Analysis On The Stratification Of Consumption And The Tendency Of Consumerism In Small Town

In Bourdieu's eyes, we are living in a society of super consumerism. Our society has been impelled by three industrial revolutions in the history to develop so fast. Production techniques have made much progress and help us creating and accumulating substances, thereby humanity's existing situation and style are changed forever. The society led by production has become one led by consumption. Consumption now is far from a mere exchanging behavior, but a social behavior full of meaning.Stratification of society is a problem which many researchers pay much attention to. When we observe the society from the angle of consumption, another kind of stratification structure is unfolded, which could connect the consumption level with living standard of the residents in certain area. What's more, the stratification structure of consumption could illuminate the structure of living standard in the society. This paper applies the method which has been used by a domestic scholar and ratified by other researchers to analyze the stratification of consumption. The method is that we give scores to families or people according to the quantity of appliances, then stratify all these research objects into different estates.Consumerism is one of the most important concepts in the post-modern theory, however there isn't an accurate definition for it. The author of this paper sum up two most outstanding characters of consumption, the first is commodities have become meaningful symbols, and the second is mass media, especially TV advertisements, is the catalyzer of consumerism society. This paper also refers that both characters of consumerism would bring a kind of buying-mood to people, and this power could make people never satisfied with what they already have and addicted to shopping and consuming.The purpose of this paper is to make clear the correlativity between the stratification of consumption and the tendency of consumerism. The author chooses Mengzi County as a sample to make research on this using the methods of making observe, interviewing with people and sending questionnaire. The result is the stratification of consumption in that county looks like diamond which is pretty good for the stability of the society. Meanwhile the tendency of consumerism of the residents of the place is not so evident, but the small town has displayed slight trend. The most important finding is that there is no necessary correlativity between the stratification of consumption and the tendency of consumerism.In the end, the author analyzes the reasons for the research results. The level of economic development, people's income, and establishments for advertisements may limit the development of consumerism. And the traditional notion and custom have great influence on the consumption of the residents of that county.