The Legacy of Luxury

Abstract

This article argues that the luxury debates of the 18th century left a legacy for discussions of consumption up to the present day. First, the vices and virtues of moral discourse became the use and abuse, productive and unproductive, of 19th-century liberalism; second, in the early 20th century, these dichotomies were applied to the new mass market, as cheap standardized goods were alleged to destroy the liberal individuality of the consumer; third, in the late 20th century, economics, politics and even the modern consumer movement have seemingly abstracted consumption from such moral categories, leaving only a morality of reaction as specific goods are seen to infringe societal norms. However, in recent years, consumption has become increasingly remoralized, posing important challenges for the academic and critical discussion of ethics and current consumer society.

The new work ethics of consumption and the paradox of mundane brand resistance

“…Bauman, 2001;Botterill, 2007;Campbell, 2005;Hilton, 2004;Miller, 2001) nor in empirical (e.g. Holt, 2002;Kozinets, 2002;Kozinets and Handelman, 2004;Luedicke et al, 2010) consumer culture research on morality or consumer resistance.…”

“…Taking an historical perspective on morality of consumption, Hilton (2004) offers some thoughts on the relationship between morality and consumption over the last 200 years and identifies three periods of thought. In the first period, during the 19th century, Victorians' conspicuous consumption was vividly moralized, but where liberal economics later would use the main arguments from Adam Smith when contributing to the luxury debate -namely that consumption and greed is good for the economy.…”

“…Moving into the realm of consumers' morality of consumption, Campbell (2005) complements Hilton's historical overview by typologizing academia's constructions of 'the consumer'. In terms of morality, the mass consumption critique produced a portrait of the consumer as a dupe, whereas the emerging craft consumers have gone beyond the less moralizing subversive customization, personalization and appropriation practices that Hilton (2004) also touched upon, and actively taken on the role as mass consumption critics by crafting their own products for their own consumption. Botterill explains this desire for 'authenticity' as historically emerging from philosophical ideas; such as the idea of an authentic self as seen by the German philosopher Herder, and the idea of society as a distraction to a Rousseauian 'true voice of nature within' (2007 p. 111).…”

“…Botterill draws on Taylor (1991) for explaining the success of these ideas as part of a 'massive subjectivist turn in philosophy'. Ironically, as accounted for by Hilton (2004), this subjectivity, in the shape of liberalism, was the ideology behind morality of consumption in the 19th century. This morality then transformed into a critique against the loss of subjective liberty in the 20th century upon the emergence of mass production and mass consumption but is, according to Hilton, no longer concerned with consumption on an ontological level.…”

“…Others claim that, historically speaking, the morality of consumption has evolved stepwise towards a relative demoralization and, whatever morality has been left, has been individualized in the sense that it is oriented towards the body. However, sketches of a re-emerging morality of consumption based on global inequalities (and climate issues, we might add, seven years later) are also hypothesized (Hilton, 2004). Finally, a few counter-voices moralize on academics' propensity to moralize on consumption and consumers per se (e.g.…”