The Aftermath (1990 to the Present)

The conversation of the last thirty years has been heavily shaped by the outcome of the major confrontation that took place during the Cold War. While a new wave of expansion in consumer society unfolded, a mainstream current rooted in neoclassical economics was consolidating within academia, albeit now characterised by a significant degree of internal pluralism and theoretical fragmentation. In this context, consumer society has largely remained outside the field of vision of most economists. Among those who have engaged with the topic, heterodox and dissident economists have revisited the deviation thesis, experimenting with different ways of articulating it with the progress thesis. Alongside continuators of earlier intellectual traditions, ecological economists and happiness economists have stood out in this regard. Most economists, however, have continued to align themselves with the progress thesis. This reflects the extent to which the Cold War-era trajectories remain operative. Except in its growing connection with psychology, economics has largely sustained its intellectual isolation from other social sciences and the humanities. This has reduced the space in which the deviation thesis might emerge, and by extension, where a synthesis view might be developed. Moreover, most economists—including many aligned with social democratic political agendas—have continued to adhere to the doctrine of the sovereign consumer as a cornerstone of market democracies. Nevertheless, these path dependencies remain open-ended, and the question of consumer society continues to resonate in our time.