Consumption In the Soviet Union.

The first 200 words of this essay...

CONSUMPTION IN THE SOVIET UNION

"I shop, therefore I am" proclaim the cheap t-shirts and refrigerator magnets sold at the enormous markets all over Moscow, where low-quality consumer goods from China and Turkey are sold and fake labels of of well-known designer companies flash before the eyes of consumer. At the end of the 20th century Moscow is becoming a consumer paradise like any other big city in the world. Although the markets are still a dominating part of the scene, all sorts of small boutiques and great shopping malls appear with something in store for everyone.The t-shirt slogan is now appealing to the Muscovite and consuming becomes becomes a part of the persons self expression which was virtually impossible some years ago when the Soviet Union stilll existed and consumption as it is seen now was a part of Western reality not Soviet.

In the Western view of consumption it is the"means of creating culture in the urbanised and the industrialised societies of the modern world". Consuming is a common way of defining one's self-identity and proclaiming the difference between ''me" and "them". For the biggest part of the 20th century consumer experience of the Soviet citizen was