Social Stratification and the Materialism Label: The Retention of Racial Inequities between Black and White Consumers in South Africa

We begin from the observation that, in English-speaking societies, “materialistic” is an epithet. The moral polarity that results – materialism (sin) versus spirituality (virtue) – is clearly reflected in the early CB literature on the topic (Belk 1983; Pollay 1986). Indeed, the word’s status as an insult is apparent in socially desirable responding (Mick 1996) among research subjects. In this research, therefore, we focus on the circumstances in which one group labels another “materialistic”: we ask why they are using that particular label and question whether the people being thus labeled view themselves as “materialistic.” Using Goffman’s (1951) work on status symbols, we look at how the application of this pejorative protects the demarcating power of goods when a threat of misappropriation occurs. Status symbols hold expressive powers (they express the cultural values, lifestyles, privileges or duties a person holds) and categorical powers (they visibly divide the social world), and so their misappropriation threatens the social distinctions that maintain hierarchy. The accusation that someone is “materialistic” exemplifies a set of interested moral restrictions designed to keep outgroups from acquiring the symbols of the established elite. Such moral restrictions are often guised as “religious scruple, cultural disdain, ethnic and racial loyalty, economic and civic propriety, or undisguised ‘sense of one’s place’” (Goffman 1951: 297). In this study, we consider how materialism acts to restrict consumption by social grouping, as well as the power agenda that the rhetoric of morality conceals.