Consumerism in Twentieth-Century Britain: The Search for a Historical Movement

by Matthew Hilton

• ISBN13: 9780521538534
• ISBN10: 052153853X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-11-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book is the first comprehensive history of consumerism as an organised social and political movement. Matthew Hilton offers a groundbreaking account of consumer movements, ideologies and organisations in twentieth-century Britain. He argues that in organisations such as the Co-operative movement and the Consumers' Association individual concern with what and how we spend our wages led to forms of political engagement too often overlooked in existing accounts of twentieth-century history. He explores how the consumer and consumerism came to be regarded by many as a third force in society with the potential to free politics from the perceived stranglehold of the self-interested actions of employers and trade unions. Finally he recovers the visions of countless consumer activists who saw in consumption a genuine force for liberation for women, the working class and new social movements as well as a set of ideas often deliberately excluded from more established political organisations.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Acknowledgements	x
List of abbreviations	xii
Introduction: luxury's shadow	1	(26)
Part I Necessity
1 Socialism, co-operation, Free Trade and fair trade: the politics of consumption in the nineteenth century	27	(26)
2 Revolutionary shoppers: the Consumers' Council and scarcity in World War One	53	(26)
3 The right to live: consumer 'ideology' in inter-war Britain	79	(29)
4 The price of depression: consumer politics in inter-war Britain	108	(29)
5 Austerity to affluence: the twilight of the politics of necessity	137	(30)
Part II Affluence
6 The new consumer: good housewives and enlightened businessmen	167	(27)
7 The professionals: the origins of the organised consumer movement	194	(25)
8 Individualism enshrined: the state and the consumer in the 1960s	219	(23)
9 The right to shop: consumerism and the economy	242	(26)
10 The duty of citizens: consumerism and society	268	(30)
11 Affluence or effluence: globalisation and ethical consumerism	298	(31)
Conclusion: the quantity or the quality of choice	329	(15)
Bibliography	344	(27)
Index	371