Acknowledgements 1 The Meanings of Consumption What Are We Talking About? Consumption and Political Economy Competing Themes in the History of Consumption The Rest of the Book 2 An Aspiration for All the World: Championing Individual Freedom of Choice Introduction From Classical to Neoclassical Economics: Consumers as Rational Maximizers Friendly Amendments: Alterations to the Theory with Similar Implications Conclusion 3 The System: Capitalist Consumerism Introduction Capitalist Commodity Production: Naming the System Commodity Fetishism Consumption and Jobs The Evolution of Capitalist Commodity Consumption in the US after World War II Conclusion 4 Private Choices, Social Problems Introduction What You Don’t Know Might Hurt You: Information Asymmetry You’re Not as Clever as You Think: Behavioural Economics Relative Consumption Created Wants The Androcentric Consumer Conclusion 5 The Shopocalypse? “Ten Ways to Reduce Your Impact” Blindfolded Bloated: The Problem of Scale Embedded Consumption and the Limits of Consumer Environmentalism Conclusion: Consumption as Ecological Practice Note 6 Consumption, Power and Liberation Class and Consumption Consumers of the World, Express Yourselves! Consumption and Gender 7 Shopping Police Shopping as Power Easy on the Surface, Hard Underneath Terror of the CEO? Saviour of the Worker, Farmer or Forest? Too Much to Bear: The Trials and Tribulations of a Label The Commodification of Politics? Conclusion References Index

“This book invites readers on a lively tour across the terrain of consumption in a briskly paced guide to mainstream economic theory and critical political economy. It is a highly engaging book that will appeal to those wishing to secure a deeper understanding of what it means to consume.”Bruce Pietrykowski, University of Michigan "It is a sign of the consumer fetishism that pervades our society that good poiltical-economic works on consumption that do not simply fall prey to their subject matter and that retain a critical perspective are extremely hard to find. This book, though clearly written for classroom use, belongs in the same broad tradition as Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class, John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society, Michael Dawson’s The Consumer Trap, and Naomi Klein’s No Logo. Highly recommended."John Bellamy Foster, author of The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology