How Consumers Perceive the Market: Cynical Reason and Individual Resistance (Based on Interviews with Residents of Moscow)

This study seeks to investigate how consumers interpret their place in the market system and how consumers act on these perceptions. By drawing from 54 interviews with a diverse sample of Moscow residents, this article explicates three key categories — presumption of market players’ guilt, (ir)responsibility of the state and proactive consumer behavior. Interviews suggest that consumers infuse market with moral meaning and have a strong sense of appropriateness. Consumers have a generalized idea of market players born within the commonsense world of everyday life and it produces a relay of signification and interpretation. Consumers’ past problems or grievances may result in placing blame onto market players. A typical way to interact with market players was described in terms of confrontation or rivalry. Tensions between market players and consumers are expected to be resolved by an impartial party — state representatives, consumers’ expectations — to be protected by a government indicated victim-based consumer identity. Adopting the “cynical reason” concept established by P. Sloterdijk, the author offers a category called “consumer cynicism”, encompassing mundane suspicion and disappointment in the relationship between consumers and market players. Yet consumers’ vigilance and alertness paradoxically create a sense of security and self-affirmation. Moreover, consumer cynicism fuels proactive consumer behavior. Trying to fight back against market injustice, consumers’ choices are governed by the principle “do not overpay” for financially stable informants, as well as the principle “do not go broke” for those who struggle with money. Saving and coping are interpreted as a choice rather than a financial necessity. Proactive consumer behavior is conceptualized as a form of individual resistance. Tactical everyday resistances allow for protecting one’s interests while entailing a perception of possessing less power. The author discusses three understandings of saving and coping: survival, game and calculation.