The organizing logics of predatory formations: Individualism, identity, and the consumption of goods as the good life

Private consumption has the power to create “that remarkable confidence of community in anonymity, which is the hallmark of modern nations”. Profits from the production, distribution, and consumption of goods clearly shaped the materiality of cities and spaces around the world. The good urban citizen has come to be defined as one who keeps to the script, passively and repetitively passing from one entertainment and commodified distraction to the next, and spending money while doing so. For individuals, the consumption of things is an opportunity to express their individuality as well as to locate themselves socially. There are many concerned individuals who do consider the abusive exploitation of people as well as of the planet’s material resources in processes of production, the distribution of goods, and cycles of consumption. The global consumption economy not only alienates from each other and disassembles possibilities for transformative work, it also changes people’s lived relationship to the city.