BOOK REVIEW

Book Review

Table of Contents

Executive Summary3

Book Review4

The Concept of Shopping8

Focus on the Desired Object9

Information Consciousness10

Online Shopping10

Chief Shopping Interests11

Some General Spending Patterns11

Health and Beauty11

Small Consumer Electronics11

Clothing12

Advantages of Online Shopping13

Convenience13

Prices Less Than Those On Brick Built Stores14

A Wide Range Of Choices14

Selection Made Easy14

Old People Can Make Their Choice15

Risks of Online Shopping15

Avoiding Risks While Shopping on the Internet15

References17

Executive Summary

Recent years have seen an increase in resistance to modern consumerism. Boycotts, buycotts, fair trade, green and ethical consumerism, culture jamming, 'the brand boomerang', voluntary simplicity, 'locavore' programs, and do-it-yourself initiatives are just a few examples, all of which have been studied in The Journal of Consumer Culture. Media and cultural studies lecturer Jo Littler proposes a framework for analyzing these actions in

Radical Consumption: Shopping for Change in Contemporary Culture. A brief text, the book offers a conceptual toolkit for studying consumer dis-enchantment from a broad perspective. It should interest anyone concerned with contemporary consumer studies and consumer activism in particular.

Book Review

Littler gathers the diverse strains of consumer activism under the rubric “radical consumption”, noting that 'this is a world in which we are increasingly encouraged to shop for change' (p. 2). The term radical does seem to have an advantage over other more commonly recognized appellations, such as political, conscientious, or ethical consumption, in that it strips away normative connotations to suggest getting at the root of exchange relations more functionally. Rather than just survey the field, Littler weighs the strengths and weaknesses of radical consumption in order to ponder the fundamental question: 'Can we really buy our way to a better, more equitable or more sustainable future?' Littler begins with a theoretical discussion of moral discourses as applied to current consumer practice. She uses political philosopher Wendy Brown's recent work on morality and ethics to characterize radical consumption as revealing 'a crisis of moralism' in late-modern consumer society, especially with respect to the market system. Extrapolating from Brown, Littler notes that the rise of consumer moralism reveals a breakdown of legitimacy in traditional exchange relations. The apparent need to distinguish radical consumption as ethical signals the perceived lack of that quality in mainstream routines. From the perspective of classical economics, that the latter should be so is a matter of course. But in the contemporary situation in which consumption becomes intertwined with personal identity construction, self-expressive desire often pits dreams of virtuous hedonism against knowledge of the actually existing production and distribution apparatus of global capitalist exploitation, both natural and social. Exploring the ramifications of this comprises the rest of the book.

The primary method for doing so is to examine subjectivities of late-modern consumer culture.

The first, and arguably foremost from a global perspective, is the cosmopolitanism of the world consumer-citizen. A product of Enlightenment universalism, cosmopolitanism permeates contemporary consumption by comprehending the world of goods on the level of global consciousness - commodity-chain analysis brought to the point of sale, even if unintentionally. As with Enlightenment universalism, the question is one of equity. Many have pointed out that privilege inheres in some cosmopolitan positions ...