Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Chapter 5: Economic Theory, Marxism,
and Material Culture
- Human Labor
- Labor that involves everything from
designing, manufacturing, transporting,
advertising and selling
- Marxist Theory and Alienation
- Separation of man's true nature from his sense of self
- Consumer Cycle
- We purchase things in order to assuage
our sense of frustration with our
situation, not recognizing why we act
the way we do.
- Class Conflict/Struggle: unequal distributions of goods
- Bourgeoisie: own the means of production, ruling class
- Proletariat: the
workers
exploited by the
bourgeoisie
- "False Consciousness" (Amrican Dream)
- Advertising
- Main engine of
consumer/capitalist culture.
Dominates everyday life and
social relationships
- Immediate goal is to sell
artifacts/products. Turn
away attention from
exploitation
- Henri Lefebvre
- Advertising gives all objects their valuation
- Industry inducing people to buy objects/products that gives value and status.
- Has taken control of everyday life and gives everyone attitudes and sense of style, informing their purchases and lives.
- Thorstein Veblen
- consumption = enhanced sense of self
- Looking for hidden functions of objects to
understand the role they play in our lives. Problem,
never satisfied
- Max Weber
- Argues Calvinist theology is behind
the creation of capitalism, attitudes
towards possessions
- "Divine Providence"
- Determines economic fate,
justifies the unequal distribution
of wealth is a great comfort to
those who form the ruling class,
justifying position and lifestyle
- Material goods have gained inexorable power over lives of men
- Georg Simmel
- Deal with the development of the new
models of artifacts we use
- Infinite regress in fashion, creating "new" stuff.
- Walter Benjamin
- Interested in the impact of mass production on objects
- Aura = Authenticity
- Loss of it in mass produced objects, relies upon the presence of originals,
- Art no longer is based on focus on the creative artist and process
- Band products/good name attached to the creator
- Postmodernism
- Dissolves boundaries between elite culture and popular culture
- Authenticity not important
- Publicity
- Language in itself, used to make a single proposal
- Feeds upon the real, always about the future buyer.
- Is about social relations, not objects