Ebook: Hirsch, and Philip C. Zerrillo. Consumption, Preferences, and Changing Lifestyles

Smelser, Neil J., and Richard Swedberg (eds.). The Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press; New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1994. pp.403-425
THE DISCIPLINES comprising economic sociology usually take issues concerning supply and production more seriously than demand and consumption. Both economics and sociology developed when the technology of industrial production was still young and manufactured goods were still commodities for which consumer demand greatly exceeded the available supply. While economics celebrated the coming shift toward greater industrialization, sociology remained ambivalent; however, both share the assumption of scarcity under which high levels of demand for goods and services can be assumed. The serious business for both disciplines remains the problematics surrounding their production.