Western Marxism "consumer Alienation Theory"

Consumption alienation is an important concept to Western Marxist, which can help them to analyze contemporary capitalism society. They studied consumption alienation from several respects: the reasons of the consumption alienation; the harmful results of the consumption alienation and the solutions to discard the consumption alienation, which consist of Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation. The personnel of Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation contain Frankfurt school, including M·Horkheimer, T·Adorno, H·Marcuse and E·Fromm, the personnel of Existential Marxism, H·Lefebvre, the personnel of Ecological Marxism, B·Agger. The creation of Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation is connected with contemporary history conditions. In the early of the 20th century, the arrival of the phase of masses consumption in western capitalism society, and new characteristics of capitalism development after the Second World War, which created the time background and objective conditions for Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation. Karl Marx's theory of manual alienation and commodity fetishism, Lukacs' theory of reification theory, Veblen's discussion of pompous consumption, and Simme's discussion of fashion, which are established the ideological foundation for Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation.After the 1970's, the times of Post-Fordism was coming, which brought new changes to everyday consumption fields, that is, symbol consumption has been played important role in everyday life. Aiming at the changes, contemporary western social theorists started new explorations. They have formed critical theories of symbol consumption, critical theories of consumerist ideology, and critical theories of new consumption tools. These theories are inheritance and development to Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation.Some view points of Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation have significance on our building harmonious society of socialism, such as the critique to culture industry, the study of social—political function in consumption, the point of consumption alienation resulting to ecological crisis. However, Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation also have limitations, its social reformation to discard the consumption alienation are Utopian ideology. China consumption fields have some its only traits, which decided us while referring to Western Marxism theory on consumption alienation, we will be considering China particular circumstances. Handling with consumption correctly, and leaving the erroneous fields of consumption alienation.