Including new essays from heavy-hitting scholars Zygmunt Baumann, Russell Belk, Colin Campbell, Deirdre McCloskey, and Neva Goodwin, Changing Consumer Roles brings together a diverse set of expert scholars to enliven and sharpen the debate about the ways in which consumption affects society today.

Research on consumption can shed light on many fundamental questions, such as the character of society, including social and cultural dimensions; the relations between the generations; dependency on technology and the risks involved; the rise of Asia and its potential consumption preferences; the question of whether we must continuously increase our consumption to avoid a recession and whether this is ecologically sustainable. In the field of consumption research there is need for analytical rigor based on theory and empirical evidence as well as discussions that will inspire readers to ask...