Notes on the Relationship between Production and Consumption

Abstract

Historically, sociologists in general, British sociologists in particular, have paid little attention to consumption. When not considered the mere reflection of production it has been treated as a derivative of distribution, a matter of the availability of resources rather than of who consumes what. When attention was devoted to actual consumption behaviour, it was usually as social pathology, concerned with social problems of inadequate diet, excess alcohol, and the like. Weber and Veblen were exceptions among the sociological classics in examining consumption for its own sake. But recently this has changed, with some strong claims being made for the importance of a sociology of consumption to challenge dominant materialist approaches that focus on labour and production (see Moorhouse, 1983; Offe, 1985a; Saunders, 1986; Bauman, 1988).