Consumption and Dignified Life: A Socio-Historic Restatement

Abstract

This article provides an examination of the concept of consumption within the fields of sociology and economic historiography. Two theoretical approaches towards this phenomenon exist in the literature: the consumer society as a characteristic element of late capitalism in the 20th century and the society of consumption as a fundamental aspect in the historical origins of modern society between the 17th and 19th centuries. The article challenges one of the central premises of the first approach, which suggests that mass consumption contaminates a previously given society. Instead, I argue that the expansion of a consumer society during the early phase of capitalism created the conditions for the emergence of an emancipatory ideal of dignified life associated with a basic standard of consumption. This concept served as a historical precursor to the contemporary notion of absolute poverty.