Towards a Greener Society:

Social Responsibility of the Citizen in a Culture of Consumption

Introduction

As a citizen positioned within the expanding middle class of the United States, I

have found it increasingly more difficult to remain external to the pressures of a

burgeoning throwaway-consumer society. Our industrialized and capitalistic social

structure has, along with the convincing subliminal messages in product advertising, set

the stage for a massive trend towards a consumerist economy. We are made to believe

that capitalism supplies us with the things we require for the maintenance of our everyday

lifestyles, while all along, we are overloaded with glamorized images from the media,

enticing us to buy largely useless products that suddenly seem to become a part of our

basic “needs.” With the increase of political activism in the realms of social and,

primarily, environmental responsibility, how do we begin to reconcile our disparate roles

as both active citizen and mass consumer?

Performance of the Good Citizen

Capitalist production exploits the consumer idealization of self-presentation.

Through the accumulation of products available for mass consumption, the individual

consumer can present him or herself in whatever way is most desirable. This can

therefore allow citizens to portray themselves as active participants in the process of

capitalistic production that drives our society. By presenting ourselves as productive

members of the work force through the display of shiny, expensive products, we can

create the illusion that we are acting as model citizens, regardless of our actual

contributions to society. We have become a society of faked self-presentations and

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gluttonous leisure, with disregard for our responsibilities towards our greater society and

environmental health.

Construction of Consumption

The term “consumption” was first given real meaning with the introduction of

mercantilist economies, inextricably linking the notion of consumption with a heightened

financial well-being for the sovereign (Wyrwa 432). Following the publishing of Adam

Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in 1776, consumption began to take on a more citizen-

based role within society, where “…‘consumption’ is defined as the actual purpose and

goal of production” (Wyrwa 434). In this way, the individual citizen can participate in

their capitalist economy through the physical act of consumption. In 1857, Franz

Vorländer introduced the idea of personal need as the driving force behind consumption

(Wyrwa 435). This maintenance of needs is what appeared to drive the cyclical economy

of production and consumption that pervades throughout much of the world today. By

following new fashion trends and continuously purchasing innovative products,

consumers appear to shape the process of economic production. With the introduction of

new production processes through industrialization, consumers are given access to a

wealth of products that help to present an idealized image of the active citizen participant.

Because of this, the social stratification that is inherent within capitalist economies is

literally visually enhanced, creating a consumerist society obsessed with the purchase of

items for luxury and comfort—a new system of needs. The mass consumption incited by

this want-based system constructs a false belief that the consumer has personal freedom

of choice, a given right in democratic societies. However, what freedoms do we really

have in a system that controls the amount and very nature of the products that we

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consume? While consumption is now seen as a natural craving, I find it hard to

completely refute the idea that mass consumption is driven by idealized manifestations of

the citizen presented by the capitalist producer. Although consumption is now seen

positively as social exchanges or acts of communication, is this self-presentation just

simply the model citizen that the economic society wishes us to portray (Wyrwa 446)?

The Active Citizen

While we may choose simply to portray ourselves as the idyllic citizen through

our consumptive choices, there are many individual opportunities for actual active

citizenship. The notion of public virtue, for example, is inseparable from the idea of a

good citizen. As members of society, we have a public duty to uphold the rights of all

citizens, regardless of class, race, and sex— at least in theory—and to make individual

and public decisions according to what is morally correct and most beneficial for our

country as a whole. We also have an obligation to maintain the health of our society,

politically, socially, economically, and environmentally, as well as to portray a healthy

nationalist identity to the rest of the world. So how do we reconcile our roles as both the

poster children for our intensely-consumerist society and the model citizens working

towards the advancement, and most importantly, the continuation of a healthy nation and

national identity?

Shifting Ideals of Gender Representation

Consumption and citizenship are clearly deeply intertwined within our social

system, but before I discuss current models of the relationship between the two, I would

like to introduce gender representation as another factor that serves to further

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problematize this unique relationship. The destruction of state socialist ideology

following the Cold War created an influx of new representations of identity in Eastern

Europe, inspired by fresh notions of masculinity and femininity. Pre-Cold War, the ideal

feminine stereotype portrayed a model female citizen, making multiple personal

sacrifices for the good of society. A veritable “Superwoman” who had perfected her role

as “exemplary worker, model mother, and socially committed citizen,” the everyday

woman could rarely, if ever, uphold this ideal of femininity, domesticity, and socially

deigned subservience (Einhorn 126). The ideological transformation towards a capitalist

society introduced a much sought after notion of individual choice and self-representation

that many women had never experienced before. Through this apparent choice, however,

the media prescribed over-sexualized representations for the ideal woman as citizen and

consumer, perhaps creating a system of greater gender stratification, which was then

maintained through the illusion of individual choice to represent the self. Glamorized

images of both the ideal masculine and feminine selves pervade throughout the media,

giving us the false illusion of self-expression, while we continuously prescribe to the self

that we are supposed to be, as fitting the norms of the ideal consumer and citizen. This

display of hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity seems to only serve as a ploy for the

economic producers to create differing markets for more widespread and specialized

consumption, allowing for more competition that appears to be self-expression, but is

actually a produced model of conformity (Einhorn 133). Is this mass consumption,

inspired by model images of the perfect citizen, helping us to, indeed, become an ideal

citizen in any form or fashion, or are we simply striving to appear that way? Perhaps the

problem is that we view citizenship as a set of rights that we all inherently have, rather

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than a responsibility that we have for upholding the ideals of society. Consumption,

therefore, becomes a right to personal expression, rather than a responsibility for the

maintenance of national health and welfare.

The Citizen as Consumer

Despite the increasingly more seductive life as the glamorous and comfortable

consumer, there are individuals who strive to perform the dual function of citizen and

consumer in their everyday lives. The simplest way to act as both citizen and consumer,

is to consume with some kind of agency. By making smart choices about products,

specifically for political reasons, the consumer takes back the responsibility for their own

choices in life, displaying “judgment, autonomy, and solidarity,” all important

characteristics of the model citizen (Micheletti 17). This citizen-consumer must employ

their knowledge of the market and products, which can lead to greater agency in the

performance of self as active citizen. Especially for women, this type of citizen-

consumption allows for a greater participation in the public sphere, whether or not the

consumer agency goes any further than a regular trip to the supermarket.

As citizens, we can perform public virtue without specifically participating in

political life. We can also, however, take it one step further and make economic

sacrifices for the purpose of purchasing more ethically produced goods. This consumer-

citizen relationship is more visible in the political economy, especially when the citizen is

really dedicated to and vocal about a specific cause, such as fair trade coffee or

organically grown foods. Consumers can also make a difference in the public sphere by

acting according to “private virtue.” Shoppers who make decisions for the advancement

of their own self-interest are more likely to be active citizen-consumers, as their personal

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concerns may be shared with others. This creates a community that is very outspoken

about their views on the consumption of certain products, however, they are not acting

with self-sacrifice for the larger community, as a model citizen might. Regardless of the

reason for this kind of consumption, the communities created can thereby strengthen the

performance that the everyday individual displays as consumer and ideal active citizen in

tandem (Micheletti 22).

Market Economy Influences on Consumption

Through the examination of the differing consumer economy models in France

and Germany, we may see how policies and capitalist infrastructure serve to create

different types of the consumer-citizen. In market economies such as Germany, an

“information model” is used, based on the notion of consumer protection. Higher quality

product standards are upheld, there are regulations for accurate product labeling and

advertisements, and information is readily available concerning the “hidden qualities” of

the product at hand. Because of this, the consumer is given the agency to seek out

information about the product, to enhance protection against product failure (Trumbull

163). In economies such as France (and the United States), a model of protection is

relied upon instead, where product failure is the moral and legal responsibility of the

producer. Consumers in this case appear to have much less agency, as they approach all

products as if they are of the same quality, creating a consumer society that favors low

prices (Trumbull 164). Quality is therefore favored in the information model, while

innovation is favored in the protection model. In the United States specifically, the lack

of agency consumers have for finding out accurate product information allows for an

influx of new and innovative product ideas at any time, flooding the market with

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thousands of comfort and luxury-based products that seem to enhance our role as only a

consumer within society. In both of these models, the consumer is protected through

policy in some way, whether it is against the risk of product failure in the protectionist

model or against the risk of low quality products in the informational model. However,

neither of these models is particularly invested in improving the problems we face as

citizens today, specifically the public concerns about the environment and natural

resources that we are burning through with our consumer-based economies.

Consumer Responsibility

The situation regarding the modern conception of the relationship between

consumer and citizen is sticky at best, and it appears that we must in the future, especially

with our environmental concerns, turn to a model of consumer-citizen behavior that is

responsible and well-informed. The issue of consumer responsibility to the state,

however, is difficult at best, and concerns a major shift in the thinking of citizens as

consumers within a capitalist economy. Christophe Dietrich efficiently describes three

models for responsible consumption. The first, committed consumption, is based on the

idea that consumers make choices concerning the impact their purchases will have on the

greater society, specifically in relation to the producers’ dedication to moral or

environmental causes. Consumers, therefore, command agency through purchasing to

promote their position or to incite a more informed type of consumption throughout

society (Dietrich 3). The second model, critical consumption, portrays the consumer as

refusing to be passive in their consumer choices, while instead taking on major ethical

responsibility according to the products that they choose. Students at Grinnell College,

for example, have attempted to perform this type of consumption by petitioning against

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the Coca-Cola Company, which has sketchy moral responsibilities. This type of

consumption provides solidarity for active citizen-consumers, by helping to incite public

organizations that take on the specific ethical causes of the individual (Dietrich 5).

The third type of responsible consumption, and the most important one for the

purposes of this paper, is sustainable consumption. Based on the concept of sustainable

development, which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of

future generations to meet their own needs,” sustainable consumption strives to provide

for basic consumer needs while preserving natural resources and reducing impact on the

environment (Dietrich 3). Sustainable consumption, therefore, appears to allow the

citizen as consumer the greatest amount of individual agency and positive impact for the

greater good of the society today and in the future. It is indeed, the citizen acting as

responsible consumer, rather than the consumer presenting him or herself as the

responsible citizen. Along with this necessary shift in consumer attitudes and actions,

formal policy and legislation changes must also be put into effect in order to move

towards a more sustainable society. Legislation and production can, for example, be

rearranged to match more closely with the heightening attitudes of ethical responsibility

when it comes to the environment. Considering a study of pro-environmental behavior,

Hobson found that thirty percent of individuals preferred a sustainable approach to

consumption, while only three percent of the market products for consumption were in

line with sustainable living standards (Berglund & Matti 553). So as consumers that

make choices according to personal preference and economic incentives, and as citizens

that make choices based on a larger scale for the greater good of the community, how do

we reconcile our disparate identities to make sustainable consumption a feasible reality?

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Revising Conceptions of Citizen and Consumer

It seems that sustainable living will only become a possibility if we reform our

self-presentation as consumer, and turn to a more citizen-based way of living. By taking

on the role of citizen as primary to our identity, we can then adopt the secondary role of

consumer, allowing us to function as responsible, decision-making consumers. Then, our

concerns as ethical individuals will be a natural part of our consumer lifestyle, informing

our personal as well as collective decisions in our private and public spheres of life. A

new solidarity among citizen-consumers should thereby be formed as we all work

towards a collective for the common welfare of both the individual and the whole. This

move towards sustainability is increasingly more important, demonstrated perfectly

through a study by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency that ascertained that,

“private consumption is one of the two single largest causes of a continuous negative

impact on the global environment” (Berglund 559). To avoid more damage to our

environment and to hopefully reverse some of the damaging effects our consumer-based

style of living has already reaped upon the environment, we must find a way to revise

individual attitudes towards civic duty and consumption.

One of the first major revisions needs to take place in respect to our notions of

comfort and luxury. Heating and cooling systems all around the world, for example,

have a major draw on natural resources (Shove 112). By acclimating ourselves to a

normalized temperature all year round, we have rid ourselves of certain social

conventions that would have been less stressful on the environment, such as wearing

more or less clothing depending on the weather. It is necessary, then, to revise our way

of thinking about consumption for the purposes of pure personal comfort or for the

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performance as an idealized citizen. The idea is not to reduce the amount of

consumption, per say, but the ways in which we consume. As citizens, then, we need to

remain aware of our personal commitment to the environment at all times, allowing these

responsibilities to pervade throughout our many roles in life, not just that of the citizen.

“Instead, the challenge is to ‘internalise’ environmental considerations and position

‘ecological rationality as a key variable in social decision-making’” (Shove 116). Indeed,

an entire restructuring of our social society may be necessary for a move towards

sustainable living. Our on-the-go lifestyles turn us into consumers that make purchasing

decisions for convenience and ease. Ideally, we could revise this way of thinking,

slowing down the pace of everyday life, adding a siesta to the workday, and reinstating

the concept of the home-cooked family meal, however, this change may be an extremely

difficult one to make. So now, the challenge is how to allocate the time and how to

reform the attitudes needed for a viable and more sustainable way of life.

A Move Towards Sustainability

Dietrich provides us with numerous examples for a successful transition to

sustainable living. The production of fair trade products, for example, takes into account

the entire production process, showing greater concern for the environment and the

workers involved in the production. Fair trade products also align themselves with labor

and environmental standards, allowing for a citizen and value-based social contract

between producer and consumer (Dietrich 8). Also, the introduction of a sustainable

tourism industry based on social responsibility is necessary to meet “the present needs of

tourists, the tourist industry and the receiving community without jeopardizing the

capacity of future generations to meet their needs” (Dietrich 9). This is especially

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important in developing countries where tourism is their leading industry, because a non-

sustainable tourism can badly damage the unique environmental resources of these

countries, leading to a slackened influx of tourists, which is surely detrimental to the

countries’ developing economy.

A Promising Trend

Prior to mass consumption, a consumers’ basic needs put little strain on the

environment. Following industrialization, and specifically, after World War II, modern

amenities for comfort were introduced and mass produced, leading to a consumerist

model that “set up strong pressures in terms of consumption of natural resources,

industrial pollution and production of household waste” (Dietrich 11). Now that we are

dealing with such catastrophes as global warming and the depletion of our natural

resources, the need for a society of sustainability is becoming a real possibility. World

wide we can see examples of sustainable living emerging from beneath the multitudes of

super-consumerist ideals. The consumption of organic agriculture, for example, is

growing by more than twenty percent every year, easily attainable and recognized by

citizen-consumers because of seals of organic approval that are attached to such products

(Dietrich 13). This allows the consumer the agency to make an informed decision about

the products they are buying. Similarly, consumers everywhere are making social

commitments to purchase seasonal products from small-scale farmers. This type of

consumption encompasses about thirty percent of Japan’s agricultural production right

now. Moreover, studies of consumption in European countries have demonstrated that

more than “two thirds of consumers are ready to alter their consumption habits on the

basis of ethical criteria” (Dietrich 15). It appears that with the encroaching pressures of

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natural resource depletion and general environmental destruction, consumers are readily

reforming into socially responsible citizen-consumers, applying their ethical codes to not

only their personal lives, but to their lives as citizens in the public sphere as well.

New Ideas for Sustainability

The role of the consumer is to maintain the growth of the economic market, but I

believe that it is, perhaps more importantly, a process by which we, as consumers and

part of the proliferating middle-class, enhance our perception to others. By purchasing

luxury items (even imitation luxury items), the everyday middle-class consumer can

portray themselves as a hard-working member of society—a contributor to the production

process. This enhanced performance of self has become so effective in portraying the

“good citizen” ideal that consumers don’t even have to try to actually be good model

citizens. The deep rift between social strata in capitalistic economies must be reconciled

to solve this problem of self-presentation. Perhaps if the fashion industry were to rethink

their ideas of seasonal trends, we may have less constant competition among consumers

to attain the idealized image of the citizen. In addition, we may be able to take some cues

from the German informational economic model, where innovation is less extolled, so

reliable and high quality products are readily available, with little need for the constant

overturning of new and “better” product innovation.

I believe that sustainable living could definitely be a positive and viable view for

the future of our society. However, the citizen-consumer, as both an individual and a part

of the national collective, needs to reevaluate what kind of social responsibility needs to

take place on a regular base. A commitment needs to be made to ensure that we live our

lives, for the good of ourselves and for others, in a more renewable and sustainable way.

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Not that reformation of a solidified and collective ideal throughout society will be simple

in any way. It will indeed take a large amount of personal and social responsibility, but a

little altruism never hurt anyone. Our environment will no doubt demand a more

sustainable economic system from us eventually, and with the proper education and the

willingness of the consumer to act primarily as citizen, the transition to sustainability

should a welcome prospect for the future.

References

Berglund, Christer & Simon Matti. 2006. “Citizen and Consumer: the Dual Role of
Individuals in Environmental Policy.” Environmental Politics. 15(4): 550-571.

Dietrich, Christophe. “Development of Social Cohesion Through Development of

Responsible Consumer Behavior.” Social Cohesion Development Division.

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 Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Einhorn, Barbara. 2005. “Femininities and Masculinities: Gender Re-Presented.”

Citizenship in an Enlarging Europe: Contested Strategies. (124-143).

Micheletti, Michele. 2003. “Why Political Consumerism?” Political Virtue and

Shopping. Palgrave Macmillan.

Shove, Elizabeth. 2004. “Changing human behaviour and lifestyle: A challenge for
sustainable consumption?” The Ecological Economics of Consumption.

Trumbull, Gunnar. 2004. “The Consumer as Citizen.” Consumer Capitalism. Cornell

University Press.

Wyrwa, Ulrich. 1998. “Consumption and Consumer Society.” Getting and Spending.
Cambridge University Press.

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