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

Who Is the Consumer? Although there is a large measure of agreement as to the economic significance of the consumer, he is an extremely difficult person to identify. Like most abstractions, he is recognizable on sight, but it is almost impossible to describe him to everyone's satisfaction. Disagreement occurs largely because definitions of the consumer are usually the articulation of a point of view rather than an objective description of reality. Thus, to the merchant, those who buy are consumers; to the government official, the consumer and the public are vaguely accepted as synonymous; while, for the statistician, any person who destroys utility is consuming, at least so far as the purposes of statistics are concerned. In addition, rarely is the consumer a person whose economic and social status is clearly determined by consuming. Most people yet think of themselves as producers, although their personal status and the economic condition of the nation indicate clearly their productive insignificance and their growing importance as consumers. "Apes, lions, and ants are all consumers," says the New York Times editorially, "but what makes a lion a lion is his leonine quality, which is a function of having strong teeth, sharp claws, and great strength--all as part of an organism whose aptitudes and characteristics derive from its 'productive' capacity as a hunter. . . . So with human beings--they are politicians, linotypers, ball players, subway guards and lawyers first, and consumers second." Where such attitudes prevail, the delineation of the consumer type is almost impossible. For attitudes are largely a product of the role one assumes himself to be playing. The present conflict between the individual's actual and imagined importance leads to a confusion of interests, drives, and reactions that is too well known to need elaboration. Under such conditions, however, a careful analysis of the nature of the consumer becomes difficult and the chances for conflicting definition, great. Moreover, the consumer has a disconcerting habit of making chameleonlike transformations without warning. While much is known about him, "the trouble is," says Raymond Willoughby, "that he has a perverse way of diverging from the norm. It is one thing to observe him in a table of statistics, and another to stalk him in the flesh. The idea, as Don Marquis phrased it, is that the average man is better than the average. You can compress the consumer's dollar into a mold of figures, and slice out percentages for this and that, but the very next survey will prove that the consumer you thought you knew so well is really some other fellow." The mistake is essentially one that is made in attempting to define almost any complex phenomenon. For, the process of definition involves delimitation, which is essentially destructive to anything so heterogeneous and amorphous as economic man, the average student, or the consumer. Accuracy is sacrificed for clarity. No definition of such things can be very precise and at the same time reasonably comprehensive. We are attempting, therefore, to describe the major characteristics of an ever-changing and poorly differentiated type, with the typical frequently misleading or non-existent. The fact that relatively little is known about the psychological, the physiological, the sociological, and the economic bases of consumption enhances the difficulty of the task at hand. By way of a beginning, however, an examination of existing definitions of the consumer should yield the materials for a composite picture of his dominant traits and general character. Beyond such a broad delineation it would be impossible to go with accuracy.   Home