City Research Online

Abstract

Study of the consumption of counterfeit products casts consumers as reflexive agents who knowingly break the law (through the consumption of illegal commodities). Because this analysis is pitched at the level of meaning rather than structural constraints, it produces a misleading view of reflexive counterfeit consumption as being motivated by resistance or the wish to escape from normative coercion. This paper contrasts with approaches that prefigure meaning in explaining counterfeit commerce by treating the trade as an unavoidable structural feature of capitalism. That is, the structural logic of capital accumulation inevitably creates a black market of counterfeit commerce. It is a parasitic form of illegal consumerism which mirrors conventional capitalist organization reproducing familiar dynamics of valued status differentiation.

Publication Type:	Article
Publisher Keywords:	Counterfeit commerce, reflexivity, status differentiation
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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