Die Erfindung des moralischen Konsumenten

How the supermarket became a place of political manifestation and individual moral decision-making. Calls for boycotts, organic products, and CO2 compensation: consumption today is shaped by moral demands. But since when has it seemed plausible to us to bring about political change through individual consumer choices? Benjamin Möckel systematically examines for the first time, starting from West Germany and the United Kingdom, the emergence of moral consumption practices in a transnational comparison. He interprets these as a new form of political participation, which was simultaneously linked to processes of individualization and commercialization. The focus is on the intertwining of modern mass consumption, morality, and political protest in the second half of the 20th century. Using the examples of the human rights movement, the environmental movement, and fair trade, it investigates the conditions under which private shopping became a means for people to express their political and moral views. The book analyzes these consumption practices as a form of politicization of everyday life, which opened up new opportunities for participation, but also transformed political concerns into freely consumable products.