Journal of Consumer Culture
2015, Vol. 15(1) 66–85
! The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1469540513493203
joc.sagepub.com
Article
From consumerism to
guilt: Economic crisis
and discourses about
consumption in Spain
Luis E Alonso,
Carlos J Ferna´ndez Rodrı´guez and
Rafael Iba´n˜ez Rojo
Universidad Auto´noma de Madrid, Spain
Abstract
The economic crisis that Spain has been facing since 2008 has produced significant
effects in the way citizens are dealing with consumption. Beyond austerity practices
and concerns about an uncertain future, there is a rising anxiety about the sustainability
of current consumption patterns. Moreover, it is interesting to analyse how consumption
evolves in a situation in which the budget is highly constrained. How do people
from different social classes perceive consumption under these circumstances?
Our contribution deals with those issues using data from a focus groups based
research project whose main goal was to map necessities and consumption practices
in Spain, trying to assess the impact of the crisis. In this article we will discuss the results
focusing on how different groups of interviewees elaborate a discourse about it
which ranges from guilt to a strong moral discourse related to the adequate level of
consumption. We consider that this paper might provide a deeper knowledge of the
relationship between consumption and social class in a context of financial and economic
crisis.
Keywords
consumption, necessities, economic crisis, focus groups, guilt
Corresponding author:
Carlos J Ferna´ndez Rodrı´guez, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Economics, Universidad Auto´noma de
Madrid, Campus de Cantoblanco, C/Francisco Toma´s y Valiente 5, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
Email: carlos.fernandez@uam.es
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Introduction: Consumption in a time of crisis
Recently Spain has come under the spotlight due to the scale of the economic
recession affecting the country.1
This can be seen, for example, in the stream of
headlines and special articles that appeared in the specialist English-language press
(Financial Times, The Economist) on the crisis in the country over the course of the
years 2010–2012. Before this, the country had enjoyed a decade (1998–2008) of
prosperity (E´ lteto¨ , 2011) as a result of major economic growth. However, this
growth was founded on an extraordinary and unsustainable real estate bubble
which helped forge a culture of over-consumption and over-spending in both the
public and private sectors (Alonso and Ferna´ ndez Rodrı´guez, 2008; Lo´ pez and
Rodrı´guez, 2010). Easy access to loans and credit led Spanish families to become
among the most indebted in the world; according to Bank of Spain figures, in
spring 2008 household debt reached an astonishing 130% of GDP. When the
housing market bubble collapsed in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, the
Spanish economy suffered a severe shock, subsequently intensified by austerity
policies imposed by the European Union (EU), inevitably putting a brake on the
established pattern of over-consumption.
This paper seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the effects that the
economic crisis is having, directly or indirectly, on social discourses around consumption
in Spain. The dramatic economic decline of the last few years has had a
significant impact on consumption practices, affecting social perceptions of what it
means to consume and what constitute needs and luxuries. It has also fuelled
concern about sustainable practices, and more particularly the emergence of a
new moral discourse on consumerism and the risks of excess and saturation
which is not unlike that found in other post-industrial societies (Humphrey,
2010; Sulkunen, 2009). While scholars have analyzed the dynamics of post-crisis
consumption patterns, focusing on changes in values and attitudes in different
countries (see e.g. Alı´men and Bayraktarog˘ lu, 2011; Faganel, 2011), they have
tended to overlook the discursive context in which these changes are framed.
This discourse is an interesting and important subject of research. As some scholars
have mentioned, the way people moralize about consumption is itself a worthy
object of study (Wilk, 2001). In this article we will examine how these discourses
operate ideologically in forming attitudes towards the crisis and practices of consumption.
In our view, these discourses are key to any understanding of Spaniards’
wider ideological and political behavior in the current situation, as they not only
provide meanings for those in specific generational or class groupings, but also link
these meanings to the problematic nature of consumption and in some cases to
supposed national character traits, shaping in this way understanding of the crisis.
This vision of the causes of the crisis is controversial in nature, since the discourses
that emerged in the focus groups on which this article is based were relatively
consistent in their view of the role consumption plays in the crisis. Participants,
ironically including those from the middle and upper classes, tended to blame the
crisis on past excesses and to call for a return to frugality. They expressed no
Alonso et al. 67
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
critical view of consumerism, rather defending the need for re-moralization and
self-control linked in some cases to neoliberal logics of self-management and, in
others, to a traditional working-class ethic. While the fieldwork for this research
was carried out in early 2010, it remains relevant because the crisis has only continued
to deepen. Hence this article aspires to offer valuable sociological insight
into consumers’ discourses in the midst of recession.
Methodology
The analysis presented here draws on qualitative empirical evidence and research
methods. We opted to use the well-known technique of focus groups on the
grounds that they make it possible to study the ways in which individuals collectively
make sense of a phenomenon and construct meanings around it in a groupdiscussion
setting (see classic references such as Merton, 1987; Morgan, 1988; Silva
and Wright, 2005; Skeggs et al., 2008). It should be noted, however, that in the
Spanish sociological tradition the use of focus groups is generally understood as a
critical version of market research focus groups (see Alonso, 1998). Accordingly,
our methods have some peculiarities with respect to the mainstream tradition of
sociological focus group research. For instance, anonymity is maintained within
the group: not only does no one know each other, but nobody is introduced and
names are never used in discussions. While individual statements are quoted, they
are not linked to any specific individual, but rather to a generational, class or
professional group position.
Following these guidelines, nine focus group (FG) meetings were held in seven
Spanish cities. Each group comprised participants from a specific social background
in terms of income, skills and probable class trajectories.2
The sample
was designed to enable us to map the basic differences in the images that different
social groups have of the relation between the economic crisis and patterns of
consumption. While the authors of this paper designed the sample and moderated
the groups, participants were recruited by a specialist firm with a proven track
record in the field. The starting point for the focus groups was our interest in
changes that the crisis may have brought in patterns of consumption. As moderators,
we posed a few questions regarding the crisis which participants discussed for
about two hours. The questions were as follows:
1. How has the crisis affected your consumption practices?
2. How has the crisis affected the people around you in terms of consumption
practices?
3. Could we live with less?
4. Is it possible to go back to pre-crisis patterns of consumption?
5. Is the current model of consumption sustainable?
In this article, rather than offering an in-depth discussion analysis of each focus
group, we try to present a more general analysis of the meaning and significance
68 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
that each social group ascribes to the current economic crisis as well as the relationships
between consumption, social position, and well-being.
The drama of the crisis
Regardless of their social position, nearly all the groups began by referring to
the sense of fear generated by the crisis. Their discourses referred to the fear
that ‘‘you can be sacked from one day to the next’’; now that the traditional
dualization between stable and precarious employment no longer holds, no job
is secure. As one participant put it, ‘‘My outlook has changed to one of fear,
I think a lot of people are scared, like that other participant said, of being
sacked, of redundancy, that before we thought our jobs were guaranteed. . .’’
(FG7). The focus groups explicitly mentioned that ‘‘the tendency now is to
save,’’ because ‘‘uncertainty is now a part of us.’’ The main effect of the crisis is
to spend less:
We are like the Spaniards who went to Germany in the 1970s, they met up in houses,
put a bottle of beer on the table, two cans of sardines and a television which they had
for all of them and there they watched the match, well that’s what we do now, we meet
up in someone’s house, ‘‘I’ll bring the first course, you the second, you bring the
chorizo, you the dessert,’’ and that’s it, and we’ve spent 10 euros, while otherwise
we would have spent 80 euros. (FG1)3
In this way, the groups reveal the symbolic importance attached to buying supermarket
own brands, systematic bargain hunting, the search for discounts, etc.
This imaginary circulates when the groups were asked about the effects the economic
crisis has had on consumption. There is clearly a generalized sense of
crisis, even if, as we shall see, the actual consequences of this are perceived
and judged very differently by the different social groups. The focus group setting
encouraged participants to stress the dramatic nature of the crisis at an early
stage of the discussions; indeed, nearly all the groups began by referring either to
the impact the crisis has had on their own patterns of consumption or, more
frequently, by talking about the sense of crisis existing in their social circle. This
perception of a situation of crisis, which at first sight appears to be almost
entirely media driven,4
is remarkably consistent across the different groups. In
mimesis with their surroundings, even the participants in the most privileged
focus group (FG2, comprising upper-class housewives) reported cutting back
on their outgoings:
. . . I buy a bag, but imitation leather, that’s what I do, and before going to the hairdresser’s,
well now I have to wait until my head is full of grey hairs before going, while
before I used to have highlights done; well now I don’t to save a bit, that is it, we’re a
large family, my daughter, you know, and I’m unemployed and I don’t get any benefits
so I have to cut down. (FG2)
Alonso et al. 69
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
A similar consensus emerged among the socially most privileged young people
included in FG9. They represent the position of those who have had to give up
certain luxuries, who have internalized the need to restrict themselves to going out
‘‘just to window shop,’’ and who in this way also feel affected by the crisis:
And then going skiing for the weekend, that is, this year I’ve been affected an awful lot
because of course, driving there, for example, OK, I do because that’s where I’ve got a
house, but getting to la Cerdanya alone costs me 60 euros what with petrol and tolls,
60 euros you can’t get around, then there is the ski pass, and if you go with friends or
whoever what with drinks, dinner and so on, and this year I have only been two
weekends while before I’d go one weekend after another. (FG9)
In short, although in practice the crisis may not have really affected them personally,
the way participants in the superordinate positions dramatize the crisis does
suggest a renewed awareness of the extent and generalization of risk. While sociologists
have been theorizing about the destabilization of the stable for years
(Castel, 2003), this umpteenth rendering of the permanent crisis of the model
has helped disseminate this idea in a discourse with ambivalent ideological
consequences:
– . . .there have been no problems until now, but it’s true that there’s a sense of
uncertainty, people very close to me who are working in fantastic companies, excellent,
extremely qualified people, and well, they’re already out on the street.
– Unemployment exists, we are beginning to realize that unemployment exists. (FG2)
The group whose practices had been least affected by the crisis, that is, the group of
middle-ranking civil servants (FG5),5
adhered even more strongly to the media’s
portrayal of it. In fact, in order to allow this group to identify with the problems of
society as a whole, they espouse an even more dramatic image of the crisis than that
propagated by the media. Nonetheless, conscious of their privileged position, they
anticipated measures the government would in fact only introduce a few months
later:
– In any event, personally, even though I’m a civil servant, a year ago I didn’t even
consider the possibility that the crisis might affect me, and now I’m not so sure and
still less after what they’re saying about Greece and all that; what has happened there,
I’m not as sure as a year ago, not even with me being a civil servant.
– But what do you think? That they are going to give you the boot?
– In Greece they’re giving civil servants the boot. (FG5)
The practical consequences of this sense of the crisis as drama is to encourage the
emergence of consensus discourses on the crisis among those in superordinate
social positions, giving rise to an ideological framework which helps to ensure
70 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
that social inequalities remain unquestioned and to rationalize the existing social
structure and order. In any event, given the initial questions presented for discussion
in the focus groups (centered on patterns of consumption), the discourses did
not include more general or abstract interpretations of the current crisis; it is
unclear whether this was because it was not considered necessary to describe the
situation in general terms, or because it was considered pointless to do so. Despite
the absence of an abstract discourse on the crisis, the dramatic representations of
the situation and the uncertainty surrounding the chances of economic recovery led
some of the groups to visualize (in more or less grotesque terms) the situations of
extreme poverty caused by the worsening economic situation. The discourse of the
upper-class housewives is the most explicit in this respect, in its emphasis on the
fear that hardship might spread, even to the point of threatening the social order:
– Of course, the thing is that there’re people in great need, since once their dole runs
out they ask for benefits. . .
– And they’ll get just over four hundred.
– Of course, and then your benefit entitlement runs out and what do you eat?
– And in the supermarket, that’s right, at night you see people who ...
– In skips.
– Or stealing a ham, hiding it underneath their pram.
– And near Alonso Martı´nez there’re some nuns who give out food, and there’s a
queue, you see normal people, before there were only beggars but not anymore. (FG2)
Although participants mention that 90% of those in need are foreigners, their
latent fear is that the hardship will eventually affect not just the working class,
but even people such as themselves. As has been noted in the US case (Grossberg,
2010), the media have obviously played an important role in shaping these discourses
on the crisis.
Popular discourse on the crisis
Despite the groups’ shared vision of the crisis noted above, social differences surfaced
when discussion turned to daily practices of consumption. The popular
classes in our groups experience the crisis as a particular type of drama. They
see themselves as people who have always had to be careful with money, quickly
drawing a distinction between themselves and those experiencing the crisis for the
first time. They consider themselves to be the people who have always ‘‘done the
rounds’’ of the supermarkets in search of the lowest prices:
Me, as I’m, well, how shall I put it, tight, I’m very tight, I’ve always kept an eye on the
pennies to see if I can save a bit at home, the truth is I have changed where I shop, and
I do the rounds of all the shops to see where they’re selling things cheapest, so it affects
me, of course it affects me, since I’ve got less money coming in, but as I’ve always had
Alonso et al. 71
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
to be careful in the end I don’t feel it so much, what you do is cut down a bit on
leisure, especially on leisure, but not on the home. (FG6)
Behind the naturalness with which these lower-class housewives confront the crisis,
we perceive a highly rationalized relationship with consumption and the day-to-day
management of the domestic economy. Neither this relationship, nor their actual
practices of consumption have changed significantly as a result of the crisis. As we
shall see below, the consumer subject that we discern in the housewives’ discourse
represents precisely the negation of the type of behavior and subjectivity attributed
to them by those in superordinate positions, for whom the ‘‘popular’’ classes epitomize
lack of self-control and reason. In practice, however, their predominant form
of behavior is just the opposite, as they are the groups least influenced by the
pressures of excessive consumption and imitation. And this is precisely what distinguishes
them socially from those who experience the crisis as something new.
For these lower-class housewives, as long as they continue to earn enough to cover
their basic costs their lives will continue essentially unchanged:
–But come on, now with the crisis I get more leisure than ever, as with a cooler box
and a picnic you can go to the end of the world. I’ve been round half of Andalucı´a.
–Picnicking, we have always done it, but I don’t go out drinking so much.
–No, of course, it’s not the same.
–But of course I’ve always had to keep an eye on the pennies.
–The way you spend your free time changes, while before maybe you went out to eat
with the children now you go to the park with a picnic.
–Or with a potato omelet.
–And you have a fantastic afternoon or a fantastic summer. (FG6)
In fact, this group dwells with pleasure on what is left of this working-class rejection
of consumer culture, a return to traditional leisure activities, trips with ‘‘a
picnic and cooler box.’’ Evidently, this discourse echoes the dominant moral discourse
which criticizes the excesses of consumer culture (Soper, 2007). While, when
asked by the moderator, none of the participants denied that they consumed ‘‘too
much,’’ the participants who did not feel under pressure to consume from their
material conditions and everyday social relations (as was the case of the housewives
in FG6) drew a sharp distinction between themselves and other people who do feel
obliged to maintain a certain level of expenditure. The ethic of popular consumption
articulated by the housewives in FG6 shows a clear aversion to credit and
dependence on banks, debt, loans, bank cards, etc. The minimal degree of independence
available to them lies, precisely, in the systematic control of their
outgoings:
– And I haven’t got any cards at all.
– I for example have got a card from the Corte Ingle´ s [department store], but
Carrefour [supermarket] and. . .
72 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
– I haven’t got a single card either, not even a bank credit card.
– I’ve got a card to get money out, or with my savings book, I prefer the savings book.
– I haven’t got any cards either.
– The moment I get paid, I go to the bank to pay in for the electricity, for this, and for
that.
– So much I have, so much I spend. (FG6)
This representation of their own careful management of consumption stands in
total contrast to the image the superordinate classes have of them. In the discourse
of the higher-class groups, the popular classes represent extravagance, lack of control,
debt, and the irrational management of the household income, epitomizing the
ignorance of those who easily got carried away by consumerism and who, implicitly,
are responsible for the crisis. However, it is evident that the subjectivity of
these housewives is not precisely that most likely to lead to the practice of a profligate
model of consumption.
The discourse of the young people from more modest social backgrounds, and
under greater pressure both at work and in their habits of consumption, reflects
profound anxiety about the privation that defines their experience of the crisis and
their relationship to consumption, making them some kind of collateral casualties
of the crisis in the sense suggested by Bauman (2007). In contrast to the references
to values and social pressure that permeated the discourse of other social positions,
the young people in our group FG8 immediately located themselves through
reference to the extreme employment and existential conditions that nearly all of
them seem to have experienced at some time or other, and which they dream of
escaping:
– So the suicide rate has gone up.
– As you’d expect, of course, you come out from there all stressed out and depressed
because you haven’t got a penny and everything is well expensive.
– If they want to put me in prison, then put me in prison, that way I won’t have to pay
for anything.
– It’s all just a chain. (FG8)
Although the idea of a flight to unrestrained consumption always figures as a
desire, the shared material conditions point to the existence of a reality principal
which fits in with the dominant moral discourse against squander and excess. For
that reason we find that a central position soon emerges, in which the problem is
the imbalance between income and expenditure. For example, the hegemonic discourse
among the lower-class housewives emphasizes the need to avoid getting into
debt (and, in fact, to do exactly the opposite: pay for things in advance when a little
money is going spare) in a context in which there has never been enough money to
waste time thinking about anything other than necessities, about squandering on
useless goods. In contrast to the rather cynical way in which those focus groups
fully integrated into wasteful consumption talked about the irrationality of certain
Alonso et al. 73
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
practices of consumption, what is left of the logic of necessity among these housewives
leads them to criticize those who have forgotten their past. This is a critique
of people who have lost their class identity, who have been entrapped by the
disruptive power of consumption. From this perspective, the pressure to acquire
certain status symbols (such as an ‘‘island kitchen’’) is merely conspicuous
consumption:
You knock down a wall and build a kitchen twice the size of this room, Americanstyle,
with an island in the middle, but with the money you spent on the kitchen you
could have furnished the whole house. Please, at their age, it’s a whole load of luxuries
and nonsense that, well, of course. . . (FG6)
These housewives coincide in signaling that tensions over consumption are introduced
by their children who, like young people more generally, are irrationality
personified when it comes to consumption. These women’s discourse is very explicit
in this respect: they feel they have done everything for the good of the house, the
family, the home. . . that they had to made enormous sacrifices in order to pay off
the mortgage, while as for young people, ‘‘how are they going to buy a flat if
they’ve got a massive car worth as much as a house?’’ (FG6). From this perspective,
the center which rationalizes and articulates consumption for them is ‘‘the
flat,’’ also understood as the home. As a result, this discourse, as popular discourse,
is articulated around saving and security objectivized in the basic requirements of
the ‘‘flat.’’ That apart, it always has been, and may still be, possible to satisfy their
leisure needs outside the market.
These groups of young people and housewives not integrated into determined
practices of consumption feel no sense of ‘‘blame’’ for the extravagance and ostentation
of ‘‘fictitious’’ wealth, the ultimate cause of the current ‘‘fall.’’ However, the
discourse developed by a number of the industrial workers in FG7 reveals the point
of inflexion, the ideological ambivalence of those who did have access to high levels
of consumption, opening the door to the internalization of guilt and the assumption
of personal responsibility for the crisis:
. . .another thing is that we lived beyond our means, which is what I think
has happened these last few years. Because the truth is you hear of people, me
too, I’ve got a beach apartment and well, and then when we bought it, well, you
know, generally you used to imagine that the people who bought them were more
or less comfortably off, and well, what was not normal was what I saw there.
For example, there I’d say, ‘‘I can’t believe it, that is, people, I say, well, that is
it, big cars, all new.’’ So, well of course, then you’d notice other little details, for
example at the meetings of the house residents’ association, which didn’t make
sense, and it’s that we’re real show-offs. Well obviously, when things have slumped
well, hold on, hold on, hold on, and then on top of all it is something that is
superimposed on it, which is not real, because to keep it real you have to spend
what you have. . . (FG7)
74 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
This is the starting point for the emergence of an abstract identification with that
‘‘unreal’’ society of plenty we have ‘‘all’’ formed part of, as well as with its collapse
for which we are ‘‘all’’ responsible.
We will never be European
Much of the symbolic efficacy of this discourse on ‘‘values’’ and the ‘‘moral’’
dimension of consumption derive from well-established and still influential ideas
about the supposed existence of a peculiar, national idiosyncrasy which distinguishes
Spain and Spaniards from Europe, and which is considered responsible
for Spanish ‘‘backwardness.’’ The supposed peculiarities of the ‘‘Spanish way of
being’’ allow actually existing inequalities to fade into the background at the same
time as they ensure that other, different ways of representing the crisis and its
effects have little chance of circulating socially or achieving similar symbolic efficacy.
Therefore, we should consider the surprising vigor with which this selfconscious,
negative representation of the peculiarities of the Spanish still circulates
in most of the groups, irrespective of their social class.6
In nearly all the focus
groups, participants made reference to this vision of the uncontrollable nature of
the ‘‘Spanish character,’’ prone, in the absence of the necessary mechanisms of
repression, to excess and lack of restraint. The crudity with which this notion
was expressed by the owners of small- and medium-size construction and hotel
industry companies is especially noteworthy. In their eyes, the banks (which were
also demonized at times) and the government share responsibility for making it too
easy to obtain credit, something these participants consider the Spanish were
unprepared for:
. . .so I think that we have advanced very quickly, there have been boom times, as
those gentlemen have already said, I think things came too fast, things were made very
easy for us. In my opinion, neither the government nor the banks controlled
things. Here everybody was happy, it was all one big fiesta, you went to the banks,
asked for money and they gave it to you and you didn’t have to show them any
papers. And I was in the bank today trying to negotiate three promissory notes
from a solid company and they wouldn’t negotiate, that is, the situation is very serious.
(FG1)
‘‘Blame,’’ in this case for Spain’s current economic situation, can be laid on those
people who are unable to control their impulses and desires, who want to rise
‘‘above their station,’’ higher than they ‘‘deserve.’’ In this way, the irrationally
uncontrolled behavior of part of society is the explanation for why Spaniards
have now woken up from ‘‘a dream.’’ The focus groups usually turned readily to
commonplace notions about the excesses which many people happily committed
during the years of apparent economic boom. A latent idea in this discourse is that
blame lies with groups which became rich very quickly and that allowed themselves
Alonso et al. 75
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
to get carried away, victims of a consumerist frenzy, of their alleged inability to
administer their income rationally:
– I think the thing is also that many people took on obligations which were unnecessary.
If you consider that, while it’s true that they pay 3,000 euros what with the
mortgage, the car, the Kawasaki motorbike, they bought themselves a holiday home
in Lloret de Mar because it was cheap, and then what happens when one of them
loses, well, one or both of them, whatever, well obviously it’s a mess, but then I think
people went over the top, I think. . .
– Lived it up, so well then, the crisis has come, yes, but the thing is that before that we
were living as if in a dream, that wasn’t normal either.
– Well, there was a lot of money, people speculated, there were pots of it, so everybody
was happy.
– All that’s over now. (FG5)
The more developed Welfare States in Europe also emerge as an alternative model
of consumption. Some groups came to the conclusion that Northern Europeans
know how to live with less, how to enjoy themselves without the angst that seems to
constitute the Spanish subjectivity with respect to consumption. Nonetheless, it
should also be noted that, in this case, participants spontaneously refer to the
relationship between this alternative model of consumption and the sense of security
afforded by State protection:
– . . .because I have some Scandinavian friends and neighbors and I see them a lot and
they see things differently. They attach more importance to just having a glass of wine
and chatting with people at home. We want a Mercedes and to go on holidays, and
they are happy with a glass of wine, the sun, a book or whatever.
– Because 45% of whatever they earn goes to the State, they have all their basic
necessities covered and are happy like that, they are way ahead of us; they are not
more intelligent, just less ignorant. (FG1)
From the point of view of the upper and middle classes, until recently Spain benefited
from low prices, meaning that at least their inferiority complex was made
more bearable by the fact that they (like European tourists) benefited from income
inequalities, apparent above all in access to everything but basic necessities. With
everyone wanting to consume as if they were rich, these social groups have lost
their class privilege. At the same time, now they are worried that they will be
definitively excluded from the European ‘‘club’’ since, as in the case of Greece,
‘‘now they won’t be able to stand us’’:
And I think that they’re going to throw us out of the euro. I’m convinced of it. I’m
absolutely sure that they’re going to throw us out because they won’t be able to stand
us, we’re just going to be a burden, the Europeans, just, come on. (FG2)
76 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
This discourse brings into circulation a whole series of media cliche´ s about a country
‘‘which devoted itself to destroying the productive economy. . . What about
Germany and France, well they have a productive economy’’ (FG5); about a grotesque
and surreal country (compared to Europe) in which all kinds of wasteful
extravagance is permitted; a land of uncontrolled public spending. Ideological dislocation
means that most of the ‘‘blame’’ falls on an ‘‘us,’’ which interpellates the
citizenry in an abstract sense. In this discourse, Spaniards’ ‘‘non-European’’ character
also accounts for their apparent inability to formulate and press demands.
Demagogic and media criticism of politicians’ attitudes can only be countered by a
‘‘culturalist’’ discourse about the ‘‘peculiarities of the Spanish,’’ the country’s eternal
backwardness, and the fragmentation of a society and political world plagued
by corruption:
– Better to hang them, if they’d been hanged they wouldn’t make any money, although
even while hanging there they would still be robbing us, even if they were hanging
from a pine tree they’d be committing fraud, think about it.
– I’m telling you, the Spanish mindset also. . .
– We are still so. . . because in many countries that wouldn’t be allowed, look at what
happened to that German minister, they found out she’d used an official car for some
trips here to Barcelona and they almost strung her up, here everywhere they use
everything everywhere, and we all keep our mouths shut and until, I think that
until we get it into our heads that we don’t have to put up with it . . .
– We throw up our hands in horror, we scratch our heads and shout about how bad
they are and the poor innocent little lambs we are, but we don’t demand that they
change the laws as the only way of . . .
– We’re to blame. (FG3)
Despite the more or less fragmentary character of their comments on this issue, the
whole notion of the ‘‘peculiarities of the Spanish’’ constitutes a coherent discourse
endowed with considerable symbolic force. This is a discourse which still situates
Spain ‘‘in the back of beyond of Europe’’ (as one of the participants in FG3 put it),
and which helps explain the latent violence palpable in the groups’ desire to distinguish
themselves from the inhabitants of countries even lower down the pecking
order (notably Greece and Portugal).7
This discourse about the upstarts who never
catch up with their masters evidently tends to put the blame on those who have
forgotten who they were, their social roots, whether politicians, bankers, or more
usually, ignorant and irrational Spaniards who allowed themselves to get carried
away by the prospect of easy money.
Participants in the groups in more subordinate positions scarcely made any
reference to an alternative or oppositional discourse with respect to the
‘‘European model.’’ For example, for those in the most precarious position,
namely the young people in our FG8, Europe is not a model to follow with respect
to productive activity or mentality, but rather in terms of labor employment. From
the very beginning of the discussion, this group put unemployment at the
Alonso et al. 77
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
heart of their discourse, identifying it as the defining feature of the ‘‘Spanish
difference’’:
. . .Germany, France, all the European countries have managed to reach agreement
with the workers and distribute working hours, that is, if before they worked eight
hours well now they work four and that way two people work and here we’ve not
considered this type of proposal which would be that everyone gets a little, not one
person have more and another less, we could think about this kind of thing and I think
it’s a bit unfair that Spain’s in the last place. (FG8)
Something similar was evident in the group of industrial workers. Some
considered that Europe is still a social policy paradise, a notion which
provoked an intervention expressing abstract criticism of the Spanish situation
through comparison with those paradisiacal social States seen in television news
reports:
. . .we see all these TV reports about other countries which seem to be paradises.
Nobody buys a flat; they rent, their social security is paid, their schools are paid
for, and I wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes with all that covered and I imagine
that that would be the starting point for all of us, and not like now when those of us
who thank God are few. . . but those who come after us, like someone has said, your
children’s friends, hell, it’s not that their future is dark, but rather it’s completely
black, because things show no sign of getting better any time soon, this is here for a
good while. (FG7)
All of this gives rise to a moralizing and blame-inducing discourse on consumption.
In their endeavor to reconstruct the moral order, they too put the blame on those
who fell into the trap of immediate gratification and debt. The participants backed
each other up in voicing the cliche´ of ‘‘a problem of mentality’’ which allegedly
continues to afflict Spain, distancing the country from Europe, and in practice
meaning that Spaniards want to live beyond their means:
– But look, while you are completely right in what you are saying, I think that our
biggest problem is the Spanish mentality.
– Yes, I’m absolutely sure.
– I’ve got some neighbours, I’ve got a normal car, whatever, I’ve got some neighbors
who do regular work, earn an average amount, and fucking hell, so-and-so has bought
a car, well I want to buy this car, and then it turns out that they eat potato omelet, you
know what I mean, because they were obsessed with buying the car, and that other
guy has a big house, so I am going to borrow, and so on, and the basic problem with
the crisis, I mean personally, is that they got into mortgages, they’ve got into big
houses, they got into town houses, they got into whatever, without being sure they
could pay for it, so what happens. . .
– And without any need for it. (FG3)
78 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
This paves the way for a discourse in which Spain is a society in which the most
sensible thing to do is to know how to adapt to one’s proper place ‘‘because people
who forgot their rightful place have been caught with their trousers down.’’ This is
especially true of those who lived ‘‘beyond their means.’’ This idea is at the center
of the discourses of the superordinate groups. In these groups, a superficial consensus
was always reached regarding the consumerist excesses of those who consume
‘‘without rhyme or reason.’’ In this case it is not so much a question of
drawing a social distinction between those who are and are not affected by the
crisis, but rather of drawing a moral distinction; it is a question of constructing a
discourse which puts the blame on the hedonistic excesses of part of society. In this
way, the superordinate groups often implicitly called for measures to restrict these
strategies of ‘‘consumerist mobility,’’ seen as a source of unnecessary social disturbance
and upheaval, even if the passage of time will ultimately put everyone in
their place.
Yes, and my husband’s job has been very stable when people got rich and bought
thousands of apartments, or whatever, and I always said, hell, we’re doing alright but
we’ve never suddenly gone up in the world, and now, well of course, when people go
mad, without rhyme or reason, buying everything and I said, this can’t be, sometime
this just has to collapse. (FG2)
In this respect, our focus group of civil servants was the one which most explicitly
elaborated the hegemonic discourse articulated by the middle- and upper-class
groups. This hegemonic position is a technocratic discourse which seeks to legitimize
social differences on the basis of efficient management of time, effort and
money. In the central vision of our FG5, the problems caused by the crisis (and the
associated problems of consumption) are the result of the difference between
income and expenditure. While this group feels that it forms part of the opulent
society, and admit that ‘‘we all fell for it,’’ they implicitly draw various important
distinctions. Above all they distinguish between their own discourse, presented as
rational, calculating (in consumption), ‘‘strategic’’ with respect to their life trajectories,
prudent, and technocratic in terms of the solution to the crisis, and that of
those who are portrayed as impulsive and irrational consumers. Within this discourse,
the absolute prototype of victim of the crisis is a member of that ‘‘uneducated’’
part of society who gets one credit card to pay off another. These civil
servants drew a significant moral distinction between themselves and such people:
– Yes, there was a TV program about that, a bit crappy, they showed it on Channel 4,
which was about how to manage a family. That is, it was about people with problems
and they are taught how to manage their money, and there were completely
surreal scenes and you think, it’s a bit like you were saying, they’ve got
cards and then they get another to pay off the debt on the other and they had five
credit cards.
– Yes, I’ve seen that, it’s terrible, I was amazed.
Alonso et al. 79
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
– And it was a bit like you get the family together and how to cut your costs a little on
this and that, it was crappy but you really got into the program and you thought, how
can you get into that state?
[. . .]
– And you saw their income and outgoings and there was a gap which you think, well,
what’s going on, credit cards, they are mechanisms the bank has, well, then, listen, if I
put the plastic in here it gives me dough, that’s the end of it then. (FG5)
As was the case in other groups, if the banks (the focus of media attention at the time
the focus groups were held) are responsible for the crisis, it is because they made it
too easy for people who did not know how to manage money to get credit. It seems as
if the inability to think about the future, to predict the crisis, and to develop selfdefense
mechanisms are characteristics of the Spanish ‘‘popular’’ classes:
– . . .so, I think that people begin to feel the pain when they’ve already been hit, they’re
never conscious of what’s going to happen. . .
– It’s the old ostrich technique. Lots of people use it, sticking your head in the sand
when a problem comes along. (FG5)
– A lot of people lived well beyond their means, with loans, with a loan on a loan,
mortgages, loads of things, and now they’ve stopped giving loans or mortgages to any
old body, so. . .
– People learn but they also forget very quickly, as soon as the situation settles down
for those people they forget the problems. (FG9)
Cliche´ s echoing this core idea circulated more or less systematically in all the other
groups. The recklessness of those who allowed themselves to get carried away (and
who require external control and repression) serves as the basis for many other
arguments. The group of middle-tier white collar workers (FG4) pointed in a
similar direction when assigning blame for the crisis: ‘‘the problem is that people
want everything and in the last few years they were mad for property.’’ The participants
who reported that they knew people in economic difficulties as a result of
the crisis always distanced themselves morally from those people ‘‘who went mad,
who tried to make money buying flats, speculating with them until in the end it all
blew up.’’ In this discourse, ‘‘it is the responsibility of the people who bought flats
without having money to pay for them’’ (FG4).
As for the civil servants, the problem is one of ignorance. For the white-collar
workers in our FG4, immigrants exemplify the type of people hit by the crisis. Not,
however, because of their position in the job market or because of the sectors in
which they work, but rather because ‘‘they haven’t a clue and so of course they sign
anything stuck in front of them and then the problems start.’’ More particularly,
their ‘‘ignorance’’ means that they have a propensity for consumerism and debt:
. . .and can you believe it, they ask for 5000 euros from the bank to buy a car for the
son, and I say to them, ‘‘but come off it, isn’t that too much?’’ And they say ‘‘the thing
80 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
is the kid wants it and other children have them and so, well in the end I bought it’’
and I was amazed, the thing is they’ve got no financial culture. (FG4)
On the one hand, by systematically criticizing those who have dared live beyond
their means, this discourse helps these groups shake off any sense of privilege they
might have with respect to people affected by the crisis.8
The participants who
espoused this discourse always did so from an idealized subjectivity, that of someone
intelligent enough to have avoided the consumerist trap. On the other hand, at
least in the case of the more conservative participants, this discourse reveals a latent
envy of people who spend, of those who have not internalized the ethic of saving
and sacrifice (or at least restraint).
The discourse of the more popular segment of the group of small shopkeepers
(FG3) admits (rather paradoxically, given that their businesses would benefit from
consumerism) that they too are guilty of displaying a similar lack of self-restraint.
According to this group, ‘‘all of us’’ must change our consumerist mindset; it is no
longer a question of consuming more or less, but rather of consuming better. In our
interpretation of these discourses, appreciation of this simply means that each
individual should adapt to his or her rightful place in society, for if the Spanish
had all limited their consumption to the level that corresponds to them, they would
not have got into their current dire straits. The traditional working-class savings
ethic, which (as noted above) is systematically hostile to the idea of getting into
debt, reemerges now in the form of a blame-inducing discourse.
– No, the thing is we have to change the consumer mentality; it’s not a question of
consuming more or less but rather of consuming better and of setting the limits better,
that is what it is.
– Yes, the barrel of oil drops and petrol goes up.
– But we have to get it into all our heads; you cannot simply get it into the heads of
one group. The whole country has to get it into their heads to learn how to buy well
and buy quality and to get by on what they earn now, not to spend more like we’ve
been doing recently, spending more and doing too much of what we shouldn’t have
been doing because if we’d shown greater moderation we would not be where we are
now. (FG3)
Conclusion
The discourses in the groups give us an insight into a particular politics of consumption.
While in the social discourses that circulated during the transition to
democracy after the Francoist dictatorship the notion of ‘‘libertinage’’ served to
discipline the Spanish working class, the discussions in our groups reveal how the
idea of ‘‘consumerist excess’’ now operates to sustain inequality and to require
adaptation and subordinated integration. The effect of spending ‘‘restraint’’ and,
above all, of the critique of consumerism that circulated in our groups, is not fruit
Alonso et al. 81
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
of a ‘‘lifestyle’’ change (towards new forms of hedonism), but rather a disciplinary
effect of the crisis, especially on the popular classes. The economic crisis converts
liberty and choices into rules and norms that must be obeyed.
Despite the obvious and superficial consensus which exists with respect to consumerism,
none of the groups were able to come up with principles which might
serve to curb consumption, or even offer a hint as to what a new politics of consumption
might consist of (Littler, 2009; Schor, 1999). We found that there was
hardly any space for suggesting that a limit exists to the type of needs that the
consumer society constructs. Only the group of industrial workers mentioned the
relation between practices of consumption and working conditions. They reveal the
paradoxical situation of the working class when no criteria exist for assigning a
social value to labor. Nonetheless, this too occupies only a very marginal place in
their discourse.
However, none of the groups established a relation between consumption and
production, or consumption and labor (except for the absence of income due to the
absence of a salary). Totally disconnected from the material conditions which link
it to production, in the discourses of the various groups the desire to ‘‘put limits on
consumption’’ appears absurd. Common sense itself immediately rules out any
questioning of the use value (‘‘if you can have one costing 20,000 why wouldn’t
you?’’) (FG9). In all the groups with a certain level of income, not consuming is not
an option. Given the impossibility of articulating a discourse based on basic necessities,
the only remaining trace of common reason refers back to the logic of working-class
saving, austerity, and self-protection from the perils of the market.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the current economic crisis appears to
have had a major impact on perceptions of consumption. The discourse that surfaced
in our focus groups was permeated by a sense of fear and uncertainty with
respect to the future. This could be mistaken for the adoption of greater restraint
after a period of excess. However, the crisis is seen differently by those in different
class positions. Ironically, those in superordinate positions put the emphasis on
irrational spending as the cause of the crisis, while at the same time relieving
themselves of any responsibility. For others, the crisis is purely and simply their
existential economic condition, something which, as a result, they do not experience
as a great drama. However, the dominant majorities in the groups did not
articulate a critical discourse on consumption, mainly identified as the driving force
of the economy and of well-being. The majorities only criticized excessive consumption
‘‘by the others,’’ without giving any serious consideration to the possibility
of developing alternative forms of consumption or questioning the
sustainability of the current model. Ultimately, the crisis is seen to be the result
of mistakes made by other people who accumulated debt and lived beyond their
means, and the only possible solution a potential re-moralization of consumption
and saving habits, a possibility viewed with some skepticism. This return to moralism
is the result of the collision of different perspectives, some linked to neoliberal
conceptions of the self and others to working-class frugality, as well as old
myths regarding the Spanish national character. In this sense, the economic crisis
82 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
which hit Spain a few years ago after a period of historically unprecedented consumption
has not served to challenge the Spanish model of consumerism. Rather, it
has revived a series of discourses regarding the peculiarity of the Spanish (who have
only themselves to blame for the lack of rationality displayed by an uncontrolled
and ill-disciplined nation) which, at the symbolic level at least, revives the idea that
Spain forms part of semi-peripheral Europe. Such ideas, evidently, do not challenge
the existing socioeconomic model or, in conclusion, the current model of
consumption.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Justin Byrne for the translation of most of this text, and Riie
Heikkila¨ and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the paper.
Funding
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education (grant number
CSO2011-29941).
Notes
1. The recession has resulted in record levels of unemployment (24% by July 2012), high
public deficit and, in general, Spain’s poor performance in almost every economic indicator.
In June 2012, the growing risk of default forced the Spanish government to reach
agreement with the Eurozone authorities on a bailout for part of its financial system.
2. The focus groups were made up of participants with the following profiles: FG1
(Construction and hotel and catering employers, male, aged 55–65, Ma´ laga); FG2
(Upper-class housewives, aged 45–55, Madrid); FG3 (Small shopkeepers and selfemployed
workers, male and female, aged 45–60, Valencia); FG4 (Middle-tier whitecollar
workers in the service sector, male and female, aged 25–35, Zaragoza); FG5
(Middle-ranking civil servants, male and female, aged 35–45, Barcelona); FG6 (Lowerclass
housewives, aged 35–45, Seville); FG7 (Skilled workers in large manufacturing and
service-sector companies, male, aged 50–60, Madrid); FG8 (Young hotel and catering
workers, male and female, aged 20–30, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria); and FG9 (Interns
and trainees, male and female, aged 25–35, Barcelona).
3. In this paper we have selected representative extracts of the recorded conversations. Some
are quotes from individuals, others fragments of unfolding conversations. It is important
to clarify that in many of these focus groups the participants moved on quickly from one
topic to another, giving their discussions a lively Mediterranean feel but also at times
making them sound a little chaotic.
4. These focus groups were organized before the introduction of austerity policies in the
country. It is interesting to note that, at that stage, the message from the Spanish government
and authorities was still moderately optimistic, as were the declarations of at
least some national business leaders. At that time, in early 2010, the most consistent
message was ‘‘the worst part of the crisis has been left behind,’’ in contrast with the
‘‘apocalyptic’’ vision propagated by the opposition (and particularly by the conservatives)
and most of the media. Interestingly, while the discourse of austerity had still not
taken root among Spain’s leaders it was already pervasive in society.
Alonso et al. 83
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
5. The fieldwork for this paper was carried out just before the Spanish government introduced
a series of major reforms and cutbacks, including a pay cut for civil servants.
6. It should be noted that this discourse has long been present in the Spanish political
imaginary; see, for example, Caro Baroja’s analysis of the deep-rooted notion that
Spaniards require disciplining and control (1970).
7. This explains why, for example, in the worst moments of the Greek crisis in spring 2010,
the Spanish media and politicians seemed obsessed with highlighting the differences
between Spain and Greece. Rejecting the idea of the slightest similarity between Spain
and the European periphery, some declarations by politicians and commentators, which
were almost xenophobic in nature, seemed to confirm the existence of a Spanish inferiority
complex in this respect.
8. These discursive strategies are obviously in line with broader sociological debates about
the role played by concepts such as ‘‘responsibilization’’ or ‘‘individualization,’’ linked
with neoliberal logics of self-management.
References
Alı´men N and Bayraktarog˘ lu G (2011) Consumption adjustments of Turkish consumers
during the global financial crisis. Ege Academic Review 11(2): 193–203.
Alonso LE (1998) La Mirada Cualitativa en Sociologı´a. Madrid: Fundamentos.
Alonso LE and Ferna´ ndez Rodrı´guez C (2008) Emploi et pre´ carite´ des jeunes: Le cas de
l’Espagne. Travail et Emploi 115: 71–80.
Bauman Z (2007) Collateral casualties of consumerism. Journal of Consumer Culture 7(1):
25–56.
Caro Baroja J (1970) El Mito del Cara´cter Nacional y su Formacio´n con Respecto a Espan˜a.
Madrid: Seminarios y Ediciones.
Castel R (2003) From Manual Workers to Waged Laborers. New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Publishers.
E´ lteto¨ A (2011) The economic crisis and its management in Spain. Eastern Journal of
European Studies 2(1): 41–55.
Faganel A (2011) Recognized values and consumption patterns of post-crisis consumers.
Managing Global Transitions 9(2): 151–170.
Grossberg L (2010) Modernity and commensuration: A reading of a contemporary (economic)
crisis. Cultural Studies 24: 295–332.
Humphrey K (2010) Excess: Anti-Consumerism in the West. Cambridge: Polity.
Littler J (2009) Radical Consumption. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press.
Lo´ pez I and Rodrı´guez E (2010) Fin de ciclo. Financiarizacio´n, Territorio y Sociedad de
Propietarios en la Onda Larga del Capitalismo Hispano (1959–2010). Madrid:
Traficantes de Suen˜ os.
Merton RK (1987) The focused interview and focus groups: Continuities and discontinuities.
Public Opinion Quarterly 51(4): 550–566.
Morgan DL (1988) Focus Groups as Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Schor J (1999) The new politics of consumption. Boston Review 24(3–4): 4–9.
Silva E and Wright D (2005) The judgement of taste and social position in focus groups
research. Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale 26(76–77): 241–253.
Skeggs B, Thumin N and Wood H (2008) ‘Oh Goodness, I am watching reality TV’: How
methods make class in audience research. European Journal of Cultural Studies 11(1):
5–24.
84 Journal of Consumer Culture 15(1)
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Soper K (2007) Re-thinking the ‘good life’: The citizenship dimension of consumer disaffection
with consumerism. Journal of Consumer Culture 7(2): 205–229.
Sulkunen P (2009) The Saturated Society. London: Sage.
Wilk R (2001) Consuming morality. Journal of Consumer Culture 1(2): 245–260.
Author Biographies
Luis E Alonso, professor of Sociology at Universidad Auto´ noma de Madrid, Spain.
With a background in economics and sociology, he has worked on a variety of
areas related to consumption, employment and industrial relations, where he has
published widely. His research draws on qualitative methodologies, particularly
focus groups. He has also written on sociological theory including the work of
Bordieu and many others.
Carlos J Ferna´ ndez Rodrı´guez, lecturer (with tenure) in Sociology at Universidad
Auto´ noma de Madrid, Spain. His research interests are sociology of organisations,
sociology of consumption, sociology of labour and industrial relations. He has
published several books and peer-reviewed articles in those knowledge areas. He
has a background in economics, sociology and business studies.
Rafael Iba´ n˜ ez Rojo, lecturer (with tenure) in Sociology at Universidad Auto´ noma
de Madrid, Spain. He has a background in economics, sociology and history. His
work has focused on labour movement during the political transition in Spain, and
wider aspects of sociology of work, employment and consumption, drawing on
qualitative methodologies, particularly focus groups.
Alonso et al. 85
by guest on May 5, 2016joc.sagepub.comDownloaded from