Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Consumerism
Consumerism
Chapter 15
Consumerism
This chapter:
Defines and discusses the idea of consumerism.
Describes the protective shield of statutes,
regulations, and consumer law that has risen to
protect consumers since Harvey Wileys era.
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Harvey W. Wiley
Opening Case
In the late 1800s, Harvey W. Wiley, a professor at
Purdue University, began working with Indiana state
officials to detect adulteration in food products.
A large, highly competitive food industry applied new
food chemistries using preservatives, colorings,
flavorings, texturizers, and other additives.
With few laws to police dishonorable operators, dangerous,
fraudulent, and cheapened products made their way to
market.
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Harvey W. Wiley
Opening Case (continued)
Wiley began to agitate for a national pure food law.
Wiley set up an experiment whose participants
were nicknamed the poison squad.
In 1906, Congress finally passed the Pure Food
and Drug Act.
The Bureau of Chemistry evolved into the Food
and Drug Administration, a powerful agency that
protects public health.
Americas memory of Dr. Wiley has dimmed, but his work still
touches our lives. The law he fought for is the foundation of
modern food and drug regulation.
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Consumerism
Consumerism is a word
with two meanings:
A movement to promote
the rights and powers of
consumers in relation to
sellers.
A powerful ideology in
which the pursuit of material
goods beyond subsistence
shapes social conduct.
Consumer
A person who uses
products and
services in a
commercial
economy.
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Consumerism as
an Ideology
Consumerism describes a society in which
people define their identities by acquiring
and displaying material goods beyond
what they need for subsistence.
The full emergence of consumerism came
as economic changes interacted with
cultural and social developments.
Declining influence of religion
The industrial revolution
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Consumerism in Perspective
Marketing research reveals a widespread,
profound effort to find love, status, and individuality
in products.
Materialism is an emphasis on material objects or
money that displaces spiritual, aesthetic, or
philosophical values.
Thorstein Veblen, in his book The Theory of the
Leisure Class, challenged the conventional
economic wisdom that consumers bought goods
for their functional utility.
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Consumerism in Perspective
(continued)
Complaints about consumerism include:
It leads to commodification of all parts of life
It encourages unwise, irrational, and
unproductive uses of money
Heavy consumption is profligate with natural
resources
Consuming beyond necessity violates the idea
the Gods world is already full and complete
It distorts our values
It is a pathology of corporate capitalism
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Consumerism as a
Protective Movement
The idea of collective interest in protecting
consumers dates back to the earliest transactions
between merchants and customers.
1870s when Populist farmers attacked railroads
Food and Drug Act of 1906
The 1960s and 1970s prompted another wave of
legislation to protect consumers and expand their
rights.
Consumer protection is today a major function of
government.
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The Consumers
Protective Shield
Besides federal laws and regulations, there are
significant protections at the state and local level.
Every state and local government has extensive
consumer protection laws.
More than 50 federal agencies and bureaus are
active in consumer affairs.
These agencies and bureaus are effective despite
changing ideologies in administrations, powerful
critics, budget restraints, and too little staff to meet
all their statutory mandates.
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Other Consumer
Protection Agencies
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Negligence
A tort involves either an intentional or a
negligent action that causes injury.
Obstacles to consumers in early product liability
law:
Caveat emptor
Narrow interpretation of the doctrine of privity,
which held that consumers could sue only the party
that sold them the product
Warranty
A warranty is a contract in which the
seller guarantees the nature of the
product.
An express warranty is an explicit
claim made by the manufacturer to the
buyer.
An implied warranty is an unwritten,
commonsense warranty arising out of
the buyers reasonable expectations.
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Strict Liability
The doctrine of strict liability established that
anyone who engages in a dangerous activity is
liable for damages to others, even if the activity is
conducted with utmost care.
The key to strict liability is that the injured person
need not prove negligence to prevail in court.
Under strict liability an injured plaintiff must prove
only that:
The manufacturer made a product in a defective condition
that made it unreasonably dangerous to the user
The seller was in the business of selling such products
It was unchanged from its manufactured condition when
purchased
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Perspectives on
Product Liability
The U.S. legal system makes it easier
for plaintiffs to win large damage
awards from product makers than do
the systems of other countries.
Nowhere else in the world has the
legal system created such a favorable
environment for product lawsuits as in
the United States.
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Concluding Observations
Consumerism is a word with two meanings: it
refers both to a kind of society and to a
protective movement.
Consumerism as a way of life is spreading
around the world because the conditions that
support it are becoming more common.
Consumers in the United States are now more
protected from injury, fraud, and other abuses
than in the past because of stronger government
regulation and more consumer-friendly common
law doctrines.
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