The article explores social relations between festivals, consumption, and urban spaces. The study deals with two city festivals, Sea Festival and International Short Film Festival Tinklai, in post-Soviet city Klaipeda, Lithuania, over the period of 1991–2010, and impact of consumption on the geography of festivals’ locations within the city. We argue that modern festivals gradually move to those urban spaces which lost their functionality and can be easily transformed into temporary places of controlled consumption. Festivals set urban spaces for new sociality of emotional community, while physical arrangements of festival territories reproduce more general patterns of social distinctions and hierarchies. Methodological assumptions of the study come from Bourdieu’s typology of taste, De Certeau’s idea of urban space signification practices, and H. Lefebvre’s theory of urban space production.

Post­Marxist perspective perceived consumption primarily as an instrument of alienation. Cultural studies offered a different view. Focusing on using and reconstructing (both symbolic and physical) of goods, they argued that consumption may be a mechanism of authentic expression, a way of articulating consumer’s personal meanings. Cultural studies also demonstrated that consumers, through the process of consumption, can actively manifest their resistance to the market (or any imposed ideology). The paper traces the development of reflection on consumption within cultural studies, deriving from the work of Stuart Hall and Michel De Certeau, through the writings on subcultural and popcultural (in the sense of John Fiske) consumption, to contemporary subversive activities. It reveals the broad application of the notion of consumption for the purpose of describing contemporary social reality. The text discusses the concept of tactics and strategy, incorporation, as well as various forms of subversion. The author illustrates these concepts with observed examples or cases obtained from desk research. The paper examines the opposition potential of consumption, considers the cultural and social changes resulting from certain styles of consumption. It also poses the question of the status of consumer in today’s market. It offers different ways of interpreting the above problems present in the area of cultural studies.

The Consumption of Luxury Goods in China

The consumption of luxury goods is a complex phenomenon influenced by many factors and variables. It is the result of national and global conditions. The article investigates the consumption of luxury goods in China, the demand for which is increasing each year. This is a relatively new topic and subject of research in various social sciences. The author analyses this phenomenon from the point of view of Chinese society, which has evolved and started to develop dynamically in recent years. The study discusses the concept of consumption with particular emphasis on luxury goods, and also presents some critical remarks regarding the consumption of these products. The article is a theoretical-empirical study and it is based on classical and contemporary literature on consumption, as well as selected foreign research on the issue of luxury goods consumption in China. The article has a scientific value and can also be used to analyse the demand and supply of luxury goods in Chinese society.

Arivism, Chremastics, Mathematics, and Human-Centeredness – Apologetics of Axiology in Economics

The main purpose of the article is to verify the hypothesis that the erasing of values from economics causes unfavorable social changes leading even to social stratification. Side by side, it will be considered if homo neuroeconomicus is already the leading paradigm in economic, and marketing creates our attitudes, with the aim only to sell, not to distribute wares. The article also aims to show the relevance of axiology in economics, because at its metatheoretical level its ontological status constitutes values implanted by recognized economists. Meanwhile, contemporary economics tries to create an exact science, disavowing its normative output. The record is mathematical, which evaluative value, emotionally excludes man as an important subject of economics. The loss of autotelism in the exemplification of a human being and its natural inclination to participate in the economy causes non-exclusivity in participation. The attempt of these changes also led to the creation of homo neuroeconomicus as a model example of a human-consumer who has three tasks: buy, buy, buy. An adequate method to show the issue is to use the descriptive method to approximate the problem and comparative analysis, which indicates that there is no one way to look at the economy and to make it work in reality.