Geschichte der Konsumgesellschaft (review)

Geschichte der Konsumgesellschaft. By Wolfgang König. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000. Pp. 509. DM 98.

In an attempt to enhance our understanding of consumer society, Wolfgang König sets out to explore the relationship between the spheres of production and consumption. Consumption should not be understood as a complementary term to production, he contends; rather, the two should be seen as relational concepts, and he seeks to investigate the complex interplay between both sides of the affluent society. The longstanding hegemonic status of the production sphere in economic and social history makes it necessary to give the demand side of consumer society more consideration, and the long tradition of the so-called manipulation thesis (that production manipulates and dominates demand) requires correction by exploring consumption patterns in more detail.

Consumption as a way of life is, for König, a product of industrialization. Contrary to historians of the eighteenth century such as McKendrick, König argues that consumer society did not develop before the twentieth century--between the two world wars in the United States, during the 1960s in Germany. Of course, he accepts the existence of a long prehistory in both countries, but by his definition consumer society is a very recent and primarily quantitative phenomenon, the most important indicator of which is that a majority of the population is able to spend money on things above and beyond basic needs.

Because of the strong American influence on West Germany, König considers it reasonable to make use of American historical literature to illuminate consumer behavior in Germany and to try, where possible, a comparative analysis, addressing the relations between the two countries and the more dynamic and flexible American economy and society. Rich in natural resources, with a mobile population, numerous immigrants, and independent inventors, American technology and the American economy could grow. Increasing incomes produced demand, labor shortages and high wages encouraged investment. In contrast, the late arrival of Germany in Cockaigne is explained by the fact that not before the monetary reform of 1948 did Germans earn enough money to enter the world of goods.

Time and money: these are the two main prerequisites, in König's mind, to the emergence of a consumer society. Given leisure time, an attractive offer, and enough money, people will buy all sorts of things that are not part of their basic needs (nutrition, clothes, habitation, reproduction, and sexuality). In hard times needs, in better times luxuries--König echoes old-fashioned debates. Indeed, he takes an oft-traveled path, making no challenge to economic orthodoxy and ignoring previous efforts of social and cultural history to conceptualize consumption. Even in chapters titled "Technology in Consumption" and "Consumption of Technology" there is little interpretation of the existing literature. Perhaps this is the result of a methodology that König calls "historical description" (p. 9). As sociologists' methods lend themselves to positivist description, so König, too, in some respects tells us only what happened, not how.

This is surprising, because the book concentrates on topics that have stimulated lively debate. The global dynamic of the "American way of life," for example, is a well-established assumption in research on the social and economic development of Germany in the twentieth century. A large body of literature has been produced in recent years on Americanization, Fordism, Westernization, and the like. However, most of the researchers (such as Victoria de Grazia, Axel Schild, and Adelheid von Saldern) who use those categories as a heuristic device to approach German history, and who are interested in questions of mass consumption, would not read economic developments solely in terms of sales figures and growth statistics, but more subtly, as cultural appropriations. Goods and consumption patterns are integrated in ways of living and in a cultural field of traditions, perceptions, and personal judgments. Instead of studying statistics, recent scholarship seeks to analyze the preferences and habits of people consuming and using goods.

Granted, König's interest in conceptualizing consumption lies not in cultural history but...