Kaj Ilmonen was a pioneer in the third wave of the sociology of consumption. This book provides a balanced overview of the sociology of consumption, arguing that the enthusiasm of 'the third wave' exaggerated the role of the symbolic and imaginary at the expense of the materiality of human societies.

Kaj Ilmonen was one of the founding members of the European network of the sociology of consumption and a pioneering theorist in the field.

List of Figures	p. viii
Foreword	p. ix
The Sociology of Consumption: a Brief History	p. 1
Classical stage of sociology: the first wave of the sociology of consumption	p. 2
The second wave of the sociology of consumption	p. 3
The discipline takes shape: the third stage of the sociology of consumption	p. 4
Current trends in the sociology of consumption	p. 7
Markets and the Neo-liberal Utopia of Omnipotent Markets	p. 10
Adam Smith, the state and markets	p. 11
Markets and twentieth-century neo-liberal economics	p. 14
Institutional conditions for markets	p. 23
Self-interested Homo economicus - an assumption to facilitate economic modelling	p. 27
Neo-liberal economic theory and how it shapes the economy	p. 30
Commodities and Consumption: General and Specific Features	p. 35
Aspects of commodity and consumption	p. 35
The decommodification of products	p. 40
The multiple dimensions of commodity: methodological implications	p. 42
Want, Need and Commodity	p. 45
Need as a universal category	p. 45
Need and activity	p. 47
Interpretation, tradition and symbolic value	p. 50
The historicity of desires: an empirical and conceptual analysis	p. 55
Traditional and modern hedonism	p. 62
Consumption and the Necessary Economic Conditions for Consumption	p. 73
Income and consumption	p. 73
Income, consumer-choice theory and Engel's Law	p. 74
Engel's Law and income groups	p. 76
On the limits of consumer-choice theory	p. 77
Consumer choices and prices	p. 80
The Use and Meanings of Money	p. 82
Money as value and symbol	p. 83
Profane and sacred money	p. 89
Blessed, cursed and profane money	p. 91
Use of money and ways of sacralizing it	p. 93
Profane money and its uses in the household	p. 98
Mechanisms of Consumption Choice and Their General Cultural Framework	p. 101
Culture as a frame of reference for food choices	p. 102
Gustemes of everyday food choices	p. 105
Gustemes of feast choices	p. 109
Mechanisms of consumption choice	p. 111
Convention, tradition and consumption choice	p. 112
Tradition and convention: differences and similarities	p. 114
Convention, tradition, everyday and feast	p. 118
Routines and consumption	p. 120
Action and behaviour	p. 121
Forms of behaviour and circumstances	p. 122
Routines and consumption choices	p. 126
Style and choice of food	p. 129
Style and the problem of taste	p. 129
Prestige foods and trickle down	p. 134
Limits of the trickle-down mechanism	p. 137
New social anchorage for food styles	p. 141
Fashion and choice of food	p. 147
Fashion and time	p. 147
The lure of fashion: communicating contraries	p. 149
Food fashions	p. 151
Mechanisms of food choice and the selection event	p. 153
Consumption choice - where structure and action meet	p. 158
Consumption As Ideological Discourse	p. 162
Ideology and everyday practices	p. 165
Consumption as mediator of ideological meanings?	p. 167
Commodity fetishism and consumption as a means of classification	p. 172
Structural differences between men's and women's consumption	p. 176
Consumption and hierarchical divisions	p. 180
Consumption As Use: Our Relationship to Commodities	p. 184
Consumption and our relationship to objects	p. 184
Individualization and sociality	p. 186
Towards a theory of use: 'work of hybridization'	p. 187
Appropriation of commodities: internalization	p. 191
The externalization of commodities, or how internalized commodities can assume a general meaning	p. 198
Notes	p. 205
References	p. 213
Index	p. 229
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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A Social and Economic Theory of Consumption

9780230244108

0230244106

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