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280 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

burgeoning society. Unbridled material understand the intentions and purchasing
possessions, as well as constant monetary behaviours of consumers starting with their
relationships, create one-dimensional human perceptions of the safety and quality of food.
beings (Marcuse, 1968) committed to a life The anthropological postulate is that individ-
in pursuit of a standardized form of happi- ual consumers are sovereign, autonomous
ness. The mass production of the ‘cultural beings who act according to a model of
industries’ leads to cultural poverty, as a rational action in which behavioural change is
result of the thirst for profit to the detriment a function of the calculation of advantages and
of the diversity and quality of their contents. disadvantages associated with modifying per-
Baudrillard (1970), on his part, showed how sonal habits. Attitudes (i.e., relatively stable
social representations, forged in the culture judgements about objects) are the result of
of mass consumerism, continually expand individual socialization and experiences of
the possible range of individual needs and purchasing and using food products.
desires, with the latter arising more from Individual perception is formed from individ-
psychological conditioning than physical ual knowledge, which is by definition always
needs, and favouring a culture of distinction incomplete, and often even erroneous.
through possession, which is thoroughly In these studies, the importance of risk per-
bourgeois. Consumer society is also charac- ception is limited to the individual or the
terized by the ideological promotion and family unit. Issues related to biotechnology,
social construction of a hedonistic individu- food poisoning on a grand scale, pollution, the
alism, presented as being free of class, race, cost of food, and its taste and nutritional qual-
gender and religious constraints, which is ities are not even broached, except from the
socially achieved through economic partici- narrow perspective of the individual consumer.
pation in consumerism. In these analyses of They are never raised in terms of public inter-
the consumer society, daily acts of consump- est, the global political economy, a critique of
tion are generally theorized as apolitical, rou- the industrial model, questioning lifestyles, or
tine and often irrational. Consumerism, in a critique of the power relations between com-
this sense, belongs to and collaborates in the panies and consumers. Furthermore, for these
politico-economic system. A good example is researchers, consumers use formal rationality
the American President George W. Bush who, (the calculation of costs and benefits) but their
the day after September 11, 2001, exhorted choices are, for the most part, motivated by
his fellow citizens to continue their normal impulses and irrational desires. Consumers are
life by consuming at shopping centres. conceived of as being profoundly conformist,
However, since the circulation of ecolo- very susceptible to advertising discourse, and
gists’ critiques, consumer society has been focussed inwards on their personal ambitions
questioned and put on trial. ‘Critical’ or and wishes, which are achieved socially and in
‘responsible’ acts of consumerism are multi- private by purchases and ownership. These
plying, and this is reflected in the research analytical models of marketing do not accept
concerns of marketing psychologists. In fact, that the emotions, feelings, beliefs and values
because not inspired by the critical tradition, which influence attitudes about purchasing
most research in marketing and consumer have any political significance. In other words,
studies that examines health scandals in the they are not related to the distribution and reg-
food business and genetically modified organ- ulation of power relations within a society. On
isms (GMOs), does not consider changes in the contrary, questions of food safety and qual-
demand for food products as a critique by con- ity are reduced to a simple technical problem
sumer society (Lusk and Sullivan, 2002; that can be resolved through trusting the rules
Mucci et al., 2004; Rowe, 2004; Wilcock of the market:
et al., 2004). These works of behavioural [T]he market for food safety will be in equilibrium
psychology applied to marketing seek to when the price consumers are willing to pay for