Global Commodity Chains and the Organizational Grounding of Consumer Cultural Production

Abstract

This essay brings together ‘commodity chain’ analysis with some of the central concerns motivating studies of consumption and consumer culture. It argues that we can, from the perspective of capitalist agents and agencies, discern important historical shifts in the economic significance of the various activities that generate modern consumer culture, or ‘consumer cultural production’. Shifts in both the nature and intensity of competitive pressures imply different roles for consumer cultural production within the portfolios and strategies of leading capitalist organizations over time. Thus, the essay provides a framework for periodizing and linking historical shifts in the organization of commodity chains in relation to transformations in the structure and nature of consumer cultural production over roughly the past century. More concretely, it connects the broad shift from commodity chains organized along a ‘producer-driven’ form to the ‘buyer-driven’ arrangement to different kinds of ‘market making’ through consumer cultural production.