Consumer Society And Transcendence

In nowadays western society, consumption has become a dominant part of social life. At the current stage, modern capitalist society is characterized by consumer society. As a new form of capitalist society ideology, it has put under control people's production and daily life in an all-around way. This passage will focus on consumer society as its topic, but, in essence, it reveals criticism of the modern capitalism.The first two chapters of this passage will make analyses of various criticisms against capitalist society rendered by Karl Marx, Henri Lefebvre, Guy Boyd, and Jean Baudrillard. The purposes of their criticisms as well as their trains of thinking are to have a through reflection on the capitalist societies where they were living. This passage, however, will be based on Karl Marx's criticism about commodity society contained in his socioeconomic concepts. After exploiting the social critical theory of Karl Marx's, Henri Lefebvre's criticism about daily life, Guy Boyd's criticism about spectacle society, this passage will emphasize on the study of Baudrillard's sign culture theory and his wrongful deviation from Max's theory. In a word, the first two chapters will give a sketchy outline of the consumer society through criticisms.The latter half of this passage, on the other hand, will elaborate on the paradoxes and crises of consumer society, before seeking their solutions accordingly. Specifically speaking, the third chapter will make a vertical analysis of the criticisms against capitalist society from major western scholars, which will straighten out how the western society shifts from its capitalist spirits to the social ideology dominated by consumerism. The forth chapter looks deep into a number of theoretical paradoxes of consumer society, along with the two crises of consumer society which have impacts on social practice. The author is convinced that the paradoxes and crises of consumer society are the embodiment of the basic contradictions of capitalist society, which hence cannot be solved by capitalist society itself. Therefore, the fifth chapter will try to make use of the related theories of scientific socialism to solve the consumer society paradoxes. That is to carry out the scientific outlook on development, insist on the people-based concept, and promote rational consumerism in the capitalist society. In other words, the solution to the consumer society crises is to take advantage of the socialist experience and methods of building a moderately prosperous society, which has never been employed in the western society before. This is also the rational as well ascreative point of this passage.