The Subsumption and the Capitalist Mode of Consumption

Abstract

Consumption was a topic largely forgotten on the classic political economy and its critic by Karl Marx. Later Marxist tradition has paid little attention to it, at least until the second half of the twentieth century. In this paper, I will contribute to the discussion about consumption from a Marxist point of view. The topic is too broad, so I will focus on a specific question: the main traits of what I will call the capitalist mode of consumption, its historical development, and its conditions of possibility.