抄録
Though consumer society is tied up the notion of liberalism strongly, the purpose of this thesis is to reveal these placement associations.
On the other hand the existence of consumer society is based on liberalism, the liberty in the consumer society provides to the consumer the wide range selection of commodity, the liberation from convention and tradition. As seen above, consumer society and liberalism are interdependence. In this way, the liberty in consumer society is recognized nearly as "negative liberty" that Isaiah Berlin said.
The recognition that "the true freedom" is liberty from consumer society emerged from 1980s in Japan’s mature consumer society. But the act like anti-consumerism to flee from consumer society means obedience to some kind of consumer society’s code Jean Baudrillard said. That means every social activity is consumerism in contemporary society.
Baudrillard said contemporary consumption is communication. In today’s phenomenon of consumer society that the trend of monologue consuming communication, consumption without physical exchange (like an information consumption) and obsolescence of consumer society in itself (so we don’t feel in "the cage of consumer society") brings to us subjective freedom in consumer society.
But another side, nowadays, there is problem that consumer society is too free. Durkheim said that freedom is production of social regulation, and Arendt said freedom exists in positive action only. Like this, in the process of reaching true freedom in consumer society, social and public is required. It means the liberty of consumer society shifts to another dimension from the negative one. That will be "limited freedom, " but have loose relationship to others and access possibility to public.
