Philosophical Reflections On The Consumption Alienation

As an important part of economic activities, consumption is of greatsignificance to human survival and social development. With theestablishment and development of China’s socialist market economy system,consumption has played an increasingly important role. As people’sconsuming power goes up, changes have taken place in the means andstructures of their consumption. This dissertation, applying Marxistpositions, opinions and methods, analyses the phenomenon of consumptionalienation, explores its embodiments, causes and harms, and puts forwardbasic approaches to sublating it from the perspective of the dynamic processof “production, distribution, exchange and consumption”.This dissertation consists of three parts: the introduction, the main bodyand the conclusion.The introduction briefly explains how the dissertation is decided on andwhere the theoretical value and practical significance of the research lie,outlines the existing domestic and foreign studies and illustrates in detail theproblems to be solved. The first chapter of the main body, on the basis ofexamining the concepts of “consumption” and “alienation”, analyses theconnotation of the concept “consumption alienation”. The second chapterdescribes, from the perspectives of production consumption and lifeconsumption, particularly the latter, the main embodiments of consumptionalienation and reveals the nature of it. Chapter three mainly analyses thesocial origins, material premises, thought conditions and realistic factors, etc.of consumption alienation. Chapter four analyses， from the threeperspectives of human-self relations, human-nature relations andhuman-human relations, the harms caused by consumption alienation. The last chapter of the main body illustrates the reflections on sublatingconsumption alienation and proposes the current basic approaches to it.At last, the conclusion advocates that people should consume rationallyand construct consuming approaches which not only adapt to human needsas well as free and over-all human development, but also embody theprinciple of social fairness, so that harmony between human and nature andthat between individuals and individuals, together with the sustainabledevelopment of society, will finally be realized.