The most fun I ever had spending money was during a shopping spree at a toy store. It was almost Hanukkah, which falls near my birthday, and my parents asked me what they should get me for both occasions. I told them I didn’t want them to pick things out for me, I wanted to pick things out for myself. I wanted to enact what I had seen on TV: children running gleefully through Toys R Us, grabbing this and that off the shelves. My parents were put out by the request: because it took place not on my sixth birthday, or my tenth, but rather my eighteenth.
I was not a child, they said: I shouldn’t be playing with toys. But they eventually relented, handing me the amount they would have spent on presents — $200 — and telling me I could do whatever I wanted with it. So off I set for my spree, taking my six-year-old sister with me. We circled around the store again and again, arrived at a provisional list, deliberated carefully over what might be substituted for what, mystifying the employees — upon whom it slowly dawned that the pile of toys growing on the counter was intended not for my sister but for me. I asked for each one to be wrapped individually.
I have such a vivid memory of this experience — the avaricious thrill of thinking that almost anything in the store could be mine, the absurd freedom to possess things of which I had absolutely no need — but I do not remember what I ended up buying. I cannot name even one toy I purchased that day, and I do not know whether any of them are still with me. It was on this day, on the eve of adulthood, that I approximated the ideal of consumerism, the frenzied mania that is the pure joy of shopping.
Much later, I read some books by social scientists that sought to explain this phenomenon. In his Theory of the Leisure Class, for instance, Thorstein Veblen explains that “conspicuous consumption” is a way of signalling that one is above engaging in productive labour: “A detailed examination of what passes in popular apprehension for elegant apparel will show that it is contrived at every point to convey the impression that the wearer does not habitually put forth any useful effort.” In The Affluent Society, Kenneth Galbraith lays out what he calls “the dependence effect”, which is that capitalism reverses the relationship between production and desire. Instead of producing things in order to satisfy people’s antecedent desires and needs, a wealthy capitalist society has an antecedent commitment to production, which means: “It accords to the producer the function both of making the goods and of making the desires for them.”
All of that made some sense to me, but I was unsatisfied, feeling that phrases such as “conspicuous consumption” and “dependence effect” obscured as much as they revealed. They didn’t explain the powerful drive that animated me in the toy store, versions of which I continue to feel to this day when I shop. But then I read a novel by Émile Zola.
The Ladies’ Paradise — Au Bonheur Des Dames — is named for the department store that is the novel’s true protagonist. It is described alternately as a monster, a machine, a colossus, a cathedral, and over the course of the novel it grows — in power and influence, in financial success, and in physical size, as it expands along the street to swallow up the small businesses that had flourished in the neighbourhood for generations. The fictional store and its fictional owner, Octave Mouret, are based, respectively, on Le Bon Marché, one of Paris’ first department stores, and the businessman Aristide Boucicaut, who grew a 3,000 square foot novelty shop with a handful of departments — buttons, lace, ribbons, umbrellas — into a 55,000 square foot colossus that sold everything. Zola carefully researched the business practices detailed in the novel: the replacement of haggling with fixed prices, the use of advertising, the introduction of returns and sales and discounts, the giant displays to encourage window-shopping, the routine rearrangement of the store to confuse customers into spending more time within its walls. The author’s journalistic eye for detail takes the reader back in time to watch something new coming into being — a new type of desire, a new set of human relationships, a new form of life. We witness the birth of shopping.
It is very hard not to be a moralist about capitalism. Veblen and Galbraith fall into the trap: one can hear the distaste in a phrase like “conspicuous consumption”. And these days, we are so accustomed to the word “capitalism” being followed by moralism that it comes as a shock to encounter Zola, who wants to talk to us about economic growth, about the lust for luxury goods, about the power of advertising and the many guises it can take, about the mannerisms of rich shoppers and the working conditions of the poor people who serve them — and yet doesn’t want to preach to us about any of those things. He wants to show you the splendours and the horrors of something; he wants to help you understand.
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SubscribeIs there some kind of evolutionary effect at play here? I ask this since the participants in this shopping frenzy are females; not exclusively no doubt, but predominantly. Could that be the evolutionary desire – or necessity, more like – to undertake ‘gathering’, as in “hunting and gathering”? Those who were able to do so successfully were more likely to survive, along with their kin. If a superabundance of foodstuffs became available, perhaps on a seasonal basis, the impetus to gather would become an imperative, perhaps inducing a hormonal reaction.
Is what the author, and Zola, describe the continuation of this hormonally-driven imperative? The superabundance of the superstore driving an ancient need to fulfil a duty to one’s family, to one’s tribe; to oneself? The feelings described would certainly fit this narrative.
Interesting observation and highly likely I would have thought.
Interesting thought. I would imagine much female expenditure is on cosmetics, jewellery, clothes, hairdo’s – all things designed to increase attractiveness to a high status mate
Same concept of a hormonally driven imperative but with a slightly different root?
And status to other women.
Yes, good point.
Interesting idea, but would perhaps be more likely to drive women to the supermarket rather than the shopping mall. I think Martin is closer to the mark, but underestimates female status seeking. It is not limited to simply attracting a high status mate. It is also to establish their status with other women.
If we look at female consumption, it is largely based around improving appearance, holding back signs of ageing, emphasising sexual characteristics and displaying status. As women age, the emphasis changes. A young woman will happily wear a cheap frock if it is sexy and displays her body. An older woman will wear a more expensive frock which conveys status and does a reasonable job of hiding that she is physically not what she once was.
wtf. Men and women both gathered. We all experience an acquisitiveness which has little if anything to do with hormones or seasons. We all generally experience a thrill at purchasing or obtaining something which can be explained by evolutionary impulses. Your ex post hormonal explanation is bizarre.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20150318-tame-your-inner-impulse-buyer
It’s obvious isn’t it? Those who had an innate incentive to gather and pick out good things survived. There is no reason to derive pleasure in shopping other than the fact that it all the people who weren’t bothered about it died. The same phenomena are at play when we game, gamble and use social media (or comment sections).
I wouldn’t take much, if any, credence from a BBC article, although it does explain your need to express yourself with “wtf”.
The hoarding phenomenon cuts across gender lines equally. That’s a result of OCD and I think all shopping has an element of that.
Women’s buying in the fashion and cosmetics industry is insane. They have made billionaires and multi-millionaires of so many. As a woman, I’m saddened and disgusted to see that women will spend so much money on an ugly-looking purse simply because it’s made by a designer. They have an obsessive need to impress others and designers capitalize on and exploit that need. I have given this much thought because not all women allow themselves to be victimized in this way. So what makes the difference? Personality type.
Executive function? Intelligence? Thoughtfulness? Narcissism? As you say, you’ve given it much thought – but most people don’t, they are carried along by the current. That in itself sets you apart a bit.
I don’t want to sound too moralistic, we all like nice things, and I realise I’m close to stereotyping certain women – but the obsession with designer goods etc does tend to go with other characteristics. Let’s just say, I doubt they are reading Martin Heidegger in their spare time.
Unless it’s shopping for something the man is interested in and wishes to buy – such as a car – or for those types, a gun. Then it can take hours. And hours. And hours. And David, fyi, there are really many many women who read Heidegger and the like. Even god help us, French philosophers, who also indulge in fashion. Truly.
That was an interesting and engaging essay, imo.
The question that really caught my eye was:
“The difficulty that he implicitly raises for any alternative to capitalism is … instead a motivational difficulty: assuming it does avoid poverty for all, what will move and inspire and incite those people?”
We live in an age that still pays lip service to capitalism, but its predominant goal seems to be deindustrialization, reducing living standards, pushing people to rely increasingly on the State for their living. So without the cut and thrust of capitalism, what will motivate future young people? The answer increasingly appears to be devotion to strange, invented cults, notably wokeism, and perhaps a return to tribalism and real conflict, not just the conflict of the marketplace. Political and economic theories might fall in and out of fashion, but human nature doesn’t change.
So without the cut and thrust of capitalism, what will motivate future young people?
And the answer is: shopping.
Exactly. Human nature doesn’t change.
Here’s another set of metaphors and flights of fancy surrounding the experience of shopping. Left to my own devices, I will treat it as a military exercise. Do I have to commit to the battle, or can it be put off and the problem solved by retreat or diplomacy? If not, establish clear objectives. What is needed, and how are they to be obtained with minimum damage to my own forces? Plan (bags, credit card, parking, travel times) and then a fast and surgical execution. Get in, buy the stuff, and get out before they know what’s hit them, taking as few casualties as possible.
Funny, thanks for the chuckle.
What Zola (and Tolstoy) also noted was the extent to which consumerism is a female driven phenomena. Initially rich women, later almost all.
Should global warming really lay waste to the planet, and render life here impossible, I suggest that humanity’s final act should be the creation of a giant handbag in marble to act as a warning to any future alien visitors.
No need. There will be plenty of men’s cars still lying around.
A good retort.
Though women seem to have caught the car bug too. Perhaps cars are the new handbag 🙂
An excellent piece about a wonderful writer who is not read enough today. I wonder if some of that is owing to his famous defence of the 19th French military figure Alfred Dreyfus who’s mistreatment exposed entrenched French anti-Semitism?
I doubt most people even know of that.
Too much truth is my hunch. We prefer a prettier, less realistic view of the past.
Which brings us right back to Veblen et al and a critique that the author has subtly edged us away from: that the “gear” must be expensive, that it must convey status, and that it must be unaffordable to the many. Indeed people are drawn to activities which are expensive, and eschew those that are cheap, precisely because of their exclusivity and the status they convey.
Men indulge in status shopping. But it tends to be “gear” not decoration. Watches, high-end cycling gear, “technical” sports apparel. Tools I feel are less demonstrative, instead creating the quiet satisfaction of owning the “best”. Japanese tenon saws, anything by Festool, that sort of thing.
To be honest we all do it to a degree. Though few men actually enjoy the act of shopping in the way women do.
A very good essay. It set me mind off on a tangent.
Being a bit of a hoarder, I once had a stoop sale, a yard sale for someone without a yard. I set up early and then mostly just sat and watched and chatted all day. I was impressed and very pleased at the simple joy and the fun that everyone was having. I never really thought of the social aspects of this “incitement” to shop.
Unfortunately, the bigger, more corporate and more online the experience gets the less social pleasure it provides. But that hasn’t reduced the urge to aquire things one bit.
By the way, I made a bundle!
What a surprise! The main purpose of the BBC’s drama department is to make the clothes people wore 200 or more years ago. There is also the question as to the likeness that the BBC in the world of media has to the department store that destroys its smaller competitors. No wonder the BBC sugar-coated the tale.
“the routine rearrangement of the store to confuse customers into spending more time within its walls”
They just did this at my local Walmart. My son works there, and he said the stock manager had a breakdown and quit.