The Consumer and Their Relation to the Commodity According to Marx, De Certeau - Essay Example

The Consumer and their Relation to the Commodity According To Marx, De Certeau; and Horkheimer and Adorno Introduction A consumer is an individual who purchases a commodity or services for own use, and not the purposes of resale or further manufacture. Additionally, a consumer is an individual who can make the choice, to either purchase or fail to do so, at the place of purchase. The consumer is also characteristic with being an individual who can be influenced by advertisements and other marketing strategies. Also, in the cases when an individual goes to a store and purchases a shirt, toy, a beverage or any other purchased commodity, they are arriving at the decision to do so as a consumer. On the other hand, a commodity is any physical substance, these including metals, foods, and grains – which is exchangeable with another commodity of the same kind, which traders buy or sell, typically though futures agreements Another characteristic of any commodity is that the price of the given product at any given time is subject to the law of supply and demand. Notably, risk is actually the fundamental reason on the basis of which – the barter trading of the basic farming commodities began (Ozanne & Jeff 129-144). According to the review of De Certeau’s publication: the practice of everyday life: walking in the city, the tactics and the strategies discussed are in operation during the process of making product choices among customers. These choices are, however, based on the consumers’ relationship to the different commodities that consumers encounter on a daily basis. The expressed viewpoint is drawn from the experiences of every person within the community. The argument is deliberately presented in a poetic manner. The book centers upon the uses that the consumers make of, from the things that they purchase, or that which they decide to buy. The book also talks of the different networks that are operating within the society, which play the role of helping people oppose and avoid the order presented by institutions. De Certeau goes further to argue that the disciplinary constructions contained by the institutions within the society are deflected by developed tactics: the participants within the society in question offer an anti-discipline. Further, the consumers within the society, through the same tactical development, make their own tactically developed paths, which are somewhat unpredictable. These paths that are formulated by the consumers cannot be described fully, from a formal, official or a statistical point of view (Certeau 76). These strategies, according to De Certeau, are predictive of the following: the Strategies themselves – require that the city or the subjects act as alienated from an environment, in that they have an appropriate place, an officially recognized place, which is seen externally. The tactics, on the other hand, have no properly established localization, and not necessarily alienated from each other, which means that they often mingle and interrelate with each other. Further, the tactics take place within the territory of the strategies. These tactics, also, tend to be opportunistic, in that they combine a diverse range of elements towards gaining momentary advantage. Everyday practices, are most times some of these tactics – which include the small maneuvers that allow for the realization of a momentary victory over the obstacle facing the subject at the time of need (Ozanne & Jeff 129-144). According to the account of Marx, in the account, ‘idealism and materialism,’ the account holds that, humans are made to exist in physical organizations – where these organizations are helpful to the man, as they help him create their own means of subsistence. However, the subsistence models depend upon the available means – which they find existent as well as tat which they have do develop. Further, the productive efforts of these individuals are reflective of their life, expressing themselves – in regards to what and how they produce it. According to Marx, the key distinguishing factors of the commodities under this perspective are strange. The nature and the value of these commodities is not directly, a result arising from the fact that people produced them, as the people from any society produce goods, but not of all these qualify as commodities. The value of these commodities, is further, a function of three variables including: that the produced goods within the market – have their value not determined by their usefulness, but by their ability for being exchanged for others. Secondly, the labor injected into the production of such goods is not determined by the usefulness, but by the ability of these goods in being exchanged for exchange creation. Third, is the labor injected in the production of such goods, thus becomes a commodity, which can be bought and sold, making it possible to compare two different kinds of labor. Lastly, he argued that the commoditization of labor makes the people within a community view a set of relationships between things and not a set of relationships between people (Ozanne & Jeff 129-144). According to Adorno and Horkheima, the commodity and its relationship to the consumers can only be explained as being the result of a dominant ideology flowing within the social fabric. This according to them is the transformation of art into a business and the products made from the art commercialized, to have value fixations. According to them, the society has been transformed to be served by the hierarchical range of mass-produced commodities of varied qualities, thus the value thereof. Further, the constructions of the mass production indexes that each member of society associates with can be attributed to the messages delivered through art: radio, TV, film, music, and film. However, all the processes within this fabric can be seen clearly from any social structure or group. The people within these societies are, further conditioned to obey the great social hierarchies established; therefore the opportunity to implement any changes within the social frame of the society is very limited. Here, the mass society constructed through these established lines of art and communication binds and influences the social change, and the acceptance versus rejection of the cultural aspects instilled into goods (Horkheimer & Adorno 120-167). From a cross evaluative consideration of the views – expressed through the three theoretical models regarding the consumer-commodity relationship, as formulated by the enlisted theorists: De Certeau, Horkheimer and Adorno, and Marx – the information derived can be integrated into this discussion. Of the three models of explaining the consumer-commodity relationship, none of the three models fully presented an accommodative outlay of the fast changing characteristics of the society. However, from integrating the arguments contained in the three models, towards filling the information gaps and correcting the flaws of the three models, the information from the different models was blended into the discussion to be presented through this paper. From blending the assumption and the lines of arguments – of the three models, accommodating the changes that have been witnessed will be realized, in the area of defining consumer-commodity relationships so far. This is the case; as a comprehensive theory of consumer choice should be able to portray a clear picture of the composition and the priority goals within a consumer’s life as well as the specific nature of these goals. Likewise, the relationship existing between the goal understanding and behavior, in relation to the contributing tendencies and stimuli, towards obtaining information will be discussed, which should be further explained for better understanding. In covering the information gaps evident in the discussed theoretical models, in explaining consumer- commodity relationship, the integrative theoretical framework is presented to better relate these different behaviors and the relationships thereof (Ozanne & Jeff 129-144). The framework under discussion is an adaptation and an extension of the core ideas of the previously discussed models – incorporated into the information processing perspective, which is lacking in some – an approach that centers upon the area of human cognition. The important assumptions, the concepts incorporated and the elements given consideration under this model are discussed below. Two assumptions are of extreme importance to this model of structuring the relationship between the consumer and the commodity, these including, that man is an adaptive system, and that they are, also an information processing center. The assumption of man being an adaptive system means that the behaviors exhibited by man are shaped by an interaction – which is established over a given time, between the individual and the task surroundings. The idea of Man as an information processing center is based on the assumption that any individual has the ability to understand and implement a petite, but powerful set of basic information processing, like finding the next option or comparing the options available (Fiske 124). One important concept that has been given more attention towards creating a better understanding of the consumer-commodity relationship, as expressed by the three basic theoretical models is the programmable nature of man. A program consists of prearranged sequence of epics. Man’s behavior is fashioned by the set of the integrated epics, these being from stimulus creators like advertisements as explained through the original theoretical models. Further, the appropriate program is trigged by the characteristics of the goal in question, and the set of circumstances under which the individual finds themselves in, during the pursuit of the given goal. Given the triggering of the accurate program, any individual is capable of taking some very sophisticated behavioral moves, for example the playing of chess; working through to prove logic theorems. The other significant concept is the problem space, where the individual is able to internally embody the exterior task environment, as this is often a determinant (Holt 70-88). The other aspect which is given major importance is preference formation, towards extending the new understanding into consumer choice – on the basis of the critical supposition that a consumer is an entity in full possession of a given schema, which is useful in guiding the selection of the particular strategy to be adopted – with reference to a particular occasion. However, it should be clearly noted that the preference formation chosen is not necessarily a programmed process leading to the end result, but is the blue print that guides the behavior of the given consumer. Also, it is the interaction of the consumer and the available problem solving techniques, which determine the behavior of the consumer (Holt 70-88). The use value of a commodity tells of the satisfaction on a social need, which results from a certain commodity. For instance, the need to feed ten people will imply the need of a certain amount of food. The exchange value on the other hand, is the ration with reference to which one good can exchange for another. For instance, one table spoon may be exchanged for two loafs of bread. This distinction between use and exchange value may be related to preference formation, on the basis that the consumer makes the choice, whether to stick with the satisfaction desired from a given choice, which is the use value, as opposed to choosing another option, which may be more expensive, so it may serve the same purpose, but present a higher value. An example here is the choice to by a USD 500 or a USD 2000 Car. In on instance the use value is the same, but the exchange value of the USD 2000 car is higher. Using the same example, the buyer may have been influenced into buying the expensive car by the company he keeps, which is the programming center. On the same example, is the information processing aspect of man, where despite the programming and the need to have a better car, the consumer may buy the USD 500 car, after evaluating that he might have financial problems after buying the expensive car. In the aspect of a consumer’s being an adaptive system, the consumer who wanted to have a USD 2000 car, but bought the USD 500 car will after some time adapt to using the cheaper car (Holt 70-88). The material is the reality that an individual is experiencing, while the ideal is the spiritual formation of what they would have wanted to experience. In the example of the consumer buying the USD 500 car, driving the cheaper car may be the material/reality he is experiencing, but in his mind he can image/ idealize himself driving the USD 2000 car. In this case the consumer will process the information available, but still program themselves to experience the use of the USD 2000 car. In the area of preference formation, the consumer may have preferred using the USD 2000 car, but from using the cheaper one, he adapts to using it after some time (Holt 70-88). The abstract and the real, as used by Marx in explaining labor, are demonstrated in terms of the values they are expected to deliver. The abstract brings about exchange value, while the real brings about use value. In the area of abstract, using the example of abstract labor, the counting of the hours worked by an employee is the abstract way of viewing labor. Real labor on the other hand, is any activity that has its goal as the creation of some use value. The relationship of these two to the relationship may be explained in the abstract nature that, a consumer will want to deliver the minimal most abstract value, but feel the need to get the most real value, for example, in the form of salary or the commodities being purchased (Holt 70-88). Works Cited Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984: 76. Fiske, John. Media Matters : Everyday Culture and Political Change. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minneota Press, 1994: 124. Holt, Douglas. "Why Do Brands Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture and Branding." Journal of Consumer Research 29., (2002): 70-88. Horkheimer, Max. & Adorno, Theodor. The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception (J. Cumming, Trans.). In Dialectic of Enlightenment. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1976. pp. 120-167 Ozanne, Julie. & Jeff, Murray. "The Critical Imagination: Emancipatory Interests in Consumer Research." Journal of Consumer Research, no. 18. (1995): 129-144. Read More