I am off to listen to Zygmunt Bauman talk at the Hay festival on Sunday. His sociology of individualism and consumerism was a major source of inspiration for the creation of Zopa which was in part envisaged as a ‘liquid modern community’ (if that is not a contradiction in terms). Sitting here in the Foyles jazz café I am swatting up on his latest oeuvre – "Does ethics have a chance in a world of consumers?" and trying to think of a good question to ask on Sunday that won’t leave me feeling like some fresher student challenging his tutor on his chosen topic.
It overlaps with my latest venture which is looking at ways of harnessing the moral economy in service of bringing green practices out of the political activist niche and slap bang into the middle of the consumer agenda. At the heart is the insight that ‘consumers’ are in fact deeply moral about the choices they make (not all, obviously, but there are some major conflicts and dilemmas which drive great swathes of an outside observer might characterize as ‘consumer behaviour’*). That morality may not always be articulated explicitly (and sometimes it is even ignored in the post-rational ramblings of many market research interviews) but with the right line of questioning it can be flushed out and laid bare. It is at that point that consumerism shifts from a technological narrative of solutions to ‘problems’ and shifts into a Bauman-esque negotiation between moral ideals and the problems and needs of everyday life.
In other words, consumerism has the potential for generating a significant social revolution which could far outstrip the outmoded political institutions and conventional activist channels to generate the change necessary for a positive compromise between our individual aspirations and the collective cost of our "lifestyle".
Consumerism itself, like money, is neither intrinsically good nor bad, it is merely a place where our notions of ethics and morality are played out and morphed by experience.
*Even the much maligned ‘diet coke and donut’ choice represents a desire for the eradication of a contradiction between the desire to be ‘good’ and the need for a sugar rush… In Australia this is mainly characterized by the juxtaposition of smoothie stores with donut emporia. Ironically of course the smoothies might be lower in fat but they are far fuller of fattening (fruit) sugar.
Sustainable capitalism!
http://sdj-pragmatist.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-does-sustainable-capitalism-mean.html
Posted by: Pragmatist | May 27, 2009 at 12:03 PM