Browsing by Subject "iäkäs kuluttaja"

This thesis explores Finnish consumer culture and its transformation. The material of the study consists of 39 consumer life stories, collected through a writing competition, from elderly Finnish people born in the 1920s through to 1950s. The study categorizes virtues related to consumption and the use of money and analyzes the consumer ethoses that these virtues represent. The method of close reading is used to interpret the life stories. The aim of the study is to define the middle class consumption ethos. Understanding the life of this generation from the viewpoint of the development of the Finnish consumer society and an earlier study dealing with normative meanings of consumption and the phenomenon of middle class are the framework for my study. For the generation of elderly Finnish people is characteristic that household has developed from being agrarian and self-sufficient unit to being an institution focusing on consumption and social renewal in a wealthy society where paid labor, spare time and consumption possibilities have increased. The virtues of thrift and austerity in the life stories prove that the peasant consumption ethos still holds a place among the elderly people. However, I found that in their thinking there are also more modern ways to face consumption issues than just scarcity. According to my analysis, the cultural messages about rationality, ordinariness and toil in these life stories relate to the phenomenon of the middle class. In the middle class consumption ethos the virtuous consumption is in many ways more open minded than in the peasant consumption ethos. Virtuous middle class consumption ethos means moderate consumption according to one's income. It’s not necessary or acceptable to be stingy but to take all advantage of the wealth of the society. According to the middle class consumption ethos it is acceptable to enjoy the wealth earned by one's own work – and to do it with a reasonable and a rational way – not in a loud and proud way. The proverb “work first, then pleasure” describes aptly the middle class consumption ethos and its way to concern consumption and its pleasures.