Consuming for the Social Good: Marketing, Consumer Citizenship, and the Possibilities of Ethical Consumption

Abstract

Can consumers be socially responsible? Can the interests of consumers, corporations, and the overall society be reconciled? Traditionally, sociologists have conceptualized consumerism as enhancing individual wellbeing at the expense of moral citizenship. Yet throughout US history, popular discourse has linked consumption to the social good. Business schools currently expound this belief in their ‘principles of marketing’ courses. Popular textbooks promote ‘relationship management marketing’ which teaches students to target their most profitable customers, develop life-long relationships with them, and promote the societal concerns that they care about. The textbooks maintain that corporations are well-equipped to address the societal concerns of profitable customers through the use of cause marketing, granted minimal government interference. We describe this worldview as ‘neoliberal consumer citizenship’ and discuss its implications for social theory and a democratic society.