Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Permissions and Credits
- A Note on the Structure of This Book
- Introduction
- Part I Foundations
- Part II Philosophies
- Part III Identities
- Part IV New Values
- Part V Social Engineering
- Part VI Vitality
- Part VII Housing
- Part VIII Cultural Politics
- Part IX Mass Media
- Part X Exchange
- Part XI Reaction
- Part XII Power
- Chronology
- References
- Contributors
- Index of Subjects
- Index of Persons
Chapter 3 - Consumption and Entertainment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Permissions and Credits
- A Note on the Structure of This Book
- Introduction
- Part I Foundations
- Part II Philosophies
- Part III Identities
- Part IV New Values
- Part V Social Engineering
- Part VI Vitality
- Part VII Housing
- Part VIII Cultural Politics
- Part IX Mass Media
- Part X Exchange
- Part XI Reaction
- Part XII Power
- Chronology
- References
- Contributors
- Index of Subjects
- Index of Persons
Summary
FOOD, CLOTHES, MEDIA, AND TOURISM—the Austrian Research Center for Economic Psychology (Österreichische Wirtschaftspsychologische Forschungsstelle) (1931– 1935/37) surveyed consumers about their preferences, their purchasing behavior, and the effectiveness of advertising. Its clients included Austrian and foreign companies such as the grocery chain Julius Meinl and the Budapest Tourism Bureau. Among the organisation's staff were Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Marie Jahoda, and Hans Zeisel. Most of the center's staff had Social Democratic leanings and worked on projects for Red Vienna—for example, for the Career Counseling Office of the City of Vienna and the Chamber of Labor (Berufsberatungsamt der Stadt Wien und der Arbeiterkammer). At first glance, it seems surprising that Social Democrats carried out consumer and market research for money. However, in the center's sociological studies and in those undertaken by Käthe Leichter at the Female Labor Unit of the Chamber of Labor (Referat für Frauenarbeit der Arbeiterkammer), research and analysis of consumer behavior, everyday practices, and especially lifestyle choices were considered highly relevant.
At the same time, many leftists rejected a popular mass culture that they saw as consumerist. Communists in particular disapproved of it for papering over the realities of class, seducing the workers and distracting them from the class struggle. But instead of suppressing (luxury) consumerism—as in the Soviet Union for example—Red Vienna sought to incorporate consumerism and entertainment into the financial basis of its reform program. After Vienna was constituted as a separate state (1922) and the governing Social Democrats gained the authority to levy their own state taxes, Hugo Breitner, the city councillor of finance, introduced direct, progressively increasing taxes according to living expenses. Taxes were imposed on land speculation, on ownership of land and housing, and on luxury goods and services: hotels, cafés, restaurants, theaters, cinemas, domestic servants, horses, dogs, and cars. The aim was for the rich to fund redistribution of wealth from the top down. However, the new taxes also affected working-class people when they visited cinemas, revue theaters, or soccer matches.
This chapter focuses on the unequal opportunities for consumption and their causes, on the way advertising and opportunities for mass-culture consumerism were differentiated, and on attempts to adopt and reinterpret these concepts and opportunities for social democracy.
- Type
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- Information
- The Red Vienna Sourcebook , pp. 49 - 66Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019