Contents

Foreword

Translator’s Acknowledgements

 

Introduction

George Ritzer

Part I    The Formal Liturgy of the Object

  1   Profusion

  2   The Miraculous Status of Consumption

  3   The Vicious Circle of Growth

Part II   The Theory of Consumption

  4   The Social Logic of Consumption

  5   Towards a Theory of Consumption

  6   Personalization or the Smallest Marginal Difference

Part III  Mass Media, Sex and Leisure

  7   Mass-Media Culture

  8   The Finest Consumer Object: The Body

  9   The Drama of Leisure or the Impossibility of Wasting One’s Time

10   The Mystique of Solicitude

11   Anomie in the Affluent Society

Conclusion   On Contemporary Alienation or the End of the Pact with the Devil

 

Notes

 

Index