Social And Subcultural Articles Study

It was changes in consumption practises in the eighteenth century that prefigured the industrial revolution, rather than followed such changes as conventional wisdom implies. Similarly, it is changes in consumptive practices that have led to the shift from fordist to postfordist production regimes. Some anthropologists would argue that it is the housewife that wields most power on the global stage, due to her combined purchasing power and it is the retailers, through monitoring the point of sale, who inform marketing and advertising of any trends which is then fed back to production. The ideology of the housewife is becoming dominant in newly industrialised countries, so the number of housewives increases globally even as they decline in the west. The power wielded by the housewife is limited by her responsibilities and budget and thus her consumptive practices are embedded in the ‘moral economy of the home’.