Consumer society and consumer behavior: The evolution of concepts and modern understanding.

Abstract

The article presents the results of a theoretical analysis of significant sociological, economic, psychological and related concepts of consumer society and consumer behavior. It is shown that the evolution of these concepts has a pronounced division into stages corresponding to the historical trends of the emergence and development of consumer society as a socio-economic phenomenon. Organically interconnected with the formation of consumer society was the formation of typed consumer behavior practices, which today is characterized by a complex structure, and its specific forms depend on a significant number of factors of the most diverse nature. These forms need to be comprehensively studied in order to use the acquired knowledge in the activities of both commercial enterprises and public administration. Consumption within the framework of this stage was considered most often as a derivative of class or estate, and its most prominent representatives were K.Marx (consumption as belonging to a class), M.Weber, T.Geiger, T.Veblen (theory of prestigious consumption), G.Simmel (theory of fashion), V. Sombart (theory of luxury). Further studies of consumer behavior began to be conducted mainly within the framework of economic theory, behavioral economics and marketing at the beginning of the XX century. The Marxist idea of "commodity fetishism" was continued in the writings of J.Baudrillard (criticism of consumer society), and the concept of M. Weber – in the so-called "class factions" of P. Bourdieu, and the ideas and J.Baudrillard and P. Bourdieu (habitus as an "acquired system of generative schemes") are quite popular today in sociological, socio-cultural and socio-philosophical concepts of human behavior in general and consumer behavior in particular. The "new" theory of consumption was proposed by G. Becker, K. Lancaster and J.Stigler, and M. Friedman and J.Dusenberry formulated the concepts of permanent income and sustainable consumer practices, respectively, to explain "advanced consumption".