The Authority of the Consumer explores the implications of consumer society - charting its meanings in particular contexts and debating the merits or drawbacks of this way of understanding the relationship between providers and recipients. Some have seen this development as involving a radical shift of authority - away from the provider/producer and towards the recipient/consumer. But they have differed in their responses to this shift, either welcoming it in terms of democratization, anti-elitism or empowerment, or decrying it as commercialization, populism or loss of integrity. Others have...

The Authority of the Consumer explores the implications of consumer society' - charting its meanings in particular circumstances and analysing this way of understanding the relationships between providers' and

In Cultural Goods and the Limits of the Market, Russell Keat presents a theoretical challenge to recent extensions of the market domain and the introduction of commercially modelled forms of organization in areas such as broadcasting, the arts and academic research. Drawing on Walzer's pluralistic conception of social goods, and MacIntyre's account of social practices, he argues that cultural activities of this kind, and the institutions within which they are conducted, can best make their distinctive contributions to human well-being when protected from the damaging effects of an unbounded...