The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West (review)

This book, edited and introduced by Sheldon Garon and Patricia Maclachan, represents the first comparative volume on globalization of consumer culture especially from the perspective of East Asia. This volume is the end result of a seminar series organized by Abe Fellowship Program and funded by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

The title of this book indicates the challenge facing the editors approaching consumerism in such a comprehensive and ambitious way. Understanding consumerism has always been an appealing issue. The different and complementary approaches need to be united in order to understand the global perspective of consumerism. The editors succeed in integrating various contributions from the financial, economic, and political fields by taking into account the geographic extension.

The book contains a total of 12 chapters. These chapters are organized in three major parts. Garon and Maclachan, and their 11 expert contributors present the different aspect of discontents and dilemmas of consumerism, political economies of consumerism, and ways of following global spread of American consumer culture in each part of the book.

Part I is entitled "Cultures of Consumption," consisting of four chapters. This part starts by discussing the historical framework of consumerism, exploring the meaning and identity of a consumer, the types of players involved in different consumer cultures, discussing consumption and the consumer as driving forces between political, social, and national identities. The historical framework of consumerism is not discussed in chronological order; it was rather presented in the form of economic and philosophical thought.

The history or the story of America's preoccupation with consumption in the postwar years has been told many times. However, reading Part I of this book made me realize that the consumption in America is linked not only to consumer behavior, but also to economic and political events. This realization also shapes the understanding of gender, race, and class in consumer culture. The real lesson of the American consumer story is that income should be redistributed and the equality should be promoted.

Part II (Chapters 5–8) is called "Consumerism, Debt, Saving, and Nation." Most of this part is devoted to Japan. It involves deeper analyses of the Japanese saving and consumption behavior. Generally, Western-based transnational corporations have been seen as the institutions capable of spreading consumer culture. In this regard, the Japanese have been criticized by Western observers for saving too much and consuming too little. The contributor of this part also stated this fact by showing Japan's trade and current account surpluses during the 1980s as an example for Japanese thriftiness. According to results of the analysis done by Charles Yuji Horioka on consumption and saving, the Japanese were big savers during parts of the prewar, wartime, and early postwar periods and throughout the 1955–95 period, but they no longer save at high levels and still continue to hold conservative portfolios.

As to the consumption, this analysis reveals that the Japanese consumption patterns lag behind those of most other G7 countries and far behind those in the United States even though they steadily increased their consumption levels during the postwar period. Japan exhibits saving and consumption behavior similar to France, Germany, and Italy with regard to high household saving rate, high real asset, and low consumption levels. At the same time, the Japanese behavior differs from these countries with regard to having greater financial assets and liabilities.

Part III, headed "The Politics of Consumption" has four chapters. Chapters 9–12 focus on the political economies of consumption by discussing issues related to genetically modified foods, producers, and states, relations among consumers, influence of gender on consumption, and conflicting consumer attitudes toward globalization. In this part, Davis tries to present the link between consumption and homeowners, and also the impact of politics on consumption. It is also noteworthy that the concept of consumer revolution has been applied to China...