonance).
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
Experienced discrepancy and the ensuing sense of disappointment are
rooted in an attribution problem: everyday consumption is insufficiently
accounted for only in terms of instrumental relationships to goods or
service providers. Hirschman’s analysis of service relationships (involving
for instance doctors, therapists, or educational institutions) thus shows
that disappointment with services cannot be consistently attributed to the
services alone. Making successful use of services, in fact, often requires an
active contribution on the part of the client; the inadequacy of client cooperation can just as well be the cause of unsatisfactory results as the service itself. In the case of durable goods, it is often not the quality of the
product itself that is responsible for it falling short of expectations in everyday use, but the promise of happiness the consumer attaches to the
good motivating its purchase (Hirschman 1982: 43-45). This too depends
on the conduct of life and the conditions surrounding it – be they exhaustion caused by the daily grind, or stress from time pressure or crowded
highways – which may foster the impression that life is far from the state
of happiness associated with specific consumer purchases.
At this point, it is crucial for Hirschman to explain the shift to the political
arena without resort to external factors and events. He assumes that this
shift reflects a change in lifestyle as a whole. Drawing on Harry G. Frankfurt’s conception of second order volitions and Amartya Sen’s metapreferences, Hirschman sets out to explain how reassessment of the entire
system of ‘preferences as ‘revealed’ by their purchases and other actions in
terms of alternative sets of preferences’ occurs (Hirschman 1982: 69).
To be sure, there is no single path to the political arena. A recurring pattern that Hirschman (1982: 46-60) identifies in various paths to politicization when considering criticisms of consumption is a discrepancy between
the institutionally provided market options, on the one hand, and diffuse
everyday cultural expectations, on the other – a kind of conflict between
system and lifeworld (Habermas 1981). This holds true for traditional anticonsumerism with its warnings of cultural disintegration, as well as for
criticism of unequal life chances arising from income disparities, for existentialist lines of reasoning that emphasize consumption’s inability to
provide meaning, and, finally, for mobilizing fear of the future, which
some associate with the relentless innovation dynamics of the consumer
40
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
goods industry. In all of these cases, the underlying topic is that of claims
to autonomy that cannot be accounted for in terms of simply pursuing
market-type ends by other means when entering the field of politics.
Thus, disappointment involved in everyday consumption does not immediately translate into politicization. On the contrary, it can actually
lead to keeping up the once established market-compatible consumption
pattern over a long period of time, or even to intensifying it; the continuous revitalization of this pattern indeed depends on the permanent devaluation of goods. Or actors may fall into depressive moods once their
ability to maintain distance and independence, as part of the everyday culture of consumption, fails on them. For disappointment to translate into
politicization, it is necessary to tap sources of interpretation that allow
linking the disappointed consumer’s sense of discrepancy with other dimensions of meaning and areas of life that transcend systemic market
codes, initiating a process of re-evaluation based on transformed metapreferences.
‘Most plausibly perhaps, such experiences can be conceived as distilling,
over a period of time, second-order volitions of the anticonsumerism
kind, while some exogenous happening (the Vietnam War or some personal neurosis) is the event precipitating the actual turn to public involvement. Alternatively, the disappointment experience could be cast in
the role of the precipitating event while the second-order volitions would
originate in non-consumption-related experiences, say ideologies implanted in youthful minds about the importance of having a cause or of
serving the public weal.’ (Hirschman 1982: 73)
Accordingly, the key to the political involvement of the citizen disappointed with private consumption is not so much strategic success but
most notably engagement in an alternative way of life. In light of the satisfaction derived from action in pursuit of the common good as such, the
specific political objectives of such action can remain vague and may
freely fluctuate. The illusion or the sense of actively participating in the
betterment of society is at first more important than actually achieved or
achievable progress in the matter in question (Hirschman 1982: 82-91).
Accordingly, disappointment in the political arena mostly arises from everyday conflicts between expectations attached to these activities and oc-
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
curring experiences, for instance, in terms of the time commitment involved in fending for the public interest – a task for which an appropriate
measure is difficult to determine in any case. Over-involvement and addiction, on the one hand, and political institutions that systematically expect too little of their citizenry, as in the case of representative democracy,
on the other, represent the two ends in the range of factors preparing the
ground for renewed alienation – this time from political life.
‘Those who are capable of participating actively in the shaping of events
may then experience the perils of overinvolvement, while those who
want to do no more but also no less than forcefully register their aroused
feelings on this or that issue may suffer from underinvolvement once
they realize that they are essentially limited to the vote. In addition, it is
possible for both phenomena to be experienced by the same person at different periods of his or her life; more interestingly, a person could realize
– and I think this is a rather frequent intuition – that participation in public life offers only this unsatisfactory too-much-or-too-little choice and is
therefore bound to be disappointing in one way or another.’ (Hirschman
1982: 120)
The return to private interests is finalized when experienced disappointment is joined by the sobering insight that politics is no more than a selfserving power struggle of politicians whose seemingly good intentions are
devoid of all credibility. Since, under these circumstances, attempts to
combine private interests with public involvement immediately face suspicions of corruption, abandoning public life appears to be an all the more
plausible and attractive move (Hirschman 1982: 124-129).
In contrast to other contemporary social analyses that lament the loss of a
political public sphere (such as Arendt 1958; Habermas 1998; Sennett 1977;
Bauman 2000), Hirschman (1982: 132f) concludes from his analyses that
ways must be sought of reconciling and combining private and political
involvement. But under current conditions it seems that the consumer
citizen, understood as a cultural formation of subjectivity with stable dispositions for a private as well as a political use of her autonomy, hardly
ever exists. Posing the question of how consumers might safeguard their
autonomy without succumbing to the disappointments that the differen41
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
tiated social orders of consumption and politics systematically produce,
leads back to the theories of David Riesman and Michel de Certeau, who
address this issue of autonomy as related to the figure of the consumer as
well as forms of political thinking and action.9
4. Conclusion – towards a sociological theory of the consumer citizen
Based on three sociological approaches to the conduct of everyday life,
this article pursued the question as to the problems of, and potential for,
autonomy arising from the constellations of action facing consumers and
to what extent those constellations inhere or motivate transgressions that
may take political shape. Scrutiny of the hybrid figure of the consumer
citizen and the typical practices this involves from the angle of cultural
sociology is called for, not least because this figure has drawn increasing
attention in a socio-political discourse preoccupied with empowering and
energizing the civic autonomy of consumers as a means of civilizing the
global market society, for the political regulation of which other means
have either been lost or have become ineffective. This focus on the consumer as a means of containing excesses of globalization may – but not
necessarily must – have as a consequence that those ambivalences, conflicts, problems, or tensions remain hidden from view which, in the consumer citizens’ own everyday and biographical perspectives, are most
pressing in terms of gaining or losing autonomy. This would amount to
the pursuit of a politics, cast in the ideological guise of energizing, fostering, and demanding consumer autonomy, that merely externalizes the
decision load and moral demands onto individual consumers, thus further aggravating their autonomy problems (Lamla 2008, 2011). Against
this type of instrumentalization, cultural sociology emphasizes aspects of
gaining autonomy that take the conduct of everyday life as their starting
point and yet may – and probably must – result in consumers reappropriating political space for action.
Michel de Certeau’s theory of consumption practices directed attention to
forms of gaining and safeguarding autonomy that transgress the rules and
conventions of orderly conduct in markets by way of subversive tactics.
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
This, of course, does not rule out a more extensive politicization of consumer life, as noted by Albert O. Hirschman, in reaction to disappointment, transformation of preferences, and motives for shifting attention to
the political arena. For, ‘shifting involvements’ between consumer and
citizen cannot be conceived as merely a kind of strategic alternation between exit and voice options. It depicts more of a convoluted selfformation process (Bildungsprozess) in a quest for more suitable ways of
conducting one’s life, driven by problems of maintaining or expanding
autonomy. Such processes are to some extent prone to failure not least
because of institutional framework conditions marked by differentiated
political and economic orders that systematically complicate attempts at
balancing the involvement of private and public interests. This perspective
on the institutional and cultural framework conditions of gaining autonomy by way of (political) self-formation processes becomes even more
significant, if, drawing on David Riesman and his associates, we characterize the life situation of today’s consumers as marked by qualities related to
other-directedness. Shifts in forms of involvement are more difficult for
personalities of this type owing to the fact that they are enmeshed in fashionable opinion trends, to the whims of which they are helplessly exposed. The difficulties of overcoming these dependencies, and of
transgressing the rules of conformity that govern marginal differentiation
and the awarding of recognition toward an enhanced autonomy of the
consumer personality, allow to identify a number of criteria that any
political form of realizing and encouraging autonomy must satisfy.
Riesman – as well as de Certeau and Hirschman – is aware of how important it is to be able to narratively activate the wealth of experience present
in one’s life history as possibly the most significant source of cultivating
the ability to master life and one’s existence as a consumer, and providing
a stable ground for any biographical reorganization of meta-preferences.
However, this process can neither be conceived in terms of formative ideals that are modeled after the inner-directed personality, or by recommending a complete shift to the political arena, nor can it unfold on
grounds of simply any type of everyday consumption practice. Rather,
such a process requires a suitable setting, adequate resources and freedoms, for the design of which Riesman provides insightful clues. They can
be grouped in four categories and linked to recently developed theories:
42
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
a) Consumer autonomy cannot be attained irrespective of the conditions
of social recognition. Rather, autonomy relies on ‘friends’ who support
the consumer in interpreting his or her life history and ‘who welcome
and appreciate or at least do not punish expression and exploration’ (Riesman et al. 1961: 277-278). This involves a kind of social appreciation of
the authenticity of a personality, as we find exemplified in the life of an
artist (Riesman et al. 1961: 290-291), and requires that this appreciation
maintains a distance to the deformed market- or mass-media-type representations of sincerity that threaten to undermine consumers’ judgemental abilities. Riesman (1961: 297-299) seeks ways of refining taste through
egalitarian, democratic exchange among consumers, which avoid patronizing them.
Yet, this does raise the question of whether recognition of aestheticexpressive values can at all be submitted to deliberative exchange and
learning processes initiated in this way. The answer does not have to be a
negative one, as long as we may assume that the modern myth of authenticity features a surplus of validity (Geltungsüberhang) that consumer
citizens, in their ‘struggle for recognition’ (Honneth 1996), must critically
come to terms with and which allows them to initiate processes of political self-formation (Bildungsprozess). This myth marks a profound ambivalence in modern-day ‘cultural’ capitalism. On the one hand, it is a favored means employed by the culture industry in encroaching upon the
conduct of life by exploiting commercial life-style clichés. On the other
hand, it represents a target of criticism, since it focuses attention on the
discrepancy between symbolic guise and actual reality, time and again
motivating tactical finesse on the part of consumers to thwart the economic language games (Lamla 2009, 2010a). For this reason, the figure of
‘struggle for recognition’ – that is, of an empirical dispute over the meaning of normative validity claims – can be consistently transferred to issues
of authenticity. The question is, under which circumstances does this dynamic help the other-directed personality escape dependency on the appreciation of self in terms of consumerist and mass media codes? Adequate
conditions for life-political disputes in as well as between the different
social worlds of peer groups are required here.
b) Riesman views activities suited to counteract spiritual impoverishment
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
of consumers within the private sphere as a second prerequisite for establishing the autonomy of the other-directed personality. Drawing on the
examples of women’s voluntary community work – today we would
speak of voluntary civic involvement – and modes of socializing in clubs
or societies, he illustrates that a certain level of political participation
within the community is indispensable in this respect (Riesman 1961: 280285). Thus, precisely, autonomy cannot be maintained by solely concentrating on the realm of private consumption. Rather, consumption habits
pose considerable risk of contributing to ‘spiritual impoverishment’10 in
that they often only serve to fill idle time in leisure, which otherwise
might provide the needed space for personal development. However, political forms of socializing and participating in public life also require a
framework that secures an openness towards learning and does not confront expressions of an unknown, new, or foreign culture with disinterested tolerance, or even with prejudices and stereotypes. It is important
here to recover a democratic public sphere where civic involvement
means to communicate and deliberately highlight the connections between western consumer culture, on the one hand, and global social injustice, on the other (Young 2006).11
c) A steadfast guarantee of the private sphere is another essential element
in the constitution of autonomy to complement the public side of the
consumer citizen (see also Rössler 2001). The private sphere is a place to
which to retreat from the strains of interpersonal exchange, offering the
individual an opportunity for ‘play which is private, reverie-filled, and
fantasy-rich’ (Riesman et al. 1961: 288) and allowing it to better get to
know and judge its own personal inclinations and interests. The institutionalization of such ramparts guarding the private sphere is also important to protect against the work sphere. Drawing on hobbies as an example, Riesman, for instance, discusses the difficulties of engaging in
craftsmanship as a way of exploring the self that arise from the fact that
individual performance is always at risk of being pitted against that of a
professional craftsman (Riesman et al. 1961: 293f). From a present-day perspective, this can be taken as a warning that leisure practices of private
self-exploration are always in danger of being pre-formed by marketable
patterns as offered in advice books. At this point, the tactical skills of consumers are called for. Sophistication in this respect allows consumers to
43
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
make use of what the market has to offer – which is ultimately inevitable
anyway – while not fully submitting to economic purpose. Areas of private retreat are important supportive structures in this respect.
d) Paradoxically, private consumer autonomy can hardly be secured
without the help of ‘avocational counselors’, that is, without calling on
actors who mediate or decide on behalf of consumers. Riesman (1961:
300f) clearly identifies the ensuing problem: ‘The objection remains that
to turn the other-directed man over to an avocational counselor to teach
him competence in play is merely to increase the very dependence which
keeps him other-directed rather than autonomous.’ (Riesman et al. 1961:
301). Yet, he does not consider this development to be without alternative. It depends on the interplay between client and counselor. To teach
small children to be consumers, he, for instance, designs an experiment in
which the consumers-to-be, as yet unimpressed by advertising and other
standards of taste, are endowed with vouchers which they are free to use
as they please in ‘a kind of everyday world’s fair’ (Riesman et al. 1961: 302).
This is intended to give market research an opportunity to develop a
comprehensive understanding of actual practices of use, and of the
autonomy potential of consumer citizens that may inhere therein. While
such a scenario, deeming market research to be ‘one of the most promising channels for democratic control of our economy’ (Riesman et al. 1961:
302), may indeed have quite a utopian ring to it, the type of help provided
from different quarters can nonetheless be distinguished between that
which strengthens autonomy and that which weakens it.12 The counseling, enticing, supporting, or mobilizing endeavor of designers, sales people, PR managers, advertisers, market researchers, consumer advocates,
debt counseling service organizations, movement activists, product testers, and other intermediary agents and entities, is to face the model of a
professional work alliance (Oevermann 1997) based on client orientation
as the norm in therapeutic professions: its focus would be reviving and
strengthening the damaged or threatened autonomy and integrity of the
person. This, of course, could hardly mean that life would, to an even
larger degree, revolve around existence as that of a consumer making
choices or of a competent market participant.
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
References
Arendt, Hannah (1958) The Human Condition. Chicago: University Of
Chicago Press.
Baringhorst, Sigrid/Kneip, Veronika/März, Annegret/Niesyto, Johanna
(eds.) (2007) Politik mit dem Einkaufswagen. Unternehmen und Konsumenten als Bürger in der globalen Mediengesellschaft. Bielefeld: transkript.
Barthes, Roland (2006) The Language of Fashion. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Baumann, Zygmunt (2000) Liquid Modernity. Camebridge: Polity Press.
Beck, Ulrich (2007) Weltrisikogesellschaft. Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Sicherheit. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.
Bell, Daniel (1996) The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York:
Basic Books.
Boltanski, Luc/Chiapello, Ève (2005) The New Spirit of Capitalism.
London: Verso.
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
Devinney, Timothy M./Auger, Pat/Eckhardt, Giana M. (2010) The Myth of
the Ethical Consumer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ehrenberg, Alain (2004) Das erschöpfte Selbst. Depression und Gesellschaft in der Gegenwart. Frankfurt a. M./New York: Campus.
Foucault, Michel (1995) Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New
York: Vintage.
Giddens, Anthony (1984) The Constitution of Society. Outline of the
Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Giddens, Anthony (2003) ‘Neoprogressivism. A New Agenda for Social
Democracy’. In: Giddens, A. (Hrsg.) The Progressive Manifesto. New Ideas
for the Centre-Left. Oxford: Polity, S. 1-34.
Goffman, Erving (1968) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental
Patients and Other Inmates. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Habermas, Jürgen (1985) The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume
1 and 2. Boston: Beacon Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Habermas, Jürgen (1998) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought). Cambridge:
The MIT Press.
Campbell, Colin (1987) The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern
Consumerism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Heidbrink, Ludger/Schmidt, Imke/Ahaus, Björn (eds.) Die Verantwortung
des Konsumenten. Über das Verhältnis von Markt, Moral und Konsum.
Frankfurt/New York: Campus.
Castells, Manuel (2003) Power of Identity: The Information Age – Economy, Society and Culture: 2 (Information Age; Economy, Society & Culture). Cambridge, MA, USA: Blackwell.
de Certeau, Michel (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, Los Angeles,
London: University of California Press.
44
Hirsch, Fred (1976) Social Limits to Growth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Hirschman, Albert O. (1970) Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
Hirschman, Albert O. (1977) The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph. Princeton University Press.
bert/ Heinze, Rolf G. (eds.) Sozialpolitik: Ökonomisierung und Entgrenzung. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 301-320.
Hirschman, Albert O. (1982) Shifting Involvements. Private Interest and
Public Action. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lamla, Jörn (2009) ‘Authentizität im kulturellen Kapitalismus. Gedanken
zur “konsumistischen” Subjektformation der Gegenwart’. In: Amrein,
Ursula (ed.) Das Authentische. Referenzen und Repräsentationen. Zürich: Chronos, 171-185.
Honneth, Axel (1996) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar
of Social Conflicts. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Kneip, Veronika (2010) Consumer Citizenship und Corporate Citizenship.
Bürgerschaft als politische Dimension des Marktes. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Koppetsch, Cornelia (2004) ‘Die Werbebranche im Wandel. Zur Neujustierung von Ökonomie und Kultur im neuen Kapitalismus’. In: Hellmann,
Kai-Uwe/Schrage, Dominik (eds.) Konsum der Werbung. Zur Produktion
und Rezeption von Sinn in der kommerziellen Kultur. Wiesbaden: VSVerlag, 147-161.
Kracauer, Siegfried (1971) ‘Die Angestellten. Aus dem neuesten Deutschland’. In: idem: Schriften, Vol. 1. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
Lamla, Jörn (2003) Anthony Giddens. Frankfurt a. M./New York: Campus.
Lamla, Jörn (2005) ‘Kontexte der Politisierung des Konsums. Die Zivilgesellschaft in der gegenwärtigen Krisenkonstellation von Politik, Ökonomie und Kultur’. In: Adloff, Frank/Birsl, Ursula/Schwertmann, Philipp
(eds.) Wirtschaft und Zivilgesellschaft. Theoretische und empirische Perspektiven. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 127-153.
Lamla. Jörn (2007) ‘Die Autonomie des Verbrauchers und ihre politischen
Formen. Bausteine einer Kulturtheorie des Consumer Citizen’. In: Baringhorst, S. et al. Politik mit dem Einkaufswagen. Unternehmen und
Konsumenten als Bürger in der globalen Mediengesellschaft. Bielefeld:
transcript, S. 53-80.
Lamla, Jörn (2008) ‘Sozialpolitische Verbraucheraktivierung. Konsumsubjekt und Bürgergemeinschaft in der Marktgesellschaft’. In: Evers, Adal45
Lamla, Jörn (2010a) ‘Authentizitätsmythos und Verbraucherautonomie.
Über soziale Wertschätzung im kulturellen Kapitalismus und verbleibende Pfade in die “Nachknappheitsgesellschaft”’. In: Franzmann, M. Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen als Antwort auf die Krise der Arbeitsgesellschaft. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, S. 392-419.
Lamla, Jörn (2010b) ‘Kultureller Kapitalismus im Web 2.0. Zur Analyse
von Segmentations-, Intersektions- und Aushandlungsprozessen in den
sozialen Welten des Internets’. In: Zeitschrift für Qualitative Forschung
(ZQF), Vol. 11(1) 11-36.
Lamla, Jörn (2011) ‘Verbraucherdemokratie. Ein Zwischenbericht zur Politik der Konsumgesellschaft’. In: Heidbrink, L./Schmidt, I./Ahaus, B. Die
Verantwortung der Konsumenten. Über das Verhältnis von Markt, Moral
und Konsum. Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 93-112.
Lamla, Jörn (2012) ‘›Netizenship‹ oder Alltagsökonomie? Typologische
Betrachtungen über die Motivlagen und Beteiligungsmuster von Internetnutzern sowie die Zukunft digitaler Demokratie’. In: Kleemann,
F./Voß, G. G. Arbeit und Betrieb im Web 2.0. Zum neuen Verhältnis zwischen Betrieben und Usern. Frankfurt/New York: Campus (forthcoming).
Lamla, Jörn (2013) Verbraucherdemokratie. Politische Soziologie der Konsumgesellschaft. Berlin: Suhrkamp (forthcoming).
Lamla, Jörn/Neckel, Sighard (eds.) (2006) Politisierter Konsum – konsumierte Politik. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
Marx, Karl (1963) The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. New York:
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
International Publishers.
Micheletti, Michele (2003) Political Virtue and Shopping. Individuals,
Consumerism, and Collective Action. New York/Houndmills u.a.: Palgrave Macmillan.
Oevermann, Ulrich (1997) ‘Theoretische Skizze einer revidierten Theorie
professionellen Handelns’. In: Combe, Arno/Helsper, Werner (eds.) Pädagogische Professionalität. Untersuchungen zum Typus pädagogischen
Handelns. 2nd ed. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 70-182.
Parmiggiani, Paola/Musarò, Pierluigi (2005) ‘Tactics and strategies of consumption: new way of creative resistance between global and local’. Paper
for online-discussion at the conference “Politisierter Konsum – konsumierte Politik”, Gießen, 03.-04.06.2005. URL: http://www.politikkonsum.de/pdf/tacticandstrategytotal.pdf.
Reckwitz, Andreas (2003) ‘Grundelemente einer Theorie sozialer Praktiken. Eine sozialtheoretische Perspektive’. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 32
(4), 282-301.
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
Scitovsky, Tibor (1977) The Joyless Economy: Inquiry into Human Satisfaction and Consumer Dissatisfaction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Senett, Richard (1977) The Fall of Public Man. On the Social Psychology of
Capitalism. New York: Knopf.
Senett, Richard (1998) The Corrosion of Character: The Transformation
of Work in Modern Capitalism. New York: Norton & Co.
Stehr, Nico (2007) Die Moralisierung der Märkte. Eine Gesellschaftstheorie. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.
Trentmann, Frank (2007) ‘Citizenship and consumption’. In: Journal of
Consumer Culture, 7 (2), 147-158.
Warde, Alan (2005) ‘Consumption and Theories of Practice’. In: Journal of
Consumer Culture, 5 (2), 131-153.
Weber, Max (2003) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Oxford: Dover Value Editions.
Riesman, David/Glazer, Nathan/Denney, Reuel (1961) The Lonely Crowd.
3rd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Young, Iris Marion (2006) ‘Responsibility and global justice. A social connection model’. In: Social Philosophy and Policy, 23 (1), 102-130.
Rosa, Hartmut (2005) Beschleunigung. Die Veränderung der Zeitstrukturen in der Moderne. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
Zuboff, Shoshana/Maxmin, James (2002) The Support Economy. Why
corporations are failing individuals and the next episode of capitalism.
New York: Penguin.
Rössler, Beate (2001) Der Wert des Privaten. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
Schatzki, Theodore R. (1996) Social Practices. A Wittgensteinian Approach
to Human Activity and the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License (AttributionNoncommercial 3.0). See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/nl/deed.en for
more information.
Schudson, Michael (2006) The Troubling Equivalence of Citizen and Consumer. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science 2006, 608, 193-204.
1
46
A first version of the following sections on Riesman, de Certeau and Hirschman has
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
been published – in another succession – in German (Lamla 2007). But the argument is
revised and enhanced in many respects here. A more comprehensive discussion of all
these questions will be published in Lamla (2013).
2
As we all know, Weber (2003) sought to explain how the modern economic habitus was
able to prevail against the traditional ways of contemporary life. Resuming the project,
David Riesman, Daniel Bell (1996), Colin Campbell (1987) up to Luc Boltanski and Ève
Chiapello (2005) are all mainly interested in those thresholds and ruptures that have
surfaced after, or in the course of, the emergence of capitalism.
3
‘Indeed, in the period of incipient decline, nonproductive consumers, both the increasing number of old people, and the diminishing number of as yet untrained young, form
a high proportion of the population, and these need both the economic opportunity to
be prodigal and the character structure that allows it.’ (Riesman et al. 1961: 18-19)
4
For the theoretical debates on structuralism and poststructuralism, which also take up
this issue, and on the theorems of ‘praxis’ or practices, refer also to Schatzki (1996) and
Reckwitz (2003). Warde (2005) makes references to consumption.
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy
sive. Consumers are transformed into immigrants.’ (de Certeau 1984: 40) These reservations raise questions concerning the chances for increasing the consumer citizens’ options and resources for the simple fact that tactics are in danger of being exploited
through intelligent adjustments in (political) marketing: by supplying media-produced
illusions of credibility to consumers, marketing replaces the traditional element of religious ritual and provides tactics with a new ambivalent home (de Certeau 1984: 176-189).
8
In his work on the opposite nature of ‘passions and interests’, which he addresses from a
history of ideas perspective, Hirschman (1977) is concerned with the complexity of motives underlying action, but only from the limited perspective of political theories that
sought to justify capitalism in the early stages of its emergence.
9
Hirschman and Riesman are both interested in developments that emerge in the wake
of prosperity and ‘revolutions in consumption’, such as the ones characteristic of the
1950s, which had in fact already set in at an earlier point in time. Hirschman bases his
analyses on observations not available to Riesman at the time. Hirschman developed his
cycle theory under the impression of the politicization observed in 1968 and its waning
during the 1970s, when ‘the easy forward movement that had marked the earlier period
gave place almost everywhere to uncertainty and crisis’ (Hirschman 1982: 3).
5
To be sure, Giddens (1984) also emphasizes that power is not a one-way street and that
actors retain minimal autonomy even under restrictive conditions. He rejects a Foucaultian (1995) notion of power centered on surveillance and disciplining just as de Certeau
does (de Certeau 1984: 45-49). As an alternative, he turns to Erving Goffman’s (1968) analyses of ‘total institutions’.
10
Nowadays, we speak of ‘depression’ as an endemic disease (Ehrenberg 2004).
11
De Certeau (1984: 50-60) also critically discusses Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of habitus.
He refers to Bourdieu’s ‘Outline of a Theory of Practice’ (1977) as a brilliant text but complains that it ultimately remains in the grip of structuralist thought.
The Internet could technically provide an adequate infrastructure for such a public
sphere where common-good-related criteria of civic involvement, just as (aesthetic)
criteria for social appreciation of authentic individuality, are negotiated in an egalitarian
atmosphere open to learning. However, apart from some innovative attempts at connecting consumers, established commercial and political patterns of segmented social
worlds are up until now generally extended to digital cultural space (Lamla 2010b).
7
12
6
De Certeau states, ‘(…) it also seems that the generalization and expansion of technocratic rationality have created, between the links of the system, a fragmentation and explosive growth of these practices which were formerly regulated by stable local units.
Tactics are more and more frequently going off their tracks. Cut loose from the traditional communities that circumscribed their functioning, they have begun to wander
everywhere in a space which is becoming at once more homogeneous and more exten-
47
With regard to service providers, Riesman concedes: ‘But of course avocational counseling here (…) is usually trying to sell a commodity or a service rather than to help the
individual find what he wants and might want’ (Riesman 1961: 301). In contrast, in the
case of market researchers he attests: ‘Market researchers know as well as anyone that
their methods need not be used simply to manipulate people into buying the goods and
cultural definitions that already exist (…) but can be employed to find out not so much
Krisis
Journal for contemporary philosophy
what people want but what with liberated fantasy they might want’ (Riesman 1961: 302303; cf. Koppetsch 2004). Of course, we need to consider (and this gives reason to be skeptical) that the sector of individual ‘avocational counseling’, in the meantime, has been
identified as a crucial growth market in the ‘support economy’ and the goal of establishing autonomy in turn may fall victim to economic exploitation (cf. for instance Zuboff/Maxmin 2002).
48
Jörn Lamla – Consumer autonomy