Historians have only recently begun to note the increase in demand for luxury goods and services that took place in eighteenth-century England. MeKendrick has explored the Wedgewood Firm’s remarkable success in marketing luxury pottery. Plumb has written about the proliferation of provincial theaters, musical festivals and children’ s toys and books. While the feat of this consumer revolution is hardly in doubt, three key questions remain : Who were the consumers What were their motives And what were the effects of the new demand for luxuries
An answer to the first of these has been difficult to obtain. Although it has been possible to infer from the goods and service actually produced what manufacturers and servicing trades thought their customers wanted, only a study of relevant personal documents written by actual consumers will provide a precise picture of who wanted what. We still need to know how large this consumer market was and how far down the social scale the consumer demand for luxury goods penetrated. With regard to this last question, we might note in passing that Thompson, while rightly restoring laboring people to the stage of eighteenth-century English history, has probably exaggerated the opposition of these people to the inroads of capitalist consumerism in general: for example, laboring people in eighteenth-century England readily shifted from home-brewed beer to standardized beer produced by huge, heavily capitalized urban breweries.
To answer the question of why consumers became so eager to buy, some historians have pointed to the ability of manufacturers to advertise in a relatively uncensored press. This, however, hardly seems a sufficient answer. MeKendriek favors a Viable model of conspicuous consumption stimulated by competition for status. The " middling sort" bought goods and services because they wanted to follow fashions set by the rich. Again, we may wonder whether this explanation is sufficient. Do not people enjoy buying things as a form of self-gratification If so, consumerism could be seen as a product of the rise of new concepts of individualism and materialism, but not necessarily of the frenzy for conspicuous competition.
Finally, what were the consequences of this consumer demand for luxuries MeKendriek claims that it goes a long way toward explaining the coming of the Industrial Revolution. But does it What, for example, does the production of high-quality potteries and toys have to do with the development of iron manufacture or textile mills I t is perfectly possiMe Go have the psychology and reality of consumer society without a heavy industrial sector.
That future exploration of these key questions is undoubtedly necessary should not, however, diminish the force of the conclusion of recent studies: the insatiable demand in the tenth-century England for frivolous as well as useful goods and services foreshadows our own world.
Plumb mentioned "theaters, musical festivals and children’s toys and books"(Para. 1) to（）
A. show the high economic power in England in the 18th century
B. tell us people of different ages need different goods or services
C. illustrate that luxury consumption was in a high point in England in the 18th century
D. doubt the historians’ research result
