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Citizens, Consumers, and the Good Society

Author

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  • Michael Schudson

    (University of California, San Diego, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University)

Abstract

Advocating a “postmoralist†position in the analysis of consumer culture, this article holds that it is a mistake to identify political action with public-spirited motives and consumer behavior with self-interested motives. Both political behavior and consumer behavior can be either public-spirited or self-interested. Consumer choices can be expressly political and public-spirited, and styles of consumer behavior can enlist and enshrine values that serve democracy, from going to coffee-houses in eighteenth-century London to eating at McDonald's in twenty-first-century Beijing. Political behavior, meanwhile, may be a particular kind of consumer behavior, and political practice often turns out not to be public-spirited but egocentric and grasping. The article concludes with some suggestions for making political activity more like the experience of consumer choice, that is, more like a situation in which people can take their own preferences seriously because there is a reasonable prospect that they will ultimately matter.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Schudson, 2007. "Citizens, Consumers, and the Good Society," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 611(1), pages 236-249, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:611:y:2007:i:1:p:236-249
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716207299195
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    Cited by:

    1. Dhavan V. Shah & Douglas M. McLeod & Eunkyung Kim & Sun Young Lee & Melissa R. Gotlieb & Shirley S. Ho & Hilde Breivik, 2007. "Political Consumerism: How Communication and Consumption Orientations Drive “Lifestyle Politicsâ€," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 611(1), pages 217-235, May.

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