Authenticity, Consumer Culture and Charismatic Authority1

Abstract

This article is divided into four parts which move the discussion from authenticity to consumerism to charismatic authority. The introduction discusses “what is authenticity,” and how social sciences can address the question. The article argues that authenticity claims can be classified in different registers, which in turn are part of overarching, socio-historical regimes. The rise of the culture of authenticity is the product of a change in such regimes, which have shifted from a “national-statist” to a new consumerist or “market” regime in the wake of the consumer revolution of the 1960s and the latest wave of economic globalisation. The third section turns to the issue of religious authority, starting with the diagnosis that consumer cultures are prone to a shift from rational-legal to charismatic types of authority, in reference to Max Weber’s typology. In response to the question as to why charismatic authorities arise in capitalist cultures, the article argues to their structural and coextensive nature. Finally, the last section revises Weber’s typologies with the help of Mauss’s Essay on the Gift and a contribution from sociologist Alain Caillé and develops some of their heuristic potential.