THE SCIENCE OF DESIRE

The Science Of Desire

The Science Of Desire

Consumption is, of course, essential to any social order: To reproduce themselves as identifiable ways of life and social structures, societies require material and symbolic resources that are used to sustain bodies, interactions, institutions, and organizations. Hence, both historians and anthropologists have well-developed literatures on the material cultures and consumption structures of non-modern societies. To talk of a “consumer culture,” however, is generally to make a much stronger set of claims (Ante, 2006): that initially in the modern West (but now increasingly as a global phenomenon), consumption was separated out from other social processes to become an identifiably separate sphere with recognizable identities, institutions, and values. This is often closely identified with the development of market capitalism (Appadurai, 2009).

The ability to breakdown entire business processes into small components, leading to a strong division of labor, has enabled firms to pick and choose the physical location and the type of worker needed for each part of a firm's operations. The emergence of the global economy not only has led to a growth in the number of markets for products and services and the entry of worldwide competition. It has also created more possibilities for moving work and workers across the globe. Multinational firms transfer manufacturing processes to low-wage countries in Latin America, southeast Asia, and eastern Europe.

More recent practices of subcontracting (contracting work out to another firm) of manual labor can be found in the consumer electronics industry (Appadurai, 2009). Here so-called original equipment manufacturers (OEM) have subcontracted the manufacturing of different components for a single product (e.g., a computer) to firms in low-wage countries such as Taiwan, China, and Korea.

For example, some temp agencies offer not only temporary labor but also HRM services for companies such as salary administration or the ...