The Origin Of The Modern Consumer Society:the Study On Consumption Of The 17th And 18^th Century Britain

Consumer society is the one which gets rid of the traditional social material deprivation, and the production and consumption goes beyond the scope of the basic needs of survival. And in this stage of social development, the consumption has become the dominant force and objective of social life and production. In another words, consumer society is a society in which consumer demand is excessively manipulated by people.In the past few decades, studies on the origins of the consumer society are very active in the western world. In the past, people usually think that consumer society first appeared in Britain after the industrial revolution. However, with further research, now more and more scholars believe that consumer society could have formed in the 18th century Britain. With the development of the economy, especially the agricultural progress and urbanization, material deprivation which people had long suffered, was greatly alleviated. More and more people began to enjoy the pleasure of consumption. At the same time, people’s concept on consumption also showed a revolutionary change. The British consumption boom was strongly supported by the household income growth. The growth of people’s disposable income stimulated the potential consumption demand. In addition, British consumption was also encouraged by the expansion of overseas and domestic markets. It is important to note that although the British in the 17th and 18th centuries attained remarkable achievements in overseas expansion and exploration of foreign markets, the engine of consumer society was started by the development of domestic market. Because the domestic market not only was much larger than the overseas market, but also decided the development and fate of the later in most time. British people for the first time in history showed strong interest in goods from overseas:tea, coffee, sugar, cotton, porcelain, lacquer and other imported goods. So to speak, imported consumer goods was both the cause and result of the consumer society. In the face of imported goods flooding the domestic market, a movement for the protection of national products appeared in Britain. Under the protection of the mercantilist policies, British began to produce new consumer products through imitation. They not only satisfied the demand from domestic market, but also competed with foreign counterparts, and gradually occupied the domestic market and even the foreign ones. These new consumer goods with low price and good quality, strongly promoted the expansion of the domestic consumer market. And most of the ordinary people who were not rich also began to enjoy their convenience. More importantly, the new consumer goods spurred the technological changes in British production and laid the foundation for the larger scale production and the industrial revolution. The close relationship between consumption and production led to the emergence and development of the consumer society in modern Britain.In Modern England, the prevail of "Consumerism" changed people’s way of life, and at the same time created new cultural attitudes and values. With the rise of consumerism, secular pleasure mood also gradually rose. Reflected in consumption, it is the widespread extravagance. The upper class was famous for their excessive luxurious way of life, and the new emerging middling sort followed. They imitated and kept up with the upper class on fashion, so as to express their own cultural taste. The merits of decency, cleanliness and elegance were very popular in England. Consumption became the best way to meet people’s demand, both physical and psychological. The ownership of some special consumer goods was the key to reveal the elegance and style of life.The new consumption trend was dependent on the new way of consumption. By the end of the 17th century, the shop gradually replaced the market or market town as the major place for sales and consumption. With the help of the new marketing medium--hops, fashionable goods spread to every corner of Britain. With the thriving of retail trade, shop decor, fine display, advertising, marketing and other promotional methods also emerged and became an important force to stimulate consumption. For those savvy manufacturers and shop owners, it was how to seduce and control consumers’psychology and actions that they focused. Using advertising and exploiting the vanity of consumers, implanting in consumers’desire for the novel, expensive and sometimes useless consumer goods became the most effective way of making money:a successful shop owner would be very careful about the decoration of shops. The unique architectural features, the most notable signs, huge and transparent arched windows and advertising with different forms and colors became the only way to attract customers. Elegant and fashionable shops could not only attract new customers, but also please the wealthy patrons, so that consumers felt happy while shopping. It looks almost the same with the shopping scene we see today.The main body of this article is divided into four parts. The first part, mainly based on the social and economic analysis of the 17th and 18th century Britain, identifies the conditions in which the modern consumer society could exist. The second part observes the characteristics of the modern British consumer society in the framework of global history. The formation of modern consumer society in Britain was largely due to the consumption boom caused by the imports of consumer goods. And the new features and changes of British consumer behavior were largely spurred by the British consumer behavior which continuously encouraged people to try new things. This is closely related to the increasingly close ties between the east and west. The third part analyzes the specific characteristics of the modern British consumer society in the 17th and 18th centuries. In traditional society, possession of items firstly belonged to the rich. With changes in social conditions and the growth of wealth, the possession and consumption of goods expanded unprecedentedly to the majority of the society, and the material pursuit for people in general became tangible aspirations for the first time, especially for the emerging consumer groups. Finally, the modern consumer society must have emerged in a new form. The rise of the British national market in the 18th century and the appearance of the new way of marketing and sales (mainly the large number of retail shops) finally opened the Pandora’s Box of modern consumer society.