Page 272 - Cultural Theory

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••• Cultural Citizenship •••

to the way that it sought to construct a new common sense within civil society. For
example, Hall sought to uncover the ways in which Thatcherism connected with and
constructed a popular view that the market could be experienced as a domain of free-
dom. The state in such a view was represented as bureaucratic and repressive whereas
the market was the domain of choice and autonomy. While Hall has been criticised
for overstating the ideological success of Thatcherism, his genius lay in the claim that
such a view was not wholly illusory and that the Left had much to learn from this
perspective (Stevenson 2002).
Frank Mort (1989) argued in similar terms that a politics around consumption was
as much about culture and language as economic policy. Consumption throughout
the eighties becomes associated with an array of popular images including Yuppies
and the affluent working-class (popularised by comedian Harry Enfield’s ‘Loadsa
money’). In this respect, Thatcherism had succeeded in translating ‘policy into the
popular aspirations’ (Mort 1989: 164). The problem for Left social democratic parties
was that they were widely seen as the party of production rather than consumption,
and at worst were perceived as seeing the desire to consume as morally debilitating.
The reorientation of capitalism around life-style niches and a heavier emphasis upon
design actually interconnected with a number of new social movements articulating
a politics around cultural difference and less stable social identities. Hence the poli-
tics of consumption and the development of new social movements have many con-
necting points not always appreciated by the kinds of moralising prevalent within
certain sections of the Left. Social movements and consumer campaigns are mutually
dependent upon the operation of powerful codes and the transmission of knowledge.
That is the proliferation of consumer information, codes about responsibility and
risk, and complex understandings of identity are the shared concerns of consumer
cultures and a range of social movements. How the rules of normality are established,
what is considered ‘other’, who has the power to determine what everyone is talking
about are the shared concerns of consumer culture and social movements alike
(Melucci 1985). Further, new forms of politics are more dependent upon images,
spectacles and making an impact generally within the media just as are advertising
campaigns for new products (Crook 1992). Yet there are also dangers in pushing this
argument too far. Many ‘new’ social movements are critical of the distribution of
resources within society and have concerns that cannot be restricted to ‘merely’ cul-
tural questions (Butler 1998). Such a reading would cancel many concerns evident
within green, peace and Third World movements about the long term effects of cap-
italist growth and sustainability (Habermas 1981). These qualifications aside, new
consumer environments and some of the new social movements do seem to share an
emphasis upon spectacle, fun and pleasurable forms of identification.
Further, Mica Nava (1992) has argued that the political Left has continued to
ignore the progressive possibilities of a politics of consumerism. A common mas-
culinist assumption that ‘real’ politics goes on within the government or the work
place has ignored new sites of activism within consumption. Nava, in this context,
draws attention to the rise of ethical consumption, consumer boycotts, and increased
forms of ecological awareness amongst consumers. For example, in Britain we have

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