Consuming Life

With the advent of liquid modernity, the society of producers is
transformed into a society of consumers. In this new consumer
society, individuals become simultaneously the promoters of
commodities and the commodities they promote. They are, at one and
the same time, the merchandise and the marketer, the goods and the
travelling salespeople. They all inhabit the same social space that
is customarily described by the term the market.

The test they need to pass in order to acquire the social prizes
they covet requires them to recast themselves as products capable
of drawing attention to themselves. This subtle and pervasive
transformation of consumers into commodities is the most important
feature of the society of consumers. It is the hidden truth, the
deepest and most closely guarded secret, of the consumer society in
which we now live.

In this new book Zygmunt Bauman examines the impact of
consumerist attitudes and patterns of conduct on various apparently
unconnected aspects of social life politics and democracy, social
divisions and stratification, communities and partnerships,
identity building, the production and use of knowledge, and value
preferences.

The invasion and colonization of the web of human relations by
the worldviews and behavioural patterns inspired and shaped by
commodity markets, and the sources of resentment, dissent and
occasional resistance to the occupying forces, are the central
themes of this brilliant new book by one of the worlds most
original and insightful social thinkers.