Consumerism in China - the story of America retold

Deng Xiaoping's 1979 reforms opened China's frail, Communist, isolated command economy to the invigorating forces of foreign financial and industrial capital. Since then, China has imported a number of things, at an ever increasing rate; one of these new ideas , is consumerism.

Anne Leonard's short documentary, The Story of Stuff, simplified the Work-Watch-Buy cycle of people absorbed in consumer-culture. There was a time, during the era of Mao, when people were citizens, and when people lived lives free from the temptation to buy everything they could, and spend everything they had.

A 1950s-era Chinese family gathers around a meal in the People's Communes; they live a simple life - the only option afforded to them by the economic system of local self-sufficiency and government cupons.

Living simple lives, the Chinese peasants and urban proletariats alike fulfill the stereyotypes of their societal role, armed with the characteristic tools of their work. In these posters, the hard working characters/models do not indulge in physical or material pleasures, but are enticed to live life only as productive members of society, and not consumers that seek to live life lavishly.

Propaganda posters of the times function as the advertising of the Chinese people under communism: they sell to the public ideas about work, education, "society", politics, and the world - ideas formulated by a public relations bureau somewhere in the halls of Chinese government. In the absence of commercial advertising, social advertising as such reflect the ideals of the people, or at least the ideals that the people are meant to have.

The ideals sold to the American public about the meaning of life, through the advertising of products marketed as means to that end goal of life, were very different at the time.

The advertising of the 1950s and 60s united family values developed through American history with material objects. Pastimes, family rituals, sacred family spaces, even the idea of love, were tied to commerical goods. Americans tied happiness and the goals of life to material consumption, and the cycle of Work-Watch-Shop described byLeonard began.

How did consumerism manifest itself in China? Socio-economic forces during the 1960s and 70s pushed China to experiment with currency, free-enterprise, international trade, and private investment. The political event of Mao's death allowed capitalist-leaning ideologues to rise to the highest levels of government, bellowing calls for social and economic reform.


Today, China's urban youth and middle-aged population save less, and consume more of every dollar they recieve. Chinese youth splurge on electronics, fashion, entertainment - none of which are exclusive to the younger generation.

Since incomes of younger Chinese are not neccesarily higher than average, and their exposure to material goods is not greater than any other urbanite, there has to be deeper cultural forces at work changing the younger generation.

Simple economic reform does not explain change in attitudes toward consumption. However, economic reform has allowed an influx of Western-versions of the corporation, media, and advertising - all of which are the spokes holding together the spiral of consumption in the West.