The organised consumer movement in global context

这个项目追溯了自第二次世界大战以来国际消费运动的兴起。有组织的、经过比较检验的消费主义代表了上个世纪最大的社会运动之一。它起源于20世纪20年代末的美国，在第二次世界大战后开始富裕的欧洲消费者中被证明是一种灵感。20世纪50年代，法国、比利时、荷兰和英国成立了几个组织（如消费者协会）。这些消费者组织，连同合作社和妇女团体等较老的消费者团体，对20世纪60年代和70年代发达国家采取的消费者保护措施产生了重要影响。然而，消费者运动也成为一股国际力量。1960年，几个私人测试组织成立了国际消费者联盟组织（IOCU，现在的消费者国际），它已经从比较测试模式扩展到考虑发展中国家消费者的利益，不太关心钱的价值，更关心享受基本生活水平的权利。如今，国际奥委会总部设在伦敦，但在非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲设有蓬勃发展的地区办事处，并拥有来自100多个不同国家的约25名成员。这个项目的目的是通过探索自第二次世界大战以来的主要消费者行动主义组织来揭示国际消费社会的这种政治。它是关于消费者对20世纪50年代富裕社会的反应，以及他们发现自己所处的经济条件。该书还涉及第三世界消费者维权主义的兴起，以及由此引发的有关西方富裕和全球经济发展的问题。消费运动在发展中国家蓬勃发展，这些国家的绝大多数人口都无法享受到富裕的果实。消费政治继续涉及的问题不仅是为那些有能力的人提供更多的选择，还包括确保所有公民都能首先参与到消费社会中来。这项研究建立在对消费和消费社会动态的兴趣呈指数增长的基础上，跨越了几个学科。申请人在这一领域的发展中发挥了重要作用，并且出现了一些研究，这些研究审查了不同国家背景下的消费政治。然而，很少有人把消费主义的增长作为一种国际现象来写，而这个项目试图纠正的正是这种缺失。该项目的目的是证明消费社会增长的非必然性。它认为，在二战后的大部分时间里，消费社会指的是提高每个人的生活水平，而不仅仅是在西方。然而，消费主义的概念现在通常只指那些有能力的人有更多的选择。然而，这只是消费社会的一种定义，这个项目试图揭示选择这种特殊形式的“消费主义”的政治。

This project traces the rise of the international consumer movement since the Second World War. Organised, comparative-testing consumerism represents one of the largest social movements of the past century. It originated in the United States in the late-1920s and proved an inspiration for European consumers embarking upon a period of affluence after the Second World War. The 1950s saw the creation of several groups in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Britain (e.g., the Consumers' Association). These organizations of consumers, together with older consumer groups such as co-operatives and women's groups, were important influences on the consumer protection measures introduced acrossthe developed world in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the consumer movement also became an international force. In 1960, several private testing organisations founded the International Organisation of Consumers Unions (IOCU, now Consumers International), which has spread from the comparative testing model and taken into account the interests of developing world consumers, concerned less with value for money and more with the right to enjoy a basic standard of living. Today, the IOCU is based in London, but has thriving regional offices in Africa, Asia and Latin America and has around 25 members from over 100 different countries. The purpose of this project is to uncover this politics of international consumer society by exploring the principal organisations of consumer activism since the Second World War. It is aboutthe response of consumers to the affluent society of the 1950s and the economic conditions they found themselves living in. It is about too the emergence of third world consumer activism and the questions this raises about western affluence and global economic development. The consumer movement has thrived in countries across the developing world where the vast majority of the population has not been able to have access to the fruits of affluence. Consumer politics have continued to involve questions about not only bringing more choice to those who can afford it, but ensuring that all citizens can participate in consumer society in the first place.This research builds on an exponentially expanding interest in the dynamics of consumption and consumer society, across several academic disciplines. The applicant has played a significant role in the development of this field and a number of studies have emerged which have examined the politics of consumption in various national contexts. Little, though, has been written on the growth of consumerism as an international phenomenon and it is this absence which the project seeks to correct. The aim of the project is to demonstrate the non-inevitability of the growth of consumer society. It contends that for much of the post-Second World War period, consumer society referred to increasing standards of living for everybody, not just in the west. Yet the notion of consumerism now generally used refers only to increasing choice forthose who can afford it. This, however, has been only one definition of consumer society and this project seeks to uncover the politics of choosing this particular form of 'consumerism'.