Consumerism in Vietnam

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1.Introduction

Consumerism is a cultural value that promotes endless acquisitions of commodities and the consumption is regarded as an access to achieving personal satisfaction no matter materially or spiritually and as an economic stimulation for the whole society. Generally, consumerism is often considered as the production of capitalism, which is believed to prevail mostly in developed countries with high spending power.

The definition of consumerism given by Thomas Byrne Edsall is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.

Currently, consumerism presents its intrinsic vividness in Vietnam, a developing county in Southeast Asia, so that a new term consumerism in Vietnam comes into public’s eyes. A revolution of consumerism is secretly happening in Vietnam. Vietnamese consumerism is different from the general conception “mass consumption” defined by the standard that is given by western capitalistic commodity economy, since it has its own particularity that happened to the specific class instead of the whole public and manifests as three different categories, sensibility consumption, conspicuous consumption and wasteful consumption, closely relating to some corresponding social phenomena such as uprising of urban middle class, globalization, social stratification, gender distinction in terms of consumerism in Vietnam. With the rapid economic development in Vietnam, a revolution of consumption is coming to Vietnamese, secretly changing their consumptive view and behaviors.

2.Characteristics of Consumerism in Vietnam

(1)The symbol value of products is higher than the use value.

In Vietnam, more and more non-material factors are infiltrated into the material goods, since design, packaging and advertising of the goods have gradually played essential roles during the process of commodity consumption. In connection with the de-materialization of goods, the production of symbolic systems and visual images has turned to be the keys to catering for consumers' tastes and to manipulating the consumer fashion. Here, the signal value is to considered as the third value that focus more on information value and experience value. Daniel Kahneman, who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, point out that the symbolic value is some kind of information that contains in commodities, which is called the experience utility.

It is worth mentioning that the signal value attracted a lot of people, especially Vietnamese adolescent students to pursue some well-known brands, for example they tend to purchase some clothing or shoes with famous brand symbols, like Nike or Vans, GUESS, etc. Besides, the symbolic value of products has become the manifestation of the identity of Vietnamese teens. As Phan mentions in his article Globalization, Consumerism, and the Emergence of Teens in Contemporary Vietnam, "For teen Viet, fashion was no longer about utility, but an essential channel through which they revealed and defined themselves. The body became a primary site for elaborating a unique, individual identity, a commodified form of self-expression.”

(2)Surreal hyper-reality, which means the consumption of material is transformed into the aesthetic consumption with ideological significance, and during this process, television contributes a lot.

Though advertisements, many products come to people’s eyes whenever and wherever, which creates a virtual world in which every product stimulates consumers’ sense organs and helps to bring about the direct consumptive behaviors. In this sense, the celebrity effect plays an important part in today’s consumerism in Vietnam. In other words, fan economy is one of the features of Vietnamese consumerism.

With the popularity of mass media and telecommunication, consumerism in Vietnam finds its own vivosphere. According to some authoritative datum, the Ministry of Planning and Investment reported that 90% of households could watch television and 95% could listen to the Voice of Vietnam in 2006. Government TV networks also expanded from a handful of programs in the early 1990s to hundreds of programs, most of which were geared toward entertainment. Moreover, in urban areas of Vietnam, many families can subscribe to cable TV and watch foreign programs. Following this trend, newspapers and magazines written for Vietnamese changed drastically, most of which has been greatly influenced by commercialization and westernization.

In fact, all these mass media helps consumerism to establish a new cultural context for Vietnamese consumers, so to speak, consumers are easily influenced by the external environment that is created by these mass media, since consumers passively receive the information spread by all these mediums.

(3)The emergence of knowledge consumption or knowledge payment.

Currently, with the rapid development of economy, Vietnamese not only pursue an abundant material life, but also focus on the improvement of personal spirit, therefore, intellectuals in Vietnam nowadays are more willing to pay for knowledge and in other side, the content providers can earn some benefits as well and exploit a new way for consumerism, which will be empowered to shift from the low grade to a high-level consumptive mode.

In fact, the essence of knowledge payment is to turn knowledge into products or services to achieve commercial value. And paying for knowledge helps Vietnamese to filter information efficiently, while also paying for the production of quality content. Thanks to the development of electronics technology, his new consumptive pattern has emerged, for Vietnamese can acquire knowledge from some specific apps and pay for it in order to show the protection of intellectual property. This is a great process of consumerism in Vietnam, which means the pattern of consumption has been enriched, not only limited to the material enjoyment.

3.Targeted groups of consumerism in Vietnam

Consumerism in Vietnam is not a universal term, for it is only limited to the so-call “elite group” who has maximal potential purchasing power. Meanwhile, there is a trend that the pursuit of consumerism has already expanded from high-income group to the middle class, even towards the masses, ranging from not only adults but also adolescents. Shown by the datum, Vietnam’s economy continues expanding at an annual rate in excess of 7%, therefore Vietnam is a country with a booming economy. In fact, the upper class and middle class in Vietnam has become powerful forces to motivate the economic growth. The economic growth here refers to the dependence on luxury consumption performed by the rich regard to the promotion effect, while in this sense, the low-income group tend to be in a relatively less important status. Here, high-end products are assumed to service customers who can be divided into three groups in Vietnam.

(1)The first group is the middle and senior officials in Vietnam, their close kinship members are also included.

The political system defect causes the public power becomes so concentrated, which allows power easily turns to be interest exchange. Therefore, on the ground of it, corrupt consumption comes into being. Some officials who are in great power in hand, they purchase luxuries in the name of position-related consumption, in other words, recreational activities at public expense can be frequently found.

(2)The second group some new moneys in Vietnam.

Conspicuous consumption, wasteful consumption or luxury consumption has become a part of their way of living. Meanwhile, under the influence of crony capitalism, these “elite group” are more likely to hijacked the economy and manipulate it for their own ends, which leads to a lot of exclusive or excessive consumption. A well-known scholars Pham, Hai Chung points out that “Vietnamese consumers mainly focus on the brands which can shape their lived experience and the way they want to show about their self-images, in such a way, consumption-based social identity comes into being.” Besides, he also refers that “high-end consumption will please the consumers, giving them such a magic power and allowing them to escape something uncomfortable in the reality, although this kind of consumption really becomes kind of stimulation to the economy development.”Thus, no matter for the spiritual pleasure or the material satisfaction, the group of new moneys contributes greatly to the Vietnamese economic development.

(3)The third group is the emerging white-collar class, who mainly constitutes the group of middle class in Vietnam.

With the advantage of cultural capital, they are more easily influenced by the value of consumerism brought about by western society. Meanwhile, this group is the big fan of mass media that will provide them with new hierarchical structure or new consumption concepts. As is mentioned by the honored scholar Mike Featherstone who came out with the notion of post-modern consumerism, he says “New modes of cultural representation ensure the proliferation of images which saturate the fabric of social life with some signs or messages which summon up new expressive and hedonistic definitions of the good life.” In fact, the white-collar class largely depends on symbol consumption, which means brand that maintains some kinds of symbolic meaning will become a factor that drives them to purchase the corresponding products.

4.Different Stages of Consumerism in Vietnam Stage I: Crystallization Stage.'

The emphasis is on regulating the producer to foster competition. This is the antitrust phrase of market regulation. There is no organized consumer movement of national status during this period. To more specific, there is no much market freedom in Vietnam in this period, for Vietnamese government adopts visible hand in order to rectify and standardize the market order. In this sense, products influences the choices of consumers, which is lacking of market vitality, thus consumerism in Vietnam had not been settled yet and the corresponding time span was from 1858-1975. Due to the influence of Civil War in Vietnam and Second Indochina War, the economy of Vietnam was damaged to a large extent, at that time, the national economy has not been revived.

Stage II: Organization Stage.

During this stage, the consumer movement in Vietnam begins to organize itself in order to provide a consumer voice in legislation. In developed countries of the West, independent, voluntary consumer associations are formed. A good deal of emphasis is placed on, such as the emergence of consumer education programs, comparative product testing and standard sizes and informative labeling. While in Vietnam, this period is also moving on after the unification of South and North in Vietnam. During this period, Vietnam Communist Party reinforced regulation and supervision of the economy market.

Stage III: Institutionalization Stage.

Governments both at local and central levels begin to intervene actively in market on behalf of the consumer. Emphasis is placed on consumer affairs, competition policy, policies concerning trade marks, patents, copyrights and industrial property. The Doi Moi program enacted by the Vietnam Communist party in 1986 marked the country's transition from a subsidy to a market economy and signaled profound changes in life experience for all the Vietnamese. The government-owned media that once indoctrinated Vietnamese into the communist ideologies became increasingly dominated by private corporations and opened the door for rapid influx of western influence, so that the consumptive view and behaviors have secretly changed in the whole country. Stage IV: Conceptualization Stage.

This stage embraces consumer involvement in virtually all of the critical, political, technological, social and economic macro issues. There is complete consumer involvement in broader policy issues. This is a critical stage in the development of consumerism, but Vietnam has not reached it so far yet. There is still a long way for Vietnam to go.

5.The meanings of consumerism in Vietnam

There is some truth to the saying ‘money makes the world go round’, and under consumerist ideology, that may very well be true. Consumerism in economics is an idea that encourages consumers to acquire and purchase products and services in greater and greater amounts. This is said to fuel trade and to keep economies alive.

(1)One of the real benefit of consumerism prevailing in Vietnam is to improve the economy.

When a greater proportion of citizens buy goods and services in excess of their needs, they spend more and desire more, and that will create a cycle of demand leading to greater production and to greater employment, which leads to even more consumption. So to speak, consumerism in Vietnam creates a boom in the consumer goods and services industries, therefore the rising consumerism may lead to the market innovation and creativity. (2)Low cost of living will be achieved.'

With the fierce competitions in the market, manufacturers and companies would price their products at lower costs to encourage consumers to act and purchase in order to increase the consumption of goods and services. A convincing evidence is that nowadays, “Made in Vietnam” has become a powerful force advancing to the global market, even compared with “Made in China”. Therefore, benign interaction between manufacturing enterprises and consumer reduces the living cost of Vietnamese.

6.The problems of consumerism in Vietnam

There is not necessarily anything morally wrong in buying and selling things, nor even in promoting them. But the extreme form of consumerism, especially in Vietnam that is still a developing country with a low economy level, has a number of unpleasant and even potentially dangerous characteristics.

(1)The intensification of self-objectification among Vietnamese.

Currently, considering about the cultural background of Vietnam that has still greatly influenced by patriarchy, the traditional masculinity ideology still exist, while consumerism will intensify the objectification of females in Vietnam. The reason why it could happen can be listed as follows. In Vietnam society, with the driving of consumerism, Vietnamese females will be easily placed to the subordinate position and come to consumption goods for males, even though females are also consumers in other side. Because Vietnamese females are usually evaluated and judged by males even till now, they long to promote their self-value in men’s eyes. For example, cosmetic surgery, skin care product as well as costume with famous brand are chased after by modern Vietnamese females. Surprisingly, the same case happened to males as well in that they characterize themselves as a “successful” men so as to gain the fondness of females and also gain a superiority complex.

In a deeper sense, no matter males or females in Vietnam, they are all objectified themselves under the influence of consumerism, since choices and lusts are endless for consumers. However, this is a questionable trend that conceals some potential risks. As Davis & Thompson mention that “Self-objectification as a process, regardless of it being voluntarily or subconsciously, may result in various negative mental health outcomes”. Therefore, the intensification of objectification is the one that consumerism brings about, especially in Vietnam.

(2)Consumerism makes more Vietnamese overlook morality pursuit.

Vietnam has been developing its economy, focusing more on material development, and this is leading to unbalanced development on values, traditional culture and human development. Moreover, now the phenomenon of ignoring family education is happening more and more,which sending many Vietnamese family into crisis in that parents just focus on material goods, food or following scholastic achievements for their children, so that they have bypassed the education of human values of individuals and parents tend to be workaholics so as to earn more money but have no time to take care of their children, which causes the new generation in Vietnam lacks of spiritual orientation and moral education.

(3)Consumerism causes environmental disruption in Vietnam.

The production, processing and consumption of commodities requires the extraction and use of natural resources (wood, ore, fossil fuels and water, etc.); it requires the creation of factories and factory complexes whose operation create toxic byproducts, while the use of commodities themselves(eg. Automobiles) creates pollutants and waste. In recent years, based on a huge number of consumption in Vietnam, take catering industry as an example, Vietnamese are striking to fight back on plastic pollution. Even though an awareness of green consumerism has arisen among Vietnamese and consumers looks for some products that won’t cause the environment pollution and to pursue a more sustainable life, consumerism, the endless desire for the materials cannot stop the environmental degradation to some extent.

(4)Consumerism widens the gap between the rich and the poor in Vietnam.

As the age old saying goes, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Using the latest data, there are 59% of resources being consumed by the wealthiest 10% people in Vietnam. If we could reduce our consumption levels by just a fraction of what they are now, then we could dramatically change the lives of poverty stricken poor Vietnamese.

7.Anti-consumerism Movement in Vietnam

The notion of “anti-consumerism” was proposed by western countries in the early days. And the International Buyout Day is the last Friday/Saturday of November each year. International Buy Nothing Day, which was initially in the 1990s by the Canadian Adbusters Magazine, which main significance is to encourage people all over the world to limit their own materialism and also propose that people should use more handmade goods to reduce environmental damage caused by purchase.

With the rapid development of consumerism in Vietnam and many weaknesses appear, some Vietnamese establish anti-consumerism club spontaneously in order to pursue a simple life with no unnecessary materials. Besides, with the great influence of minimalism, some of the Vietnamese change themselves to a new living way, which advocates throwing all useless things and leave themselves in a spacious and comfortable and free space.

References

This article "Consumerism in Vietnam" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Consumerism in Vietnam. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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