Captains Of Consciousness Advertising And The Social Roots Of The Consumer Culture

by Stuart Ewen

One business theorist contended that freedom and equality could be translated into the ability of each person to emulate or aspire to emulate the tastes of the upper classes; “and what could be a better method of doing this [proving equality] than by consumption.”98 The “fashion cycle,” he contended, was an expression of the tastes and values of the wealthy, yet through the mass production of low-priced goods which imitated “high-priced merchandise,” upper-class values might be internalized within the culture of the poor. “Reproduction of high-priced goods into lower-priced goods makes it possible for people of lower incomes to participate in the fashion cycle.”