consumer sovereignty

(ECONOMICS) the concept that in a MARKET ECONOMY the consumer of goods and services ultimately determines the continued production; and changes in the production, of these. The objection raised against this notion is that, while as social actors individual consumers have ‘choice’, this is constrained by the power of large producers to control the range of goods and services available to the consumer, e.g. through advertising (see also AFFLUENT SOCIETY, GALBRAITH). It follows from this, that in seeking to understand consumer behaviour one must study the overall social context in which the production of goods and services occurs, and not confine attention only to the tastes of consumers. See also CONSUMPTION, CONSUMER CULTURE, COLLECTIVE CONSUMPTION.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

Mentioned in

consumer culture

References in periodicals archive

In an epilogue, Gurney steps aside from the dispassionate mode of the social historian to declare the discourse of consumer sovereignty "a pernicious fiction" (209).

The Making of Consumer Culture in Modern Britain

offered a better safeguard for consumer sovereignty because it included

WEIRD SCIENCE: FRANKENSTEIN FOODS AND STATES AS LABORATORIES OF DEMOCRACY

But as long as consumer sovereignty is an intensely promoted principle, many do not even realize that their supremacy is an illusion.

Postmodern purchase decisions: between real needs and social pressures

In its purest form, consumer democracy (or consumer sovereignty) is the autonomy of consumers to determine what goods and services are to be produced and how the scarce economic resources are to be utilised based on their purchasing behaviour.

Consumers ruling the marketplace

and Lande, R.H., 'Consumer Sovereignty: A Unified Theory of Antitrust and Consumer Protection Law', 1997, Antitrust Law Journal, vol.

Institutional, sociological and spatial factors influencing consumer protection perceptions in the European Union

A fourth explanation, linked closely to this promotion agenda, revolves around the notion of consumer sovereignty, which views individual consumer choice as the principal source of production, pricing, and regulatory decisions by business and governments (Princen 2010a).

Sustainable consumption--three paradoxes

Volume 3 examines areas including the political demise of the property tax, consumer sovereignty and quasi-market failure, and corruption and economic growth.

Financial management in the public sector; 4v

Americans who exercise consumer sovereignty wherever Barack Obama still tolerates it are constantly disappointing him.

Liberalism by gesture

In part, this resistance is aided by the economic concept of consumer sovereignty (CS) and its presumption that choice promotes wellbeing.

Sovereign citizens and constrained consumers: Why sustainability requires limits on choice

In an autonomous society one must have a true market with consumer sovereignty. A democratic society is an autonomous (self-limited) society with respect to any political excesses and in the works and acts of the collectivity, and is incompatible with today's huge concentration of economic power (the present system functions essentially nondemocratically).

Cornelius Castoriadis: A Society Adrift (Interviews and Debates, 1974-1997)

rejects consumer sovereignty. Nor does price theory merely embrace

The antitrust/consumer protection paradox: two policies at war with each other