Juliet B. Schor

Empirical tests of status consumption: Evidence from women's cosmetics

Nearly all applied work in consumer demand assumes that the preference functions of individuals are independent, thereby ruling out status consumption and other inter-personal comparison motivations. Surprisingly, the validity of the “independence” assumption has not been tested. However, it is feasible to conduct tests which differentiate between status-motivated demand and consumer demand in which no status motivations are present. This paper provides such a test, which is based on the fact status consumption ordinarily occurs only with publically visible products. We investigate brand buying patterns among four cosmetics product, and find, as hypothesized, that visible status goods have a lower price-quality correlation (i.e., a higher status premium) and that the pattern of brand buying favors higher-priced (i.e., status) brands. We also find, as expected, that income and occupational status are positively associated with the propensity to engage in status-purchasing, as are urban and suburban residence, and being a Caucasian. PsycINFO classification: 3900

Sustainable Consumption and Worktime Reduction

This article argues that in the global North a successful path to sustainability will entail a stabilization of consumption through reductions in hours of work, a solution that neither ecologists nor economists have addressed seriously. The article presents data on the slowdown of hours reductions in many countries and discusses the need for policy intervention to counter firm‐level disincentives to reducing hours of work. It then discusses the potential popularity of work‐hour reductions with consumers. It ends with an argument that technological changes will be insufficient to achieve sustainable consumption patterns and that averting continued increases in the scale of consumption through trading income for time is imperative.

Does Changing a Light Bulb Lead to Changing the World? Political Action and the Conscious Consumer

As the prevalence of “conscious” consumption has grown, questions have arisen about its relationship to political action. An influential argument holds that political consumption individualizes responsibility for environmental degradation and “crowds out” genuine forms of activism. While European and Canadian empirical research contradicts this perspective, finding that conscious consumption and political engagement are positively connected, no studies of this relationship have been conducted for the United States. This article presents ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models for two datasets, the 2004 General Social Survey and a detailed survey of approximately 2,200 conscious consumers conducted by the authors, to assess the nature of the relationship between conscious consumption and political activism. The authors find that measures of conscious consumption are significantly and positively related to political action, even when controlling for political involvement in the past. The results suggest that greater levels of political consumption are positively related to a range of political actions.

From Tastes Great to Cool: Children's Food Marketing and the Rise of the Symbolic:

Childrens exposure to food marketing has exploded in recent years, along with rates of obesity and overweight. Children of color and low-income children are disproportionately at risk for both marketing exposure and becoming overweight. Comprehensive reviews of the literature show that advertising is effective in changing childrens food preferences and diets. This paper surveys the scope and scale of current marketing practices, and focuses on the growing use of symbolic appeals that are central in food brands to themes such as finding an identity and feeling powerful and in control. These themes are so potent because they are central to children in their development and constitution of self. The paper concludes that reduction of exposure to marketing will be a central part of any successful anti-obesity strategy.

In Defense of Consumer Critique: Revisiting the Consumption Debates of the Twentieth Century

In the past twenty-five years, the literature on consumption has gained analytic power by positioning itself against the consumer critics of the twentieth century (Veblen, Adorno and Horkheimer, Galbraith, Baudrillard), arguing that these accounts were totalizing, theorized consumers as too passive, and simplified motives. The literature moved to micro-level, interpretive studies that are often depoliticized and lack a critical approach to the subject matter. The author argues that developments such as the emergence of a global production system, ecological degradation, and new findings on well-being warrant a reengagement with the critical tradition and macro-level critiques. This article considers three traditions—Veblenian accounts of status seeking, the Frankfurt School, and Galbraith and the economic approach to consumer demand— arguing that the flaws of these models are not necessarily fatal and that the debate about producer versus consumer sovereignty should be revisited in light of the changing political power of transnational corporations.

An emerging eco-habitus: The reconfiguration of high cultural capital practices among ethical consumers

Bourdieu’s concept of habitus describes a set of tastes and dispositions operating according to a class homology – for example, a working-class preference for utility, or a bourgeois orientation toward luxury. In the United States, Holt found that high cultural capital consumers were characterized by their cosmopolitanism, idealism, connoisseurship, and affinity for the exotic and authentic. In this article, we use Holt’s analysis as a comparative case, finding an altered high cultural capital habitus incorporating environmental awareness and sustainability principles, in a configuration that has been called ethical or “conscious consumption.” Using both quantitative survey data of self-described conscious consumers as well as four qualitative case studies, we argue that ethical consumers are overwhelmingly high cultural capital consumers, and that high cultural capital consumption strategies have shifted since Holt’s study in the mid-1990s. We show that on a number of dimensions – cosmopolitanism, idealism, and relation to manual labor – a new high cultural capital consumer repertoire privileges the local, material, and manual, while maintaining a strategy of distinction. While the critical literature on conscious consumers has suggested that such practices reflect neo-liberal tendencies that individualize environmental responsibility, our findings suggest that such practices are hardly individual. Rather, they are collective strategies of consumption – what we have termed an emerging high cultural capital “eco-habitus.”

Building a Sustainable and Desirable Economy-in-Society-in-Nature

In this chapter we describe what an “ecological economy” could look like and how we could get there. We believe that this future can provide full employment and a high quality of life for everyone into the indefinite future while staying within the safe environmental operating space for humanity on earth. Developed countries have a special responsibility for achieving those goals. To get there, we need to stabilize population; more equitably share resources, income, and work; invest in the natural and social capital commons; reform the financial system to better reflect real assets and liabilities; create better measures of progress; reform tax systems to tax “bads” rather than goods; promote technological innovations that support well-being rather than growth; establish “strong democracy,” and create a culture of well-being rather than consumption. In other words, a complete makeover. Several lines of evidence show that these policies are mutually supportive and the resulting system is feasible. The substantial challenge is making the transition to this better world in a peaceful and positive way. There is no way to predict the exact path this transition might take, but we hope that painting this picture of a possible end-point and some milestones along the way will help make this choice and this journey a more viable option.

On the Sharing Economy

Sharing, caring, and profit with Juliet B. Schor, Edward T. Walker, Caroline W. Lee, and Paolo Parigi and Karen Cook.

Critical and Moral Stances in Consumer Studies

Critical and Moral Stances in Consumer Studies A distinguished group of panelists – Juliet Schor, Don Slater, Sharon Zukin and Viviana Zelizer – convened at the first conference sponsored by the Consumer Studies Research Network, held at Barnard College in 2007, to discuss their views on the state of sociological consumer research. The panelists agreed to formalize in writing their thoughts in response to the one question that dominated the discussion, sparking considerable engagement with the audience. The event was organized by Dan Cook, Rutgers University, and J. Michael Ryan, University of Maryland.

Global equity and environmental crisis: An argument for reducing working hours in the North

Abstract Is an improvement in the distribution of income between North and South compatible with environmental reconstruction? To date, economic growth rather than redistribution has been the dominant strategy for redressing global inequality. But environmental constraints on growth, at least in the North, may prove desirable. This paper argues that one strategy for reconciling these two goals is for the North to take productivity increases in the form of leisure time rather than increased output. It discusses the feasibility of such an approach.