Chapter 3: Consumers

Get the Producer idea? Many job functions in our society are clearly Producer job types. But there are people who are not Producers, but are Consumers. I use the term not in the usual sense as ‘one who shops at Wal-Mart’, but in the sense that they consume more than they produce, at least in the value of new and unique products or services.

If this is the case, how do Consumers justify their existence in society? They provide valuable services doing things that the Producers do not want to do, all the lower wage jobs. These jobs are not considered ‘producing’ jobs, but they are absolutely necessary. We need bag boys, shop clerks, cab drivers, car wash attendants, hotel maids, and the like. Notice that most of these people only perform these jobs on their way to becoming Producers themselves, or another class that I’ll describe shortly.

The “Circle of Consumption” is a device from behavioral science that traces goods through a circular, four stage process: Production, acquisition, consumption, and disposal. Producers spend their work time intensely on the goods-production side of the circle, consumers much less so.

American society delineates Producers and Consumers clearly, but this was not always so. In “The Third Wave,” Alvin Toffler outlines how producers and consumers were not so distinct before the industrial revolution. Back then, the producers consumed a large slice of their own output. The family farm is the best example. Those producers had some produce to sell at market, but most of what they grew went to feed the family.

Toffler writes, “We are accustomed, for example, to think of ourselves as producers or consumers. This wasn’t always true. Until the industrial revolution, the vast bulk of all the food, goods, and services produced by the human race was consumed by the producers themselves, their families, or a tiny elite who managed to scrape off the surplus for their own use.” He continues, “In short, industrialism broke the union of production and consumption, and split the producer from the consumer.” ^[7]

We have to understand Consumers in the light of this split and my definition of Producer. When you hear the term consumer on the evening news, they are talking about anyone who eats food daily, which includes all Consumers and Producers. My idea of a Consumer is a person who provides some basic service, but does not create anything new and unique from raw materials or information. This is not to demean Consumers, but their role is distinct from the Producer. Their jobs are valuable, else they would not have jobs in our capitalist economy.

It is only possible to study Consumers since they have been separated from the Producers by the industrial revolution. The illustrations I referred to from National Geographic had no discernible pure Consumers.