The consumer obliterates its good. The consumption of goods by a sensitive being is the actual end of these concrete goods. In any system of wants, all goods disappear in the want as it proceeds from a free good to a deficient good, without preserving them in order to be exactly a want, – and so not to get simply a good but to present the amalgamation of a need and its good. The goods define the wants and disappear in them. Consumers approach the goods in the need for them, and destroy them as goods when they are acquired. Goods and consumption are reversely correlated: the ultimate purpose of goods is their consumption, and consumption is possible only if goods are already present. Consumption of goods is literally a consummation: reaching beyond the goods by the means of goods for the sake of productive consumption.
Historical Backdrop
• WILLIAM PETTY Treatise of Taxes and Contributions: consumption of riches.
• FREDERIC BASTIAT Economic Harmonies: consumption.
• WILLIAM JEVONS The Theory of Political Economy: consumer.
• JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money: aggregate consumption.
• KELVIN LANCASTER A New Approach to Consumer Theory: consumption technology.
• JEAN BAUDRILLARD The Consumer Society: consumption as a sign system.