Index of the consumer society development: Theoretical basis and primary validation

The article considers a range of issues in the analysis of the consumer society in order to develop an index that characterizes states in terms of the degree of their ‘consumerization’. The authors suggest the staging of social changes in the development of the consumer society, the possibility of comparing societies on a scale that reflects this staging, and the presence of distinctive features determined by the mechanism of transition to this type of society. The article explains the role of individual demand, the quantitative increase in the possibilities of which is reflected in its qualitative structure, which determines the growth of the non-material demand, the potential of which far exceeds any possible demand for material goods. Based on the review of studies and statistical data, the authors confirm the central role of branding in the consumer society and develop the consumerization index (IC) as a natural logarithm of the product of the average per capita number of registered trademarks (T) and average per capita consumer spending (S) of households (IC=ln(S×T)). The index reflects the space of consumption opportunities for the average individual in a particular society. According to the authors’ calculations, the lowest values of the index are observed in the poor countries of Asia and Africa, where the consumer society is obviously undeveloped, while the maximum values of the index — in the regions that can be considered a reference in terms of consumption. The authors assessed the convergent and discriminant validity of the index on the indicators of the information society development, economic, political and cultural globalization, and the connections it generates correspond to theoretical expectations. Thus, the constructed index can be considered a valid indicator and can be used in empirical cross-country comparisons based on the concept of the consumer society. © N.S. Babich, I.V. Batykov, 2022.