Consumer society Moxon XXXXXXXXXXargues that whilst consumer culture did not directly cause the riots, the shape that they took in terms of the extensive looting of material goods, needs to be...

Consumer society

Moxon (2011) argues that whilst consumer culture did not directly cause the riots, the shape that they took in terms of the extensive looting of material goods, needs to be understood within the context of living within an increasingly consumerist society. In the minority world we are constantly bombarded with advertising and marketing encouraging us to consume in order to shape our identities and enhance our social status. Looters took trainers, clothing, flat screen TVs and laptops perhaps partly as a result of the ‘envy of the celebrities and footballers who consume so conspicuously and publicly, but whose power to consume is unavailable to the bulk of us’ (Moxon 2011: 2). The well-known sociologist Zygmunt Bauman also referred to the riots as: . . . the mutiny of defective and disqualified consumers, people offended and humiliated by the display of riches to which they had been denied access. We have been all coerced and seduced to view shopping as the recipe for good life and the principal solution of all life problems – but then a large part of the population has been prevented from using that recipe . . . City riots in Britain are best understood as a revolt of frustrated consumers. (Bauman 2011) Some of the rioters themselves admitted to being swept along by greed within a culture of ‘wanting stuff’, describing it as a ‘free-for-all’ with no perceived consequences (Guardian-LSE 2011). Thus for some it was linked to a sense of excitement and thrill, going along with the crowd in a moment of opportunism.