Zadok Paper S101 Winter 1999
The Abuse of Consumerism
by Dave Collis

Shut up and shop![45] 

With the increasing importance of money at the heart of consumer culture has arisen a process through which the system of production implants needs into the consumer. Baudrillard describes how with the exhaustion of existing markets through overproduction, it is left up to the system of production itself to manufacture demand among consumers. "For a long time capital only had to produce goods; consumption ran by itself. Today it is necessary to produce consumers, to produce demand, and this production is infinitely more costly than that of goods."[46] 

Within this process Timothy Luke uses the term "product semantics"[47]  to describe the collection of meanings attached to a given product by an advertisement. Products are culturally "coded" by the advertisement according to desirable meanings so as to be optimally received by consumers.[48]  Coke, for example, is identified with bubbly and good-looking adolescents; Nike with Pete Sampras in the heights of his competitive glory. Another way of thinking about this coding process is to think of it in terms of the attachment of a "hyper-reality"[49]  to the product. Through the act of consumption the consumer is allowed to deny (repress) its (abusive) reality and instead embrace the more desirable hyper-reality of the product or, more specifically, of its coded associations. What Marxists call 'commodity fetishism', the way in which products acquire significance above and beyond their use value, can thus be explained through this process of cultural encoding. Again the language of semiotics is useful as a way to describe this process, with the advertisement as signifier and the product as referent. Luke writes that "Commodity fetishism in this new stage of capitalism focuses not exclusively on the product, but rather also on the sign values invested in the product as an object."[50] 

This process of implantation of needs, I want to argue, is at the heart of the abusiveness of consumerism. Just as the sexually abused child is told what his needs are, without having the necessary emotional space or resources to determine these for himself, so too the consumer is 'told' what her needs are by the productive apparatus of consumer capitalism. In both cases, however, these needs are determined from the position of power (by the adult's need or the dictates of capital's expansion) with little regard for the vulnerable (the consumer or victim). This implantation of needs as part of abuse is poignantly illustrated by a Negativland song in which the following jingle, mimicking the style of Pepsi advertisements, is sung in the vulnerable tones of an addict stumbling through a maze of nonsensical desires unable to prevail against the hegemonic voice of Pepsi advertisements.

I need a Pepsi; I need a Pepsi; I need a Pepsi today
I need a Pepsi; I need a Pepsi; I need a Pepsi right away
I don't know what else to say; I need a Pepsi today
Show my brand loyalty,
So I can feel good about me
I need a Pepsi today so I can play basketball
I need a Pepsi sometimes and I don't know why
I hear that voice inside my head; it makes me go out and buy
It lives inside my head, 'I need a Pepsi'[51] 

It's worth noting, for the sake of completeness, some of the other myths which stem from the money myth. Jameson points out the ludicrous nature of the term "free choice" when talking about consumer choice since the consumer has little power over what can be bought.[52]  Both "sovereign consumer" and "free choice" are constructed fictions masquerading as objective truths. Barthes, in Mythologies, draws out many mythical strands running through mainstream discourse including, among many, the continually improving power of technology to fulfil dreams as seen in car design,[53]  and the naturalness of the adult world seen in the toys given to children.[54]  Another myth given by Naomi Wolf, arguing from a feminist perspective, is the image of female beauty which is used to propagate unequal gender power relations.[55]  And there are many more which could be mentioned. In each case the myth is presented as natural or objective aspects of reality despite its socially constructed nature. Consumer culture, therefore, can best be regarded as a patchwork of essentialist bits and pieces. Consumerism's story consists in telling these myths and passing them off as if they were a-historical and objective realities.

To: Consumerism as Hyper-reality

Dave Collis is project worker for Jubilee 2000 Campaign in Australia, and is involved with street ministries with the Urban Mission Unit of Collins Street Baptist Church and the St Vincent de Paul Society.