If there is one agreement between theorists of modernity and those of post-modernity, it is about the centrality of consumption to modern capitalism and contemporary culture. To thinkers as different as Werner Sombart, Emile Durkheim and Thorstein Veblen at the turn of the twentieth century, consumption was a decisive force behind modern capitalism, its dynamism and social structure. More recently, Anthony Giddens has presented consumerism as simultaneous cause and therapeutic response to the crisis of identities emanating from the pluralization of communities, values and knowledge in 'post-traditional society'. Post-modernists like Baudrillard have approached consumption as the semiotic code constituting post-modernity itself: ultimately, signs are consumed, not objects. Such has been the recent revival of theoretical interest in consumption that the historian might feel acutely embarrassed by the abundance of choice and the semiotic and, indeed, political implications of any particular approach. Which theory is most appropriate for the historical study of 'consumer society'? What is being consumed, by whom, why, and with what consequence differs fundamentally in these writings: should we study objects, signs or experiences, focus on the drive to emulate others or to differentiate oneself, analyse acquisitive mentalities or ironic performances, condemn resulting conformity or celebrate subversion?It is helpful to note that the theoretical debate about consumption in the last two decades has in the main been driven by a philosophical engagement with 'modernity' (or its disappearance), not by an empirical reassessment of the historical dynamics of consumption; in stark contrast with, say, Sombart's earlier empirical work on luxury, or the Frankfurt School's research into mass society. The changing pictures of consumption thus followed on a changing assessment of 'modernity', not vice versa, and this theoretical dynamic inevitably had a decisive effect on how consumption and the consumer are portrayed in these texts. We encounter the 'modern consumer', the 'traditional consumer' and the 'post-modern consumer' as ideal-typical constructs. These may be well suited to provide commentary on the condition of 'modernity' or 'post-modernity'. They are less helpful for a historical understanding of consumption, since they present holistic, static and finished end-products rather than problematize how (and whether) these different types have emerged, developed, and stood in relation to each other in different societies at different times.
