Seminar Thirteen: Masses against classes

The objective of this seminar is to examine the relationship between consumption, late modernity and identity (and specifically class identity). First let us start with Baudrillard’s extreme post-modernist perspective, one that argues that identities in post-modernity have become increasingly frivolous. Rather, we now live in an individualized society, where collective identities no longer define as was the case in the past. Baudrillard defines this as a system of signs, where:

For Baudrillard, modern societies are organized around the production and consumption of commodities, while post-modern societies are organized around simulation and the play of images and signs, denoting a situation in which codes, models, and signs are the organizing principles of a new social order where simulation rules. In the society of simulation, identities are constructed by the appropriation of images, and codes and models determine how individuals perceive themselves and relate to other people. Economics, politics, social life, and culture are all governed by the logic of simulation. whereby codes and models determine how goods are consumed and used, politics unfold, culture is produced and consumed, and everyday life is lived … Baudrillard’s post-modern world is also one of radical implosion, in which social classes, genders, political differences, and once autonomous realms of society and culture collapse into each other, erasing previously defined boundaries and differences. If modern societies, for classical social theory, were characterized by differentiation, for Baudrillard post-modern societies are characterized by dedifferentiation or implosion. For Baudrillard, in the society of simulation, economics, politics, culture sexuality, and the social all implode into each other, such that economics is fundamentally shaped by culture, politics , and other spheres, while art, once a sphere of potential difference and opposition, is absorbed into the economic and political, and sexuality is everywhere. In this situation, differences between individuals and groups implode in a rapidly mutating dissolution of the social and the previous boundaries and structures upon which social theory had once focused.” (Kellner 2003: 10) 

The important point to note, from the passage above, is that consumption in post-modernity is about the simulation of events, through the manipulation of images and signs. These signs represent a ‘sign-value’ i.e. simulation through signs and imagery construct identities – how people perceive themselves and relate to others.  Before going into more detail into this position, especially with its potential implications, let us first turn to Baurillard’s earlier works and how it relates to critical theory. As later developments are stark shifts from this earlier position.

In his earlier works he uses semiological theory to inform how subjects are brought into this consumer society. He Draws on common themes as the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, especially the concept of reification – the process in which human beings become dominated by things (objects of consumption) and become more thing like themselves. This permeates throughout social life. As we can see in this earlier stage of his writings, Baudrillard does acknowledge a social reality out there, with some fixed or border lined characteristics that can define it or give it meaning i.e. a consumer society that exploits as part of greater economic social forces.

In his later works, and as we see in the quote above, he states we have an implosion i.e. “radical semiurgy”. This means that there is no underlying logic of production that governs the production of cultural artifacts and mass produced goods etc. Rather signs, images and codes take a logic of their own, with no real referent that would give it meaning or even structure. It is, to say, a ‘hyper-reality’ – born from simulation. As Kellner observes:

In his writings from 1975 to the present, Baudrillard projects a vision of a media and high-tech society where people are caught up in the play of images, spectacles, simulacra, communications networks, etc. that have less and less relationship to an outside, to an external “reality,” to such an extent that the very concepts of the social, political, or even “reality” no longer seem to have any meaning. And the vertinginous, aleatory, and blurry (some of Baudrillard’s favorite metaphors) omnipresent and ubiquitous media saturated consciousness is in such a state of narcosis and mesmerized fascination that the concept of meaning itself (which depends on stable boundaries, fixed structures, shared consensus) dissolves. The last decade or so of Baudrillard’s writing can be read as an attempt to think through the implications of this new primal scene, this new situation and, if possible, to find a way out. (Though he eventually concludes that there is no way out {JB 1983c}). 

Baudrillard work is radical in the sense that it gives no acknowledgement to structural forces. Images, codes, symbols etc. are simply self-referential free floating objects, there is no meaning to them or a meta-narrative that can account for their movement.  It is merely a simulation for simulation’s sake,  where the masses, as a black hole, simply absorb and are saturated with media signs, simulacra – an all encompassing simulated hyper-reality. Ritzer states:

The masses are not seen as manipulated by the media, but the media are being forced to supply their escalating demands for objects and spectacles. In a sense, society itself is imploding into the black hole that is the masses. Summing up much of this theory, Kellner concludes ‘Acceleration of inertia, the implosion of meaning in the media, the implosion of the social in the mass, the implosion of the mass in a dark hole of nihilism and meaninglessness; such is the Baudrillardian postmodern vision’ (Ritzer 2003:608)

Many theorist would agree with Baudrillard’s understanding that we live in a society that is dominated by consumer based simulations. However, while many of these writers while affirming the consumer bias in such a society, still acknowledge some structural analysis when making sense of these shifts. This can be seen, for example, in the writings of George Ritzer and Zygmunt Bauman.

Bauman labels the general ethos that underlies this consumer society as the consumer desire to be consuming. In such an individualized society, where people are constantly after the next fix, a new spectacle or a simulation needs to be constantly created. Hence, marketing and advertising and the use of signs and symbols take a large burden of production costs:

… consumers should not ever be allowed to ‘awake’ from their ‘dreams’, and so the promoters of commodities must ‘work hard’ to ensure a consistent ‘message’. Consumers guided by desire must be ‘produced’, ever anew, and at high cost. Indeed, the production of consumers devours an intolerably large part of the total costs of production, distribution and trade, and a part which competition tends to stretch ever further, rather than cut down (Bauman 2001: 13)

Bauman calls this a liquid modernity, as consumers are constantly being fed with new commodities to satisfy their unending desire to consume for consumption’s sake.  While classical modernity was known by its boundaries and control of production processes e.g. the Fordist era, liquid modernity is characterized with an emphasis shift towards the fulfillment of the never ending wishes of pleasure seeking consumers. George Ritzer points out:

. . . the focus in contemporary capitalism, at least in the United States, seems to have shifted from the valorization and control processes, indeed from production as a whole, to consumption. The essence of modern capitalism, at least as it is practiced by the core nations, may not be so much maximizing the exploitation of workers as the maximization of consumption.

This shift has had its implications. No longer is control and rational calculability in production on its own, as in the Fordist era, the underpinning of capitalism. Instead we have a consumption society, at least in the developed world, which seeks to maximize consumption and to hardwire in consumers in their flimsy wishes of non-ending consumption.

Here we have a difference between Baudrillard and writers such as Ritzer and Bauman. The former sees nothing deeper to consumption, people are merely consuming self-referential free floating objects, there is no narrative or structure to give meaning to this fluid and fragmented reality. Bauman, on the other hand, does agree that late modernity is fluid or what he terms ‘liquid’, but there is a logic to this – a form of pattern maintenance. Bauman states:

… it did not occur to either the managers of capitalist factories or the preachers of modern reason that the two enemies could strike a deal and become allies: that pleasure could be miraculously transmogrified into the mainstay of reality and that the search for pleasure could become the major (and sufficient) instrument of pattern-maintenance. That, in other words, fluidity could be the ultimate solidity – the most stable of conceivable conditions. And yet this is precisely what the consumer society is about: enlisting the ‘pleasure principle’ in the service of the ‘reality principle’, harnessing the volatile, fastidious and squeamish desires to the chariot of social order, using the friable stuff of spontaneity as the building material for the lasting and solid, tremor-proof foundations of the routine. Consumer society has achieved a previously unimaginable feat: it reconciled the reality and pleasure principles by putting, so to speak, the thief in charge of the treasure box. Instead of fighting vexing and recalcitrant but presumably invincible irrational human wishes, it made them into faithful and reliable (hired) guards of rational order. (Bauman 2001: 16)

Therefore, the fluidity of this consumption gives social order its pattern maintenance and a purpose in late capitalism (however seemingly paradoxical this task can be).

Ritzer looks at this contradiction or tension in terms of what he terms as ‘re-enchantment’ and ‘disenchantment’.  He argues that in a consumer based society, one that is structured to continuously produce consumer life styles, capitalist forces are always  reinventing ways in which consumers would buy into new lifestyle goods – “…consumers should not ever be allowed to ‘awake’ from their ‘dreams’, and so the promoters of commodities must ‘work hard’ to ensure a consistent ‘message’. Consumers guided by desire must be ‘produced’, ever anew, and at high cost. Indeed, the production of consumers devours an intolerably large part of the total costs of production, distribution and trade, and a part which competition tends to stretch ever further, rather than cut down” (Bauman 2001: 13)

Ritzer argues that one of the inherited characteristics of post-enlightenment modernity, can be rooted in what Weber termed the rationalization process. These are to be found in the four dimensions of formal rationality – efficiency, predictability, an emphasis on quantity rather than quality, and substitution of non-human for human technologies. The process of rationalization applies in late modernity, especially in the creation of simulated experiences that caters for consumers. In principle, the rationalization of these experiences entails their de-enchantment. However, at the same time, in a consumer society, the new means of consumption requires new ways to cater for human impulses and inclinations resistant to prediction and rational justification, further characterized by the mistrust of unemotional, calculating reason. (Bauman 1993)

To cater for these impulses, spectacles must be created, a re-enchantment that would meet the consumer’s drives. A dilemma can be identified here: to meet the vast demands of consumers, the re-enchantment must be rationalized:

The problem is that these efforts at re-enchantment maybe rationalized (or McDonaldized) from their inception. Even if they are not, the new means of  consumption are often so enormous and/or encompass so many settings that they are forced to rationalize that which re-enchants consumers. In rationalizing these forms of re-enchantment they are, by definition, disenchanting them. Can rationalized forms of re-enchantment remain enchanting and attractive to consumers? Can the cathedrals of consumption continually generate new, non rationalized forms of re-enchantment? Time will tell, but it clear that there is an inherent contradiction at the heart of the new means of consumption that ultimately could prove to be their undoing (Ritzer 2003: 612)

To further clarify, let us take the example of restaurant chains. Such restaurants often place new cuisines on their menus, to cater for all exotic foods. However to manage this process, across different outlets, the meals are often made identical i.e. the predictability and uniformity of the product. Hence the rationalization of production remains, but the outcome of such a process must be regenerated with new cuisines — new products and lifestyles must always be re-invented, to meet these never ending desires. As we see, here lies the tension – between uniformity and predictability in production and, on the other hand, the creation of new and ‘re-enchanting’ consumer objects that are created anew.

Now let us turn to the implications of this implosion of mass produced goods: what does it entail in terms of collective identities (in the case of this seminar — social class)? How would we understand social class in a society defined by consumption?

Status and the formation of social class – Consumer bias and the restructuring of class

Thorsten Veblein writing in the late 19th century, coined the term ‘conspicuous consumption’. A form of consumption whose emphasis is on wasteful consumption. This was highlighted in his book titled ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class’. In it he is:

critical of the leisure class (which is closely to business) for its role in fostering wasteful consumption. To impress the rest of society, the leisure class engaged in both ‘conspicuous leisure’ (the nonproductive use of time) and ‘conspicuous consumption’ … What is of utmost importance about his work is that unlike most other sociological works of the time (as well as most of Veblen’s other works), The Theory of the Leisure Class focuses on consumption rather than production. Thus, it anticipated the current shift in social theory away from a focus on production and toward a focus on consumption  (Ritzer 2003: 191)

While such consumption was prevalent amongst a certain class in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it later becomes far more widespread in Post-Fordist late capitalism, with the shift towards consumption or a consumer society rather than a society based on how an individual is positioned in relation to the production process.

Does such changes towards consumption and specifically ‘conspicuous consumption’ have any bearings on class formation. I will draw here between both Max Weber and French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Let us start with Max Weber.

Weber defines class identity almost exclusively in terms of socio-economic status. According to Weber, we do not treat classes as “communities” “‘Klassen’ sind keine Gemeinschaften” but simply as existing insofar as “a number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life-chances” (Weber [1922] 1968:930) that derives from their relations within labor markets and production units—which, we wish to add, also importantly condition various life-choices that they are typically required to make.

Morrison also observes “Inn contrast to class situation, however, the status situation is defined by its ‘strict separation’ from the economic order and the sphere of the market and, in this sense, is functionally separate from class” (Morrison 2000: 239)

Can Weber’s position on ‘class situations’, as situations defined by markets and production, provide an analytically sound basis when understanding class in late modernity? Further, considering the consumer society we live in, does it have the theoretical flexibility to consider consumption in relation to class formation? I would argue in the negative, this would apply whether we talk of classical modernity (with its leisure class) or this is even more pertinent in late modernity. I would also argue that class can be spoken of as communities with their own forms of social closure and exclusion – closure being inclusive of broader factors than just mere market relations.

Now let us bring in Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu considers status as the symbolic aspect of class structure; while, at the same time, not being reducible to economic relations alone. This means class formation is more than socio-economic status, and includes other forms of capital, such as know-how in relation to strategic networks (social capital) and consumption of cultural artifacts (symbolic and cultural capital). In this sense, there is a community side to class formation i.e. social ties and networks that connect and privilege certain social agents and status signifiers (such as patterns of consumption and consumer lifestyles) that draw boundaries around certain class positions. Hence, to talk of ‘class situations’ as distinct to ‘status situations’ is to ignore this important dimension.

Let us consider the consumer society of late modernity, while emphasizing the term in the broadest sense i.e. it is inclusive modes of consumption which do not necessarily center on the commercial purchase of goods. As Trentmann (2004) observes:

Britain, to take a society where this shift in discourse, practice, and identity advanced especially rapidly in the 1990s, consumption and consumers entered the workings of such diverse spheres as health care, transport, and government … where consumer identities have become suffused with questions of civic participation, cultural identities, and social and global justice, as well as with a drive to acquire goods. (Trentmann 2004 : )

Hence, being part of a consumer society denotes more broadly to a ‘consumer identity’, and this includes what it means to be ‘a consumer citizen’. Privatization and deregulation, that grew rapidly in the 1990s, coupled with government discourse that treats citizens as consumers e.g. introducing market mechanisms such as choice in public sector provision, has resulted in citizens being seen as consumers. In such a social formation, class becomes even more a lived experience, and should be viewed as such to give it more relevance as an analytical tool.

Government policy, in such a context, is geared towards treating citizens as autonomous consumers, left to their own, so they can choose what they perceive as their best interests. However, as mentioned earlier, social agents are not of equal footing. In such an environment the education of the child (here I am citing education as an example of the marketization of public sector provision) becomes like a commodity, a market opportunity (Ball 2003). Parents from a middle class background are more than able to realize the maximum potential of choice mechanisms in education, through the maneuvering of strategic capital, forms of capital that are learned through the hidden hand of class thinking, a thinking that dispositions the middle classes towards a strategic tactical ability to read the system and to then choose key educational resources. Children are given ‘cultural scripts’ by their parents (this is mainly with middle class parents, whose parenting in terms of the education of their children can be described as intensive), these scripts are then acted upon:

… with little scope for improvisation – and where improvisation do occur they can lead to family crises and thence to organized remediation. Again, at these points of crisis and potential failure the deployment of relevant capitals is crucial to the maintenance of trajectories. Emotional resources are particularly important at times of uncertainty (Devine 1998: 33), but so too is the ability to ‘buy in’ specialist support or to lobby for special services. (Ball 2003: 20)

Being a consumer citizen, means the comodification of public provision. Parents as consumers ‘buy in’ to privilege their child in the midst of competition for scare education resources. As we see, from above, social class continues to play a major role in life chances in a consumer society, especially when viewed as a lived experience, with its distinct forms of socialization.

In a consumer society, where patterns of consumption (whether they be material goods, private services or social resources) are often defined by the class backgrounds of social agents, these patterns of consumption are not only status signs (as Weber would claim) but further signs of privilege within class formations, affecting access to strategic resources, and hence a vital part not only in the formation of class ontologies, but also the social reproduction of these class ontologies. Unless class is seen as a lived experience, and multidimensional in its formation, then it would difficult to adequately explain how these different forms of capital (that exist and are part of everyday living) continue to be an important factor of social closure and communities of privilege.

Finally, let us cite the example of the recent ‘Sutton Trust’ study on Social mobility. The study shows “Social mobility in the UK remains at the low level it was for those born in 1970, with recent generations of children’s educational outcomes still overwhelmingly tied to their parents’ income, according to the latest Sutton Trust research released today.” Of particular interest:

• Parental background continues to exert a very powerful influence on the academic progress of children.
• Those from the poorest fifth of households but in the brightest group drop from the 88th percentile on cognitive tests at age three to the 65th percentile at age five.
• Those from the richest households who are least able at age three move up from the 15th percentile to the 45th percentile by age five. If this trend were to continue, the children from affluent backgrounds would be likely to overtake the poorer children in test scores by age seven.
• Inequalities in obtaining a degree persist across different income groups. While 44 per cent of young people from the richest 20 per cent of households acquired a degree in 2002, only 10 per cent from the poorest 20 per cent of households did so.

Considering these findings, It would be pertinent to end with Bourdieu’s observation “ability or talent is itself the product of an investment of time and cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1986: 244)

Further reading:

• REMEMBERING BAUDRILLARD by Douglas Kellner
• Jean Baudrillard by Douglas Kellner
• Boundaries and Borderlines: Reflections on Jean Baudrillard and Critical Theory by Douglas Kellner
• Consuming Life by ZYGMUNT BAUMAN
• Finally I would recommend you take out Ritzer’s seminal texts: ‘The McDonaldization of Society’ and ‘Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption ’

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