Consumption in Contemporary Capitalism: The Backward Art of Living

Rethinking Instinct Theory from a Darwinian Perspective

“…However, the element of waste tends to predominate. The relationship between wastefulness and a social lifestyle is also analyzed by Mitchell (1912) and Stanfield and Stanfield (1980) in an Institutional Economics perspective.…”

John Kenneth Galbraith

“…As already noted, in the political context, the absence of knowledge of alternatives is crucial. Given the incessant exhortation to buy commodities, there is ample cause for concern about consumer knowledge of alternatives to commodities (Stanfield and Stanfield, 1980). This is a profoundly sinister possibility in a liberal society and it is precisely the thrust of much of Galbraith's work.…”

“…Only enhanced craft knowledge will provide the opportunity for emancipation from the treadmill of the earning-and-spending-incomes rat race (in which even the winners are still rats). Given the complexity, ambiguity, and significance of agents' mental models, at the very least it should be agreed that serious issues abound as to the ambiguity of the relation of household needs and capabilities to the output structure of private and public goods (Leiss, 1976;Stanfield, 1980 andStanfield, 1995b). …”