is also apparent that this impact is unevenly distributed. Though creating potential opportunities and benefits, the capitalist system and TNCs that lie behind this are not underpinned by rules based on shared social objectives. The growth of the media-corporation as a TNC is of importance in this process. These media have aided this process of time space compression by creating a sense of the global with people having images from around the world beamed into their homes. Nevertheless, their primary use is the promotion of consumer culture and this is closely linked to capitalist development and the creation of a culture of globally recognisable symbols. Though in real terms the majority of the worlds population has not reached a point where it is possible to conspicuously consume the levels of consumption in developing countries have increased dramatically. What was once considered a luxury twenty years ago is now a necessity a private car for every middle-class family in France a wrist watch for every rural family in India, a refrigerator for every family in China United Nations Development Report 1998 . The images of consumption and lifestyles that are produced in the developed world are becoming increasingly adopted in cases where people cannot afford such. This is not to say that the poor of the world are becoming conspicuous consumers but the images are there for people, if possible, to buy into. Arguably this situation is maintained by a transnational capitalist class who it can be said are the main beneficiaries of capitalism and globalisation. It is this class of people that are in positions that are able to help solidify the culture ideology of consumption. Sklair (1994) argues here that the culture of consumerism, is a set of practices that are ideological and that while this culture is available to the dominant classes it erodes other cultures as it is seen as the only path of development . It would be fair...
