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Consumer Society And Ecological Crisis
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Book Synopsis Consumer Society and Ecological Crisis by : Leslie M. Meier
Download or read book Consumer Society and Ecological Crisis written by Leslie M. Meier and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumer Society and Ecological Crisis advances a critique of consumer capitalism and its role in driving environmental degradation and climate crisis, placing a spotlight on how marketing and distribution activities help maintain unsustainable levels of consumption. Rather than focusing on the most visible sites of promotional communication, Meier examines less conspicuous facets of marketing and logistics in distinct chapters on plastic packaging, e-commerce, and sustainability pledges in the fossil fuel sector. These three main chapters each explore links between ecological crisis and consumer capitalism, drawing on critical theory and Marxist thought. The topics of consumer convenience, speed, and economic growth – and the role of fossil fuels as guarantor of these logics of consumer society – unite the critical analysis. Situated in the field of media and communication studies and adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and students in the areas of media and communication studies, cultural studies, sociology, geography, philosophy, political science, and advertising.
Book Synopsis The Consumer Society by : Neva R. Goodwin
Download or read book The Consumer Society written by Neva R. Goodwin and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The developed countries, particularly the United States, consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources, yet high and rising levels of consumption do not necessarily lead to greater satisfaction, security, or well-being, even for affluent consumers.The Consumer Society provides brief summaries of the most important and influential writings on the environmental, moral, and social implications of a consumer society and consumer lifestyles. Each section consists of ten to twelve summaries of critical writings in a specific area, with an introductory essay that outlines the state of knowledge in that area and indicates where further research is needed. Sections cover: Scope and Definition Consumption in the Affluent Society Family, Gender, and Socialization The History of Consumerism Foundations of Economic Theories of Consumption Critiques and Alternatives in Economic Theory Perpetuating Consumer Culture: Media, Advertising, and Wants Creation Consumption and the Environment Globalization and Consumer Culture Visions of an Alternative This book is the second volume in the Frontier Issues in Economic Thought series, which provides surveys of the most significant writings in emergent areas of economics -- an invaluable aid in fast-growing fields where genuine new ground is being broken. The series brings together economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers to develop analyses that challenge and enrich the dominant neoclassical paradigm.The Consumer Society is an essential guide to and summary of the literature of consumption and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the deeper economic, social, and ethical implications of consumerism.
Download or read book Consumer Society written by Barry Smart and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What factors are contributing to the continuing growth in consumption of goods and services? At what point do the costs associated with consumerism begin to call our way of life into question? How are the problems of resource depletion, waste and pollution, and environmental impact being addressed? What is to be done about the consequences of our all-consuming way of life? Ever-increasing consumption and a relentless pursuit of growth in output are the twin pillars on which the modern economy and contemporary social life rest. But the consumer way of life is globally unsustainable. We can′t all live the consumer dream. This comprehensive, lively and informative book will quickly be recognized as a benchmark in the field. It brings together a huge set of resources for thinking about the development of consumer culture, its defining features, and global consequences. Adept in handling a complex range of classical and contemporary theoretical sources, the book draws on an impressive range of comparative material and provides a variety of contemporary examples to inform and enhance understanding of our consuming way of life. Smart writes with verve and feeling and has produced a stimulating book that enlarges our understanding of consumer culture and provides a timely critical analysis of its consequences. Clear, engaging, and original this book will be essential reading for all those interested in and concerned about our global culture of consumption including researchers and students in sociology, politics, cultural studies, economics, and social geography.
Book Synopsis Social Change and the Coming of Post-consumer Society by : Maurie J Cohen
Download or read book Social Change and the Coming of Post-consumer Society written by Maurie J Cohen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumer society is an unquestionably complex social construct. However, after decades of unremitting dominance there are signs emerging that it is starting to falter, both as a coherent and durable system of social organization and as a strategy for societal advancement. Debates concerning how we can transition beyond present energy- and materials-intensive consumer society are beginning to gain greater salience. Social Change and the Coming of Post-Consumer Society aims to develop more complete appreciation of the relevant processes of social change and to identify effective interventions that could enable a transition to supersede consumer society. Bringing together leading interdisciplinary experts on social change, the book identifies and analyzes several ongoing small- and modest-scale social experiments. Possibilities for macro-scale change from the interlinked perspectives of culture, economics, finance, and governance are then explored. These contributions expose the systemic problems that are emblematic of the current condition of consumer society, specifically the unsustainability of prevailing consumption practices and lifestyles and the persistence of inequalities. These observations are summarized and extended in the final chapter of the book. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable consumption, sustainability transitions, environmental sociology, and sustainable development.
Book Synopsis Somebody Else’s Problem by : Robert Crocker
Download or read book Somebody Else’s Problem written by Robert Crocker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gold winner of the AXIOM Business Book Award in the category of Philanthropy, Non-Profit, Sustainability. Please see: http://www.axiomawards.com/77/award-winners/2017-winners Consumerism promises a shortcut to a 'better' life through the accumulation of certain fashionable goods and experiences. Over recent decades, this has resulted in a rising tide of cheap, short-lived goods produced, used and discarded in increasingly rapid cycles, along the way depleting resources and degrading environmental systems.Somebody Else’s Problem calls for a radical change in how we think about our material world, and how we design, make and use the products and services we need. Rejecting the idea that individuals alone are responsible for the environmental problems we face, it challenges us to look again at the systems, norms and values we take for granted in daily life, and their cumulative role in our environmental crisis.Robert Crocker presents an overview of the main forces giving rise to modern consumerism, looks closely at today’s accelerating consumption patterns and asks why older, more ‘custodial’ patterns of consumption are in decline. Avoiding simplistic quick-fix formulas, the book explores recommendations for new ways of designing, making and using goods and services that can reduce our excess consumption, but still contribute to a good and meaningful life.
Download or read book Consumer Society written by Irena Kucera and published by Socialy Press. This book was released on 2017-06 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our consumption of goods obviously is a function of our culture. Only by producing and selling things and services does capitalism in its present form work, and the more that is produced and the more that is purchased the more we have progress and prosperity. Consumption is the process by which goods and services are, at last, put to final use by people. Consumption is at the end of the line of economic activities that starts with an evaluation of available resources and proceeds through production of goods and services and distribution of goods and services (or the means to acquire them) among people and groups. At last, the goods and services themselves come to be used. The effect of this consumption, including depletion of resources and generation of waste as well as enhancement of human survival and flourishing, determines the resource base for the next round of economic activity. Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production and the welfare of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. Consumption activities most directly address living standard (or lifestyle) goals, which have to do with satisfying basic needs and getting pleasure through the use of goods and services. However, the production, processing, and consumption, of commodities requires the extraction and use of natural resources (wood, ore, fossil fuels, and water); it requires the creation of factories and factory complexes whose operation creates toxic by products, while the use of commodities themselves creates pollutants and waste. Yet of the three factors environmentalists often point to as responsible for environmental pollution -- population, technology, and consumption -- consumption seems to get the least attention. Consumer Society: Critical Issues & Environmental Consequences compiles together a huge set of resources for thinking about consumer culture and examining its geneses and concerns worldwide. Decades of relatively steady growth have changed the way we live. We produce and consume more goods and services. We travel more and live longer. But the environmental impacts of our economic activities at home and abroad have become bigger and more visible. Environmental legislation, when implemented thoroughly, achieves results on the ground. This book will be of beneficial for all those interested in global culture of consumption including students of sociology, social geography and cultural studies.
Book Synopsis How Much is Enough? by : Alan Thein Durning
Download or read book How Much is Enough? written by Alan Thein Durning and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1992 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It discusses the use of resources, pollution, and the distortions created in the economies of both wealthy industrialized nations and Third World countries.
Book Synopsis Subverting Consumerism by : Robert Crocker
Download or read book Subverting Consumerism written by Robert Crocker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-24 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is now a widespread interest in reuse in many domains, from opera houses built over old warehouses, to vintage clothes and everyday goods incorporating repurposed materials or parts. Despite its ubiquity, this extensive creative work is typically seen in narrowly environmental terms, as a means of reducing carbon, resource use or waste. However, as this volume shows, reuse also has aesthetic and cultural dimensions and a rich social currency, invoked to consciously subvert the accelerated consumer culture responsible for our unfolding environmental crisis. In three parts, the essays in this book consider reuse in terms of values, aesthetics and meaning, its application in contemporary urban and spatial settings, and the revival of social practices involving a more conscious recourse to reuse and repair. These are bookended by the editors' essays: the first, on the significant relationship between reuse and technological and social acceleration evident in the surrounding consumer society; and the last, on the multiple forms of reuse deployed in a contemporary alternative building practice, and their contributions to presenting alternative ways of living in the world. Challenging dominant understandings of ‘waste’ and ‘consumption’, Subverting Consumerism shows how reuse has become a means for many to creatively engage with the past, and to discover a continuity and sense of place eroded by the accelerative regimes of contemporary consumerism. Becoming a means of resistance, and offering a range of aesthetic, social and economic possibilities, reuse can be found to subvert and challenge the obsessive quest for the new found in contemporary consumerism.
Book Synopsis The Imperial Mode of Living by : Ulrich Brand
Download or read book The Imperial Mode of Living written by Ulrich Brand and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Unsustainable Life: Why We Can't Have Everything We Want With the concept of the Imperial Mode of Living, Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western mode of production and living. The logic of liberal markets since the 19thCentury, and especially since World War II, has been inscribed into everyday practices that are usually unconsciously reproduced. The authors show that they are a main driver of the ecological crisis and economic and political instability. The Imperial Mode of Living implies that people's everyday practices, including individual and societal orientations, as well as identities, rely heavily on the unlimited appropriation of resources; a disproportionate claim on global and local ecosystems and sinks; and cheap labour from elsewhere. This availability of commodities is largely organised through the world market, backed by military force and/or the asymmetric relations of forces as they have been inscribed in international institutions. Moreover, the Imperial Mode of Living implies asymmetrical social relations along class, gender and race within the respective countries. Here too, it is driven by the capitalist accumulation imperative, growth-oriented state policies and status consumption. The concrete production conditions of commodities are rendered invisible in the places where the commodities are consumed. The imperialist world order is normalized through the mode of production and living.
Book Synopsis The Ecological Rift by : John Bellamy Foster
Download or read book The Ecological Rift written by John Bellamy Foster and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity in the twenty-first century is facing what might be described as its ultimate environmental catastrophe: the destruction of the climate that has nurtured human civilization and with it the basis of life on earth as we know it. All ecosystems on the planet are now in decline. Enormous rifts have been driven through the delicate fabric of the biosphere. The economy and the earth are headed for a fateful collision—if we don't alter course. In The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both the problem and the solution. They argue that the source of our ecological crisis lies in the paradox of wealth in capitalist society, which expands individual riches at the expense of public wealth, including the wealth of nature. In the process, a huge ecological rift is driven between human beings and nature, undermining the conditions of sustainable existence: a rift in the metabolic relation between humanity and nature that is irreparable within capitalist society, since integral to its very laws of motion. Critically examining the sanguine arguments of mainstream economists and technologists, Foster, Clark, and York insist instead that fundamental changes in social relations must occur if the ecological (and social) problems presently facing us are to be transcended. Their analysis relies on the development of a deep dialectical naturalism concerned with issues of ecology and evolution and their interaction with the economy. Importantly, they offer reasons for revolutionary hope in moving beyond the regime of capital and toward a society of sustainable human development.
Book Synopsis Media and the Ecological Crisis by : Richard Maxwell
Download or read book Media and the Ecological Crisis written by Richard Maxwell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Media and the Ecological Crisis is a collaborative work of interdisciplinary writers engaged in mapping, understanding and addressing the complex contribution of media to the current ecological crisis. The book is informed by a fusion of scholarly, practitioner, and activist interests to inform, educate, and advocate for real, environmentally sound changes in design, policy, industrial, and consumer practices. Aligned with an emerging area of scholarship devoted to identifying and analysing the material physical links of media technologies, cultural production, and environment, it contributes to the project of greening media studies by raising awareness of media technology’s concrete environmental effects.
Book Synopsis Ecology and Socialism by : Chris Williams
Download or read book Ecology and Socialism written by Chris Williams and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around the world, consciousness of the threat to our environment is growing. The majority of solutions on offer, from using efficient light bulbs to biking to work, focus on individual lifestyle changes, yet the scale of the crisis requires far deeper adjustments. Ecology and Socialism argues that time still remains to save humanity and the planet, but only by building social movements for environmental justice that can demand qualitative changes in our economy, workplaces, and infrastructure. "Williams adds a new and vigorous voice to the growing awareness that, yes, it is our capitalist system that is ruining the natural foundation of our civilization and threatening the very idea of a future. I am particularly impressed by the way he develops a clear and powerful argument for an ecological socialism directly from the actual ground of struggle, whether against climate change, systematic poisoning from pollution, or the choking stream of garbage. Ecology and Socialism is a notable addition to the growing movement to save our planet from death-dealing capitalism." --Joel Kovel, author of The Enemy of Nature "Finally, a book that bridges the best of the scholarly and activist literatures in socialist ecology! Sophisticated and compelling, eschewing academic jargons 'postmodern' and otherwise, Ecology and Socialism more than competently champions a Marxist approach to environmental crisis and the kind of economic democracy needed to achieve an ecologically friendly system of production and human development." --Paul Burkett, author of Marxism and Ecological Economics "This book is more than essential reading--it is a powerful weapon in the fight to save our planet." --Ian Angus, editor of climateandcapitalism.com Chris Williams is a longtime environmental activist, professor of physics and chemistry at Pace University, and chair of the science department at Packer Collegiate Institute. He lives in New York City.
Book Synopsis The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital by : Xueming Chen
Download or read book The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital written by Xueming Chen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-09-11 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking an eco-socialist perspective, The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital explores the logic of capitalism as a fundamental cause of today’s environmental crisis, in particular the thirst for profit and the capitalist mode of production.
Book Synopsis "Consumerism" and the Ecological Crisis by : Alan Roberts
Download or read book "Consumerism" and the Ecological Crisis written by Alan Roberts and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The capitalist mode of destruction by : Costas Panayotakis
Download or read book The capitalist mode of destruction written by Costas Panayotakis and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The capitalist mode of destruction traces contemporary capitalism’s economic, ecological and democratic crises. Combining insights from a range of disciplines, including psychology, sociology and political economy, Panayotakis interprets these crises as manifestations of a previously unrecognized contradiction: over time, the benefits of capitalism’s technological dynamism tend to decline even as its threats to humanity and the planet continue to mount. To explain this contradiction, the book analyzes the production and distribution of surplus in capitalist societies and rethinks the concept of surplus itself. Identifying the public sector and households as sites of production no less important than the workplace, this book attributes capitalism’s contradictions to working people’s lack of control over the surplus they produce. This lack of control is undemocratic and threatens the planet. Only a classless society, in which working people democratically determine the size and use of the surplus they produce, can effectively respond to our current predicament. Recognizing such a democratic classless society as the essence of the communist ideal, the book argues that, far from becoming obsolete, this ideal is ever more indispensable. But since the necessity of this ideal does not guarantee its realization, the book also investigates the conditions necessary for the formation of an anti-capitalist alliance for social justice, democracy and ecological sustainability.
Book Synopsis Ecological Crisis, Sustainability and the Psychosocial Subject by : Matthew Adams
Download or read book Ecological Crisis, Sustainability and the Psychosocial Subject written by Matthew Adams and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book draws on recent developments across a range of perspectives including psychoanalysis, narrative studies, social practice theory, posthumanism and trans-species psychology, to establish a radical psychosocial alternative to mainstream understanding of 'environmental problems'. Only by addressing the psychological and social structures maintaining unsustainable societies might we glimpse the possibility of genuinely sustainable future. The challenges posed by the reality of human-caused 'environmental problems' are unprecedented. Understanding how we respond to knowledge of these problems is vital if we are to have a hope of meeting this challenge. Psychology and the social sciences have been drafted in to further this understanding, and inform interventions encouraging sustainable behaviour. However, to date, much of psychology has appeared happy to tinker with individual behaviour change, or encourage minor modifications in the social environment aimed at 'nudging' individual behaviour. As the ecological crisis deepens, it is increasingly recognised that mainstream understandings and interventions are inadequate to the collective threat posed by climate change and related ecological crises.
Book Synopsis Sociology Saves the Planet by : Thomas Macias
Download or read book Sociology Saves the Planet written by Thomas Macias and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-23 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Highlighting how the environment and society are intrinsically linked, this book argues that environmental concerns need to be treated as a core concept in the study of sociology. Given its focus on inequality and the constituent elements of the social world, sociology has often been accused of negligence regarding the urgency of the world’s environmental crisis. Sociology Saves the Planet corrects this mis-perception by integrating the theme of environment and society to highlight the intrinsic value a sociological perspective brings to our understanding of the current ecological crisis. The author first draws out the origins of sociology in the social and ecological transformations of the industrial revolution. In accounting for the social upheavals of the 19th century, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber all provided key insights into the changing nature of human organization and exploitation of the natural world. Second, readers will explore sociological perspectives developed since that time, grounded in evidence-based research, which highlight the inextricable connection between environment and society. Special attention is devoted to the dual role of people as producers and consumers in the modern context. Lastly, this book examines the significance of major categories of social difference regarding the current environmental crisis. In that regard the question of environmental justice is paramount, illuminating both the disproportionate benefit of natural resource exploitation to those countries and individuals with higher socioeconomic status, and the greater exposure to environmental hazard among those with less. Averting global calamity requires we recognize the unequal social impacts of the environmental crisis while valorizing inclusivity and the diversity of human experience in our search for solutions. Designed for introductory courses, this book is essential reading for sociology students and will be of interest to students and academics studying environment and sustainability more broadly.
