The Political Economy of Consumer Behavior: Contesting Consumption

Consumption forms a major part of people’s lives. As such, geographers, historians of technology and sociologists have devoted much attention to trying to figure out what makes consumption meaningful. By contrast, economists have been content to hold onto theories of consumption that depend on a self-interested representative agent making utility maximizing decisions.

Pietrykowski develops this alternative account through the recovery of past attempts to forge a different analytical approac...