Although consumption is fundamental for understanding the way contemporary capitalism functions, this is not the way it has been dealt with from the viewpoint of social theory. There is undoubtedly already a field of studies on consumption that derives from sociology, anthropology and culture studies, but such studies focus more on ways of life, on cultural formation, and on the meanings, rules and values associated with the use of goods than on the central role that consumption plays in the realization of value for capital. This article intends to help close this gap by proposing a return to the Marxist approach to the place of consumption in the value expansion process. Assuming the central position that consumption plays in realizing capital, and based on a dialectic analysis of capitalism as movement and contradiction, the article seeks to elucidate the main mutations in consumption culture that occurred as from the end of the 1970s, culminating in the transformations arising from the third technological revolution - informatics. It proposes that the two main forms that capitalism assumed at the end of the 20th century - financial and immaterial - operate fundamentally as a result of consumption, and reveal the mutations and contradictions of capitalism in contemporary life.
Consumption; Consumption Culture; Value; Financial Capitalism; Immaterial Capitalism