Showing papers on "Consumerism published in 1994"

God And Mammon In America

Abstract: Drawing on a new survey of more than two thousand working Americans, the author explores the relationship between religious faith and attitudes toward work and money to examine America's ambivalence toward materialism and consumerism.

‘Parental choice’, consumption and social theory: The operation of micro‐markets in education

Abstract: Using key writings in the sociology of consumption and consumerism and analyses of the nature of postmodern society, this paper considers how parents decide upon a secondary school and the nature of their engagement with the education market.

Of Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract: This collection examines 18th-century material culture. Through a dissection of colonial manners, goods and social institutions, it traces the rise of America's aggressive bourgeois consumerism. The essays touch on fashion, home furnishings, architecture, advertising, sports and shopping.

Consumer-Centered Social Work Practice: Restoring Client Self-determination

Abstract: The social work profession holds the right of self-determination among its highest values. The NASW Code of Ethics states, "The social worker should make every effort to foster maximum self-determination on the part of clients" (National Association of Social Workers, 1993, p. 1). In the real world of human services, the constraints of time and limited funding are exacerbated by the demands of increasing caseloads. As a result, self-determination is frequently the first right to be violated in the name of expediency, protection, or cost containment. Freedberg (1989) suggested that "day-to-day contact with clients involves confronting an inherent dilemma in the philosophy of self-determination". It was her position that agencies and their agents (social workers) must "control" the services delivered, thus controlling the clients. Abramson (1985) referred to the conflict as an "autonomy-paternalism dilemma." A solution to the discord of paternalism and self-determination is to adopt a consumer-centered approach toward practice. This article presents a new model that emphasizes greater consumer participation in and control over the helping process. The term "consumer" is commonly used in human services systems, but the essence of the term, with its fundamental rights and responsibilities, is largely overlooked in agency operations. This is unfortunate because when consumers are encouraged to exercise their intrinsic power, positive changes can occur. Progressive social workers that serve the most vulnerable clients (such as mentally ill, frail elderly, and severely disabled clients) are finding that the consumers themselves can be their own greatest resources. Several consumer movements are currently under way and are providing solutions to long-term problems. Philosophy of Consumerism At first glance, consumerism when applied to the human services may seem like an absurd idea. How is an elderly person using in-home supportive services a consumer? Is an outpatient clinic for the mentally ill population providing consumer goods and services? What does consumerism have to do with a severely disabled person living independently? Fundamentally, clients of the human services are consumers in the same way as are customers who acquire the services and products of a grocery store. Their consumption bears an actual cost that consumers pay either directly or through third-party payers, means-tested transfers, or charitable funding. Most providers, however, do not conceptualize their services as consumer products. In addition, consumers often do not understand the rights and responsibilities they bear for the management of their own lives. The basic doctrine of consumerism within human services systems is that individuals who have direct experience with a particular life condition (for example, aging, disability, mental illness) are more knowledgeable about their own needs and interests than are their professional counterparts. When individuals redefine their role from that of patient, client, or recipient of goods and services to that of consumer, their sense of control over their own lives is elevated. The consumer rights movement is not a new phenomenon. It grew out of several complementary social movements that began to emerge in the 1960s and 1970s, including * the civil rights movement and legislation * the development of self-help organizations * demedicalization and self-care (as with terminally ill people) * deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill population * the independent living movement of physically disabled people. Ralph Nader, leader of the original consumer movement, tackled large corporations to demand consumer rights and sovereignty. The movement was based on feelings of basic and widespread mistrust of the seller and the service provider (DeJong, 1984). In the early days of the movement, President John F. …

Urban policy in practice

Abstract: Urban Policy and Practice is a practical and critical guide to urban policy in contemporary Britain. The book covers a range of topics including: * Quality and consumerism in the public sector * Community development * Public Health * Environmental issues * Local intervention in the creation of skills and jobs Case studies are drawn from housing, planning, the social services, economic development, and local government finance. Throughout, the concern is for a clear analysis of corporate strategies, democratic control and sustainable development.

Consuming goods and the good of consuming

Abstract: The tendency to denigrate consumerism derives from the widespread acceptance of sociological theories that represent consumers as prompted by such reprehensible motives as greed, pride, or envy These theories are largely unsubstantiated and fail to address the distinctive features of modern consumption, such as the apparent insatiability of wants and the preference for the novel over the familiar A more plausible view of consumerism regards it as an aspect of hedonism, and links consumption to the widespread practice of daydreaming Seen in this light, one can discern an idealistic dimension to modern consumption

Evolution and Applications of the Term Consumerism: Theme and Variations

Abstract: The term CONSUMERISM has had a variety of meanings over its relatively brief history. Coined in obscurity, the word was given negative connotations by business apologists before finally being adopted by the consumer movement to describe its activities. However, an unrelated and highly prejudicial meaning has been gaining currency. As a result, there are increasing possibilities for misunderstanding and negative responses to the term CONSUMERISM from the public.

The customer is not always right

Abstract: Consumers can sustain markets that are morally questionable. They can make immoral or morally suspect demands of individual businesses, especially small businesses. Even when they do not, the costs to firms of consumer protection can sometimes drive them to ruin. This paper presents cases where deference to the consumer is variously unwarranted, cases that may prompt second thoughts about some kinds of consumerism.

Ideological Crisis among China's Youths: Values and Official Ideology

Abstract: This article examines youth culture in a socialist society. Pragmatism, consumerism, individual accomplishment, admiration for the West, and dissatisfaction with the Party, but support for the political system, stand out as the majorbeliefs of young Chinese in the 1980s. The young rejected the harsh and irrelevant values promoted in the ideal youth culture the government packaged for their consumption. Instead they created their own subsulture adopting what they deemed most pertinent and desirable from the official ideology and from the conditions they encountered. In light of these orientations, it is likely that the present policies will continue when this generation takes over political control.

Deathright: Culture, Medicine, Politics and the Right to Die

Abstract: Policy restraint and the denial of death policy restraint and the cultural context of death policy activism and medical technology - emergence of the right-to-die scenario policy activism and medical professionalism the doctor-patient disconnection social activism and health-care consumerism social activism and the happy-death movement policy mediation in the state courts - consensus on the cutting edge policy mediation and the state legislatures - common ground, divergence, and liberal trends policy activism, restraint, mediation, and the right to die.

"Edutaining" Children: Consumer and Gender Socialization in Japanese Marketing

Abstract: A common Japanese expression asserts, "ko wa takara," (children are treasures). Japan's earliest poetry anthology, the Manyoshu, compiled in A.D. 753, expresses the sentiment as, "a treasure which excels everything else, could there be anything equal to children" (Kojima 1986:123-24). In present day Japan, the perception of children as treasures often implies indulging them with unprecedented consumer offerings. A spokesperson for a company that designs child-oriented shopping theme parks told me in a 1991 interview that the children's market was the predicted pre-eminent arena of Japanese consumerism for the decade of the 1990s. What was perhaps most significant about this statement is that in 1990 Japan marked a new all-time record low birthrate for the eleventh year in a row (Shibaguchi 1991).(2) Far from foretelling the doom of children's sales, Japan's declining birthrate has propelled goods and services directed at children to new extremes. Takayama Hideo, director of the Children's Research Institute, explains, "Fewer children are surrounded by more rich adults and that means that the money spent on each child increases" (quoted in Blustein 1991). Children themselves also have more money to spend. As the actual birthrate declined, Japan witnessed the birth of the "five pocket child," meaning that with so few children, each child now receives larger gifts of money, such as otoshidama (New Year's Money) from several indulging sources, and hence metaphorically needs one pocket each for money received from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighboring households, and others. This article reports on the construction of shopping worlds for parents and children in Japan. Like Seiter (1992:233), it presumes that not only consumer goods, but promotional catalogues and even the physical space of store layouts constitute cultural objects. These establish a physical reality heavily imbued with symbolic meaning and thus, in Mukerji's (1983:15) terms, "create a setting for behavior" that compels people toward certain forms of action. Despite Japan's burgeoning economy and its characterization as a consumer society, there is very little research on how children are socialized for culture- and gender-appropriate shopping behavior. To address these issues, I utilize the concept of edutainment (Creighton 1992). Edutainment is the fusion of education and entertainment offerings, particularly popular or mass culture entertainments that take on educating functions or invoke a pretense of having such functions. What Graburn (1983) calls the "Pray, Pay, and Play" philosophy of Japanese tourism reveals that pleasure travel is often socially validated in the guise of pilgrimage. I suggest that in a similar vein, invoking education in Japan serves to legitimize many hobbies or leisure activities that might otherwise be construed as overly indulgent fun. Of course, this is not a uniquely Japanese phenomenon. The genesis of consumer cultures elsewhere generated amusements frequently proffered in the guise of education (see Williams 1982; Bowlby 1985; Benson 1986). Heininger (1984:30) contends that educational toys promising self-improvement and self-education were an important part of the American children's market by the early nineteenth century. However, in order to understand how edutainment operates within a cultural setting, it is essential to explore its relationship to that culture's ideologies of education. A great deal of work has been done on early childhood education and socialization through formal educational institutions in Japan (e.g., White 1987; Lewis 1984, 1989; Hendry 1986; Ben-Ari 1987; Boocock 1989; Peak 1989, 1991). Tobin, Wu, and Davidson (1989:2) point out that preschools are embedded in cultures; they "reflect and affect social change." Stores, too, are embedded in cultures, also reflecting and shaping social trends, and Japanese stores operate in Beauchamp's (1991) framework as institutions of informal schooling. …

Life After God

Abstract: His fans favourite book. YOU ARE THE FIRST GENERATION RAISED WITHOUT RELIGION What happens if we are raised without religion or beliefs? As we grow older, the beauty and disenchantments of the world temper our souls. We all have spiritual impulses, yet where do these impulses flow in a world of commodities and consumerism? LIFE AFTER GOD is a compellingly innovative collection of stories responding to these themes. Douglas Coupland takes us into worlds we know exist but rarely see, finding rare grace amid our pre-millennium turmoil.

Dialectics, difference, and the geographies of consumption

Abstract: In the current beginnings of the mapping of the consumer society there is an evident tension between political-economic and poststructuralist accounts of consumption. It has been suggested that a philosophy of difference does nothing more than mimic a capitalist ideology of choice; that it represents a levelling of philosophy to the vulgar status of consumerism. The counterposition asserts a lack of tolerance to difference inherent in the rationalism of Marxism, which ultimately adheres to production as its central, stabilizing, metaphysical concept. In examining such ideas we seek to ground judgmental positions with respect to the political status of consumption (and of production) in notions of collectivity and action. To this end we provide a brief discussion of the history of consumer cooperation as a political force. More generally, by elucidating the political potentialities of different philosophical approaches, which present themselves as opposites, we hope to interrupt—interminably and retroactiv...

Standing on unstable grounds: A reexamination of the WLBT‐TV case 1

Abstract: During the 1960s, disparate discourses of consumerism intersected with concerns regarding race and civil rights in the realm of broadcast law and regulation. This reexamination of the social and legal struggles surrounding WLBT‐TV in Jackson, Mississippi (1964–69), shows how conflicting consumerisms were mediated by legal institutions in an attempt to address social tensions, and reveals how the dominant discourses of liberal consumerism often displaced issues of race.

Farewell to Welfare Statism! More Happiness in Welfare Market? : PuttingConsumption in (Post) Modern Context

Abstract: Examines the relationship between public welfare and the pursuit of happiness via a discussion on the conception on public welfare provision and the way in which it is received as consumption. Introduces concepts on organized welfare and positions individual happiness in the realm of consumption, and argues that state‐organized welfare polity has unintentionally expanded the scope of and expectation of citizens on consumption. Outlines the critics on welfare state provision. Argues for a conceptualization of happiness with reference to the mode of welfare consumption. In spite of problems relating to the welfare state, collective consumption has provided both symbolic and material goods through which a new set of consumption relations is developed. Ends with remarks on the implication of welfare consumerism in creating the social identity of citizen‐consumers and happiness in the coming modernity.

Teaching Quality Assessment in Law Schools: A Cause for Concern?

Abstract: The recent history of the law schools in England and Wales, like the recent history of legal practice generally, is one of conspicuous expansion and specialization;1 above all, it is one marked by cultural transformation and tension. For academic lawyers and practitioners alike, having lost a measure of their autonomy, now find the 'enterprise culture' of Thatcherism competing with the traditional ethic of professionalism.2 'Consumerism, choice, and value for money' as it has aptly been put, '[have] replaced ... notions of altruism and self-regulation . . ..3 Arguably, the seeds of change were sown some time before the election of the first Thatcher administration in 1979,4 by which time the process of subordinating the universities to the state was well under way.5 At all events, the universities were on collision course with the incoming Thatcherite ideology,6 four strands of which were destined to have a particular impact on the law schools.

Consumption, Consumerism, and Things from the Earth

Abstract: (1994). Consumption, Consumerism, and Things from the Earth. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History: Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 61-70.

Getting ready for reform.

Abstract: Most hospitals and radiology departments are feeling the pressure of increased competition and consumerism. Mr. Bouchard discusses trends and possible solutions, and provides lists of practical strategies administrators can use to cope with financial repositioning.

Consumerism, perhaps our biggest environmental problem

Abstract: The biggest environmental problem facing the world is probably not population but rather consumerism. If each person on the average in the USA consumes 18 times as much as a person in some developing nations, the effective population of the USA is greater than that of either India or China and both combined. Although the USA is an efficient productive nation, there is good evidence that on the average, citizens of the USA consume more than they produce. This has serious environmental consequences as well as economic. It is important to understand that those who care for the soil eventually interact with those who do everything else in the world.