The 21st Century Dissident

In such a tumultuous world we live in, we seek resistance in all that we do, and many of us realize the "power" of our consumption. We live in a world of consumption, they say, and thus we exist as consumers, capable of affecting the world through our consumption choices. Right?

The notion of a consumer society that is still prevalent today originated from the postmodern era of philosophy (the 1990s). The basis of their argument is that the world has shifted in the past few decades, and so has capitalism. "We are at the end of production," Jean Baudrillard posits. Capitalism (specifically in the global North) is no longer reliant on its mass-production Fordist model that manufactures goods based on functionalism (aka use-value), but has moved forward to a type of capitalism that hinges on consumption of meanings, concentrated in the form of the sign-value. This post-production stage of capitalism, as stated by Baudrillard, is a society where "everything...is immediately produced as sign and exchange value." In other words, the notion of a use-value becomes obsolete, as "consumers consume not to satisfy pre-existing needs but to fit themselves into a valorized set of meanings that are reflected to others through consumption" (Morris). Our identity (aesthetic, taste, class, race, etc.) is wrapped into the significance of our consumption of commodities. 

Before we move forward, it is perhaps important to revisit what Marx and Engels commented on the ideas that dominate our society: that the ruling ideas are "nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relations, the dominant material relations grasped as ideas" (The German Ideology). Therefore, the ideas of the ruling class permeate all aspects of life to reinforce the legitimacy of their dictatorship. Postmodernism, as the idea backing the interests of the bourgeoisie facing immense crises post WW2, brought forth the counter-revolutionary idea that replaces production as the central axis of exploitation of surplus value with consumption (proliferation of consumer choice to increase the identity of individuals). This effectively dismantles any revolutionary materialist approach to abolishing appropriation of surplus labor, and instead substitutes it with the paradigm of radical democracy (a more equal distribution of exploited surplus value). 

Although the realization of surplus value occurs in the market, that is, through the process of exchange, its creation, as an objective fact, takes place in the production phase, in the factory. Value is not created at the consumption end of things; you, as a consumer, do not give value to a commodity via demand, reflected through the commodity's price. That is what they want you to think, whereas in reality, value is created at the production end of things, by workers. It is the surplus labour of the worker appropriated in the form of surplus value that the capitalist gains profit from and thus can accumulate capital. Therefore, it is an act of regaining one's surplus value through seizing the means of production, not boycotting, which the bourgeoisie fears. 

The bourgeoisie is glad that you restrain your power to simply purchasing, simply consuming. The bourgeoisie is relieved that you do not recognize the power in your labor. The bourgeoisie, however, alters this fact to contend that the valorization of commodities emerges out of their consumption by the consumer in the market. Baudrillard here is clearly fixated on the creation of value in the market. For this reason, Baudrillard and postmodernism in general move the emphasis away from the need to emancipate the working class from the shackles of capitalist production (via seizing the means of production) to the idea of radical democracy (a world of liberated consuming class regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or class). 

Neoclassical economists view "...consumer sovereignty as self-evident...the notion of labor sovereignty, meanwhile, is laughed off the historical stage as an antiquated relic of the industrial age" (Lehmann). By casting "labor sovereignty" and, in general, the production where this sovereignty is realized, postmodernists dictate how we perceive resistance. The political (and not economic) freedom in the radical democracy is concentrated in the form of consent through consumption. Thus, it is how we are taught to express defiance and disapproval of the system. This distinctive nature of resistance in the West, one consisting of 'reactive gestures', inhibits real opposition to the system but attempts its deposition through consumption. "Resistance...is reducible to neoliberal consumeristic logic rather than radical efforts to transform the existing structure of oppression and violence inherent in the capitalistic state"  (Dawn et al.). The resistance found in consumerism lacks real revolutionary substance, lacks the subversive and radical imposition that allows a resistance to become insurgent, to eventually overthrow capitalism completely as the hegemonic mode of production

Postmodernism sees "every act of consumption" as "an act of cultural production, for consumption is always the production of meaning." Following this logic, consumption is what drives capital, not production, and thus the revolutionary goal is no longer to control the means of production but "to control the means of signification"; that is, to dominate the creation of meanings of the sign. This means that consumption is an act of resistance. Within capitalism, consumption is not opposed to human needs, but is "a direct response to them" (Zavarzadeh). Other postmodern theories, similar to Baudrillard, assert that consumption is "the last defense against a society of surveillance and coercion" (Zavarzadeh). In other words, capitalism offers, to your frustration and desire, the purchasing power that it posits can make a change. 

Boycott and buycott

According to Cone Communications survey, 90% of Gen Z say they would buy a product tied to social and/or environmental benefit, seeing "their wallets as the primary way to get engaged in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)"(Simmonds). Similarly, we boycott brands and companies that do not align with our moral code. Demanding brands to speak up on social issues (if we want to take a recent example: ICE). Boycotting has been in heated debates on its effectiveness, whether the activity itself is a privilege, how far we should take boycotting, etc. Either way, it is blatant that we are subjected to understanding resistance from a consumer stance, not as workers. This subjection is not contained in its abstract form as concepts of sign-value and post-production capitalism, but materializes in the form of legality. Have you ever wondered why there are so many legal hurdles and demarcations one must jump over to legally strike? The fact that in the last year, the right to collective bargaining was restricted in 80% of the countries (121) out of 151 countries surveyed, while workers in 3 out of 4 countries were denied the freedom of association and to organize, should give you some clues (Global Rights Index 2025). Moreover, the Taft-Hartley Act, passed by the US Congress, heavily restricts solidarity strikes and political strikes in the nation. Are there any similar legal issues when it comes to boycotting? Well, why not? Because they understand that boycotting does not threaten the legitimacy of capitalism to the great extent that strikes do. 

Situated in a society where the bourgeoisie actively seeks to break the ties of class solidarity by economically identifying us as individual consumers, who are bound to other consumers purely on the grounds of taste, it must be made clear that political consumerism (boycotting, buycotting, etc.) will never truly liberate us from any of the exploitations we face in the world. Solutions that work within the system and work with what the system provides, will never be subversive enough to overthrow it. "It is an ethics of adjustment rather than revolution" (Zavarzadeh).

Class struggle as social change

What then must we do? In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx wrote, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle", and the next society will also be born out of class struggle, the class struggle between the capitalists and the working class. The overthrow of the existing mode of production will not happen through consumers making "radical" consumption choices via boy/buycotting, but through workers seizing the means of production and being in control of their own surplus labor. 

This, however, does not mean that boycotting is inherently ineffective, but it cannot be the main method of resistance. With production being the place where appropriation of surplus value takes place, it is within production that resistance must occur. This means resistance as workers and as producers, which means organizing and carrying out strikes. It is through general strikes (possible in combination with boycotting) and other labor resistance measures that we truly realize the power we control, the value of our labor that has been lowballed by the capitalists to hoard wealth. 

Sources:

Morris, Martin. “Contradictions of Post-Modern Consumerism and Resistance.” Studies in Political Economy, vol. 64, no. 1, Jan. 2001, pp. 7–32. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1080/19187033.2001.11675225)

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology.

Dawn L. Rothe and Victoria E. Collins, The Illusion of Resistance: Commodification and Reification of Neoliberalism and the State

Zavarzadeh, Mas'ud. Post-ality: Marxism and Postmodernism

Simmonds, Ross. The Rise of The Woke Brands, https://rosssimmonds.com/blog/rise-woke-brands/

Global Right Index 2025. https://www.ituc-csi.org/global-rights-index

Lehmann, Chris. Marxism and Consumer Culture