Chapter 5

Consumption, Consumerism and Happiness

( Economies, Work and Consumption )

1.0 Introduction
This chapter explores the operation and significance of
economies, investigating he changing character of work in
today’s world , showing how economies are interdependent
with other features of societies, and suggesting that they are
now more closely interconnected internationally than ever
before.

2.0 The Great Economic Transformations

All societies have to deal with the production, distribution and
consumption of goods ( such as food, clothing and shelter )
and services ( religious leaders, doctors )
2.1The Agricultural Revolution
Agricultural emerged as people harnessed animals to
ploughs, increasing the productive power of hunting and
gathering more than tenfold.
The resulting surplus freed some people in society from the
demands of food production.
Individual began to adopt specialized economic roles:
forging crafts, designing tools, raising animals and
constructing dwellings.

2.2The Industrial Revolution

By the middle of the eighteenth century, a second
technological revolution was proceeding, first in England and
then elsewhere in Europe and North America.
It transformed social life.
Industrialization introduced 5 notable changes to the
economies of Western society.
1. New Forms of Energy
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 Steam engine.

2. The centralization of work in Factories

3. Manufacturing and mass production.
4. Division of labor and specialization.
5. Wage labor
Instead of working for themselves, industrial workers
entered factories as wage laborers

2.3Sectors of the Economy

1. Primary sector
This sector generates raw materials directly from the
natural environment and includes agriculture, animal
husbandry, fishing, forestry and mining.

2. Secondary sector
This sector transforms raw material into manufactured
goods and includes the refining of petroleum, and the use
of metals to manufacture tools and automobiles.

3. Third sector
This sector generates services rather than goods and
includes teachers, shop assistants, cleaners and solicitors.

2.4The Global Revolution : The Global Economy

As technology draws people around the world closer
together, another important economic transformation seems
to be taking place. Globalization has become key features of
the late modern world.
1. The economies of the richest nations, including Europe,
now specialize in service sector activity.

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 2. Workers in the poorer countries working long hours for
little pay in what have been called ‘the sweatshops of the
world’.
3. An increasing number of products pass through the
economies of more than one nation.

3.0Economies : Differing Kinds

Contemporary economies of the world can be analyzed in
terms of two abstract models – capitalism and socialism.

3.1Capitalism
Capitalism refers to an economic system in which resources
and the means of producing goods and services are privately
owned. There are 3 distinctive features.
1. Privately ownership of property.
It support the right of individuals to own almost anything.
2. Pursuit of personal profit.
3. Free competition, consumer sovereignty and markets.
No government interferences, sometimes called a laissez –
faire approach.

3.2Socialism
An economic system in which natural resources and the
means of producing goods and services are collectively
owned.

There are 3 distinctive features of socialism.

1. Collective ownership of property.
2. Pursuit of collective goals
3. Government control of the economy.

4.0The Changing Nature of Work

4.1Work in Europe

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In 1999, the active labor force aged 16 – 64 in the European
Union was around 68% of the population.
Working around 40 hours per week.

4.2The Decline of Agricultural Work

When the twentieth century began, about 40 % of the
industrial world’s labor force were engaged in farming.
By now, it nearer to 2 % and many agricultural workers
worked part time.

4.3From Factory Work to Service Work

Industrialization swelled the ranks of factory workers during
the nineteenth century.
By 1911, more than 45 % of the UK workforce had service
jobs.
A major new form of work in the service industry involves
‘teleworking’ at ‘call centres’.

Growth of the new IT sector.

The growth of service occupations is one reason for the
widespread description of Europe as a middle-class society.
Example : sales position, secretarial work, job in fast-food
restaurant –yield little of the income and prestige of
professional white-collar occupation and the prestige of
professional white-collar occupation, provides fewer rewards
than factor work.
It only provide a modest standard of living.

4.4The Dual Labor Market

1. The primary labor market includes occupations that
provide extensive benefits to workers.
Example : white-collar professional and high management
positions.
They are jobs that people thinks of as careers.
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 Have high income and job security and is also personally
challenging and intrinsically satisfying.
2. Secondary labor market – job providing minimal benefits
to workers.
The labor is employed in the low-skilled, blue-collar type
of work found in routine assembly-line operations and in
low –level service –sector.
Examples : clerical positions.
The secondary labor market offers workers much lower
income, demands a longer working week and affords less
job security and opportunity to advance.
Experience alienation and dissatisfaction with their jobs.

4.5Gender, Women and Work

One of the most striking features of the modern world is that
more and more women are working across the world,
accounting for around 36 – 40 % of the world’s labor force.
Men, by contrast, become increasingly unemployed, both
when young and as they get older.

The characteristics of women’s work are often very different

from those of men:
1. They work more often for wages ( as opposed to salaries )
2. They are usually paid lesser than men.
3. Often their work has less status.
4. Job insecurity is greater.
5. They are more likely to become unemployed in many
countries.
6. Advances into administrative and managerial positions are
often blocked by what has been called ‘ the glass ceiling’.

4.6Doing the dirty work

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Domestic labor – middle-class men and women to employ
other women.
Such work is often disproportionately performed by
racialised groups and migrant workers.

In 2000, Bridget Anderson in her study of migrant domestic

workers in five European cities – found that that such work
not only brought low pay and long hours, it could amount to
a kind of ‘slavery’.

4.7The Sweatshops of the World

In lower-income countries, women are often compelled to
work in the ‘sweatshops of the world’- where apart from
exceptionally low income ( less than a dollar a day ), their
work condition are subject to little or no regulation are
casual and temporary, and are often hazardous.
Much of these work’s work here is uncounted, so official
figures can mean very little.
The are also ‘on the move’, migrating to where the work is.

4.8The Spread of Part-time and flexible work

Over the past –decade, part-time work has become more
common, especially for women in the UK in 2000.
Companies scrambling to ‘remain competitive’ in the global
economy are ‘downsizing’ and decentralizing to gain
‘flexibility’.
These trends mean not only cutting the number of people on
the payroll, but also replacing long-term employees with
temporary workers.
BY hiring ‘temps’, companies no longer have to worry about
providing insurance, paid vacations or pensions.
Workers can be released without further cost when no longer
needed.

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4.9Changes in the Trades Unions
Declining role of the trade unions – organization of workers
seeking to improve the wages and working conditions
through various strategies, including negotiations and
strikes.

Memberships of trade unions has declined over the recent

years, in UK< US and Europe.

Reasons:
1. Countries have lost ten of thousand of jobs in the highly
unionized factories as industrial jobs are ‘exported’
overseas.
2. Many plant managers have succeeded in forcing
concessions from workers, including, in some cases, the
dissolution of trades unions.
3. New service sector job being created today are not
unionized.
4. Temporary workers does not belong to union.

4.10Self Employment
Earning a living without working for an organization.
Self-employed is vulnerable to fluctuation in the economy.
Lack compensation and health-care benefits.
The number of self employed in UK increased throughout the
1980s to peak at 3.6 millions in 1990.
In 1996, there are some 3.3 million self employed in UK and
three-quarters of whom are men.

4.11Unemployment
Five major groups who are likely to become unemployed.
1. Those who experience redundancies due to economic
change.
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 2. Unskilled youth trying to make from transition from school
to work.
3. Unemployed women.
4. The long-term unemployed.

4.12Non-work.
Three broad groups:
1. Those looking after family and home ( mainly women )
2. The long-term sick and disabled.
3. Students

4.13The Underground Economy

Economic activity involving income unreported to the
government as required by law.
Examples: family makes extra money form car boot sales,
baby sitting,
Criminal activities, people trafficking, illegal drugs and
weapons, trafficking of stolen goods, bribery, extortion,
illegal gambling.

4.14The Branding of Commodities

Nike, Starbuck, Mistsubishi, Shell, Wal-Mart, McDonalds’ ,
Sony, IBM, Coca-cola, Toshiba.

The Branded World is organized through style, logos and

image.

5.0The World of Corporation

At the core of today’s capitalist economy lies the market which
is composed centrally of corporations – organizations with a
legal existence, including rights and liabilities, apart from those
of its members.
By incorporation, an organization become an entity unto itself,
able to enter into contracts and own property.
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 5.1Corporation and Competition
Large corporation are not truly competitive because:
1. Their extensive linkages mean that they do not operate
independently.
2. A small number of corporation come to dominate many
large markets.

5.2Corporation and the Global Economy

Corporation have grown in size and power so fast that they
are now responsible for most of the world’s economic output.
Corporation become multinational in order to make more
money ,since most of the world’s people are found in less-
developed countries. Worldwide operations , then, offer
access to plentiful materials and vast markets.
In addition, labor cost are far lower in poor countries of the
world.

6.0Consumption in Modern economies

In the past, socialists have been concern wit the production of
goods and, with the focus on either business or workers and
work.
Today, socialist have come to recognize the importance of
what and how we consume.

Shopping and consuming has now become a major social

practices of everyday life and in some markets, such as the
youth markets, it has almost become the number one social
activity.

6.1Mass Consumption and a Shallow World

The rise of so much consumption has given sociologist much
to discuss.

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1. Consumerist culture is having a deleterious effect on the
quality of life.
2. It destroy traditional cultures and solidarities.
3. The ‘loads a money’ culture promotes self-gratification
and wit the market dominating, leads to a general
flattening of life – destroying differences and
communities.
4. This is seen to lead to the weaken of creativity, the
decline of participatory communities as people now go to
the impersonal shopping mall and not the ‘corner shop’
and it generates a materialism.
5. Creation of ‘brand name society’ , where what is on sale is
not so much a commodity but as a logo.

6.2Inequalities and Consumption

Consumption patterns lead to 3 ways of excluding people:
1. It is through money. Many people simply cannot afford to
purchase new or high quality goods and services and
suffer ‘economic exclusion’ as a result.
2. Excluded spatially : without a car or good public transport
they cannot easily get to shopping centres and other
places of consumption.
3. Excluded due to the lack of knowledge and skills to
consume.

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