Back to Homepage Income Measures Income: Saving and Investment Methods of Buying That Save Money The Choice of Goods Methods of Buying That Reduce Mistakes In Selection Methods of Securing Information Concerning Goods Plans and Motives of Consumers Consuming the Product Who Is the Consumer? The Consumer in the Market Priorities and Preferences in Consuming Decisions The Consumer as User of Wealth The Consumer as a Buyer Consumers as Self-Conscious Agents Criteria of a Good Market Information Versus Persuasion of the Buyer The Rate of Interest Interest Rates and Economic Activity Saving, Investment, and Income Saving Motives Saving Plans and their Realization Total Spending Is the Key to Prosperity The More We Spend, The More We Have Spending by Private Enterprise

Consumers as Self-Conscious Agents Thus far, consciousness of the personal significance of consumption has not been considered essential to the assumption of the consumer role. There are, however, those who would delimit the term to include only individuals who consciously think of themselves as consumers first and as producers secondly, if at all. Such persons may be active or passive in their reaction to economic conditions, but they must be cognizant of their consumer status. Generally, those who are "passive" consumers recognize both their productive and consumptive significance and, therefore, attempt to create a reasonable balance between the two functions. They are, typically, people with fairly limited incomes and yet with some freedom of choice in the selection of consumables. A further delimitation of the conscious consumer has been made by assuming that only those persons who actively defend their consuming interests deserve the name. Such militant conscious consumers are usually from the lower income brackets. They are people who fight for what they consider their right to one hundred cents worth of satisfaction for each dollar expended. Regardless of the ensuing scene, they will denounce the butcher for shortweighing, and the grocer for making profitable but unsatisfactory substitutions; whereas, the passive consumer would quietly go elsewhere to trade. They picket the urban stores over high prices or poor service; they boycott unpopular merchants or brands; they return misrepresented or poor quality merchandise. In general, they believe that goods should be produced primarily for consumption and not for profit, and they have the courage of their convictions. Such a group would be extremely small in the United States due to the pressure of social decorum and the contemporary canons of respectability. One would have to have an assured social position or be indifferent to the effects of social disapproval to qualify. At best, therefore, the militant conscious consumers represent the extreme or purest of consumer types. As such, their characteristics might mark the consumer ideal, but they do not indicate the nature of the average consumer of the present day. Generally speaking, the broad concept of the consumer as a conscious agent is faulty because it fails to distinguish objective reality from subjective attitudes. One does not become a consumer simply by thinking of himself as such; any more than one becomes an actor by believing oneself to possess dramatic ability. Nor is recognition of the role essential to its existence. A person may be an effective instructor without awareness of his pedagogical ability or influence. Consuming may, of course, take on the attributes of a vocation but one need not be a professional to qualify. The consumer is an objective economic type with specific functions and characteristics that do not depend upon personal recognition for their existence. Therefore, since we are dealing with reality and not with a point of view, consciousness of one's status may be considered desirable but not essential to the assumption of the consumer role. Consequently, we now turn to the last of the popular definitions of the consumer, still seeking the consumer type.   Home