Martin Dumas

Département des relations industrielles

Faculté des sciences sociales, Université Laval

1025, av. des Sciences-Humaines Pavillon J.-A. DeSève, bureau 3260 Québec  Canada G1V A6

Tel : 418 656-3333

THE MALAISE OF MODERNITY UNDER CONSUMOCRATIC ORDER

E-mail:

martin.dumas@rlt.ulaval.ca

ABSTRACT. My purpose in this paper is to demonstrate that a nascent and transformative consolidation of consumer regulatory power (referred to as the consumocratic order) calls for a reconfiguration of premises relating to the analysis of market liberalism and to the distribution of wealth in liberal societies.  The solicitation of solidarity and egalitarian forces within private markets being here envisioned with realism, the general intent is also to identify, ex post facto, unexplored avenues in the philosophy of economics.  Charles Taylor’s Malaise of Modernity serves as a reference point in this examination as it characteristically ties the growing influence of private transactions and decision-making to the functions generating such malaise.  It is also a revealing point of reference in the sense that consumocracy leads one to review the tenets of individualism and instrumental reason, the expressive sources of the same malaise, according to Taylor.

Received: June, 2012

1st Revision: September, 2012

Accepted: October, 2012

JEL Classification: A12, A13, A19

Keywords: consumocracy, other-regarding behaviour, distributive justice