... as more concerned with 'having' to the exclusion of 'being', as commodified, as hedonistic, or more positively, as a society of choice and consumer sovereignty. The values from the realm of consumption spill over into other domains of social action: Firstly, consumption becomes a central focus of social life (reproduce increasingly through commodities). Secondly, values of consumer culture acquire a prestige that encourages their extension to other social domains; e.g. the extension of the consumer model to public service broadcasting or health provision (Slater 1997, 24). The culture of a market society Modern consumption is mediated by market relations and takes the form of the consumption of commodities. The consumer's access to consumption is largely structured by the distribution of material and cultural resources (money and taste), which itself is determined in crucial ways by market relations - above all the wage relation and social class. From a Marxist perspective, it is the ...

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