Research On Ben Agger's Consumption Alienation Theory

From the perspective of historical process,two industrial revolutions which played vital roles in the development of human society have accumulated a great deal of material wealth for the capitalist countries and continued to provide sufficient conditions for the rapid development of their economy.The capitalist countries continuously enlarge their international influence and strengthen the capitalist system through the revolutions.Capitalists also started to take use of more subtle and flexible way to control the workers in order to consolidate their dominant position better Superficially,the capitalists are constantly striving to improve the work condition,quality of life and increasing the spending power of workers,however,on contrary,the increasing spending power is also constantly stimulate the endless expansion of the consumers' material desire which forces them continue to fall into the huge crisis of consumption of alienation.This kind of ecological crisis which caused by consumption of alienation have brought a huge negative impact to the development of mankind and the whole world.Ben Agger as the important representative and advocate of early ecology of Marxism put forward the concept of ecological Marxism for the first time in his book Introduction to Western Marxism,it drew the attention of many famous International Marxist scholars.This research focus on the alienation of consumption theory which is the core part of the ecological crisis theory and make thorough illustration and analysis on the ideological basis,core content,breakthroughs and limitations and other issues about the theory,in order to take examples by the scientific and reasonable aspects of the theory and provide useful support for the ecological civilization of China.This thesis is divided into four chapters besides the introduction.In the introduction part,the author elaborates the background,significance,domestic and international research results,research methods,research contents,innovations and limitations of Agger's consumption alienation theory.He first chapter elaborates the ideological basis of Ben Agger's consumption alienation theory.First of all,it introduces the influence of Marx's alienated labor theory,the consumption alienation idea of Frankfurt School as well as Leiss William's thoughts on Agger's consumption alienation theory.The second chapter introduces the main contents of Ben Agger's consumption alienation theory.Firstly,the author defines the consumption alienation by analyzing the concepts of alienation and alienation labor,and elaborates the core contents of Agger's consumption alienation theory,including the relationship between consumption alienation and ecological crisis,the transformation of capitalist crisis,the illusory nature of consumption alienation.In addition,the author also explores the coping strategies and steps of the consumption alienation phenomenon from the dialectics of expectation and the steady-state economy which characterized by decentralized and non-bureaucratic.The third chapter elaborates the rationality and limitation of Ben Agger's consumption alienation theory.The author first fully affirms the rationality of Agger's consumption alienation theory in the political function of consumption alienation theory in capitalist system,reconstruct the view of production and consumption based on the real human demand furthermore explore the construction mode of future society and the solution of the ecological crisis.However,the author still has calm and objective realization of the limitations of Agger's theory in understanding the nature of the economic crisis,grasping the basic contradictions of capitalism and other aspects,what's more the steady-state economy which characterized by decentralized and non-bureaucratic does not have realistic conditions,the understanding of people's inner strength is also too idealistic.In the fourth chapter,the author puts forward the corresponding enlightenment and suggestion to the construction of Chinese ecological civilization from Ben Agger's consumption alienation theory.Since originated from the Western academia consumption,alienation theory has drawn much attention,exploration and criticism from Western scholars.With the rapid development of China's economy and the highly accumulation of material wealth,the problem of consumption alienation has also appeared in China,which not only affects the whole society,but also cause great pressure and destruction to the ecological environment of China and hinder the overall social progress and development.Therefore,this study will take the western Marxist theory as a theoretical weapon,make local countermeasures research from theactual development of China and the status quo of consumption alienation aim at promoting the progress of consumption alienation theory system.