Consumption And Cultural Identity

It was changes in consumption practises in the eighteenth century that prefigured the industrial revolution, rather than followed such changes as conventional wisdom implies. Similarly, it is changes in consumptive practices that have led to the shift from fordist to postfordist production regimes. Some anthropologists would argue that it is the housewife that wields most power on the global stage, due to her combined purchasing power and it is the retailers, through monitoring the point of sale, who inform marketing and advertising of any trends which is then fed back to production. The ideology of the housewife is becoming dominant in newly industrialised countries, so the number of housewives increases globally even as they decline in the west. The power wielded by the housewife is limited by her responsibilities and budget and thus her consumptive practices are embedded in the ‘moral economy of the home’.

According to conventional wisdom, Punk first emerged in America, pre 1976, from the fan base generated by bands such as the Ramones and the garage bands of the 1960s taking its name from a magazine, which promoted New York bands. Malcolm McLaren, an art school graduate influenced by the situationists, determined to ‘create’ a media sensation, formed the Sex Pistols – the rest, they say, is rock and roll history. So defined, by 1979 Punk was ‘dead’, coinciding with the election of Margaret Thatcher and the death of Sid Viscous. Yet by defining Punk so tightly, other influences central to the subculture - such as the role of the ‘Les Punks’, who followed Lou Reed, in France in the early 1970s, the situationists, and the class--based antagonisms of late 1970s Britain would be ignored, as would the new youth movements that directly followed Punk.

When Punk first burst upon the British cultural scene it was against a backdrop of social unrest, economic instability and political dissent: the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival had ended in riot, the unusually hot summer had lead to widespread drought, the National Front marched unabashed through the capital and the ‘winter of discontent’ appeared to signal the very end of the modern state.