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Zygmunt Bauman Work, consumerism and the new poor Buckingham: Open University Press. 1998. ISBN O 33520 155 5. £16.99, 106 pp.
This is a good book. As one might expect from an author of such authority, it is elegantly written, accessible, well informed and addresses one of the most important social issues of our time. Selectively drawing on a range of literature, as well as general observations, a powerful commentary and cogent moral argument is constructed. In keeping with the aims of the 'Issues in Society' series, of which it is a part, it applies social scientific analysis to historical developments and future practical and moral possibilities. It does this in a broad-ranging exploration of poverty and how it relates to work, social welfare and, more recently, consumption. It blends together and sometimes challenges central debates in industrial sociology, history and social policy especially and introduces the notion of the new poor as 'flawed consumers'.
At the risk of over-simplification, the argument is as follows. In the first of three parts, the focus is on a shift from the (re-)emergence of the work ethic to an 'aesthetic of consumption' - from a society of producers to one of consumers. In what might otherwise be seen as familiar ground, Bauman argues that the introduction of the work ethic with factory employment was not so much to instil new values in lazy workers, but '. . . an attempt to resuscitate basically pre-industrial work attitudes under new conditions' (p. 6). This ethic gradually gave way to influence from the contrasting US tradition of ambition and enterprise, although this transition is not fully discussed. Here, instead of the 'sermon' and the 'stick' providing motives, order and system reproduction, the 'carrot' of monetary rewards (e.g. scientific management) began to shape human value and dignity whereby motivation and freedom were to be achieved through consumption.
The next chapter develops this argument in setting out the making of consumers whereby the restless 'compulsion' to consume is felt as free will and stratifies social divisions as occupations had done before. Indeed, the prospects for lifelong (paid) work-based identity (i.e. career) have, for the majority, collapsed with the rise of 'flexible' employment. Rather, multiple identities are more appropriate and also better suited to...