Abstract

One of the great social and cultural transformations of the twentieth century is the historical shift from the primacy of labor to that of consumption—the mediation of social relations and consciousness by consumer goods. This relatively recent phenomenon eclipses the class experience of wage-labor and raises commodity fetishism to a new form of domination: from extensive exploitation and misery (wage-labor), to reduced work time (leisure) and increased material comforts (consumerism). Integrated by increased leisure and higher wages, modern employees are culturally and politically dislodged from the world of work and from a class experience in the traditional Marxian sense. Concerned primarily with the immediate gratifications of familial intimacy and consumerism, they come to tolerate the exploitation of labor and even political authoritarianism so long as the system sustains a rising standard of living.