Ask Lemmygrad

The notion of consumerism is capitalist ideology that divides the world into a consumer class and a supplier class, obfuscating material-interest-based class relations. Members of the supplier class include the owners, managers, and employees of businesses. It’s false consciousness, in other words.

Yeah, I've never heard the term "consumer" outside of capitalist swill and it appears to have something to do with validating "consuming" as a part of one's identity, as if there's some kind of intrinsic value in it. They then frame consumers as an amalgamated entity that demands certain things of the world; demands that the suppliers/producers have no choice but to listen to. By doing this, they shift blame from the conscious choices of the capitalist class to the inscrutable demands of a "consumer class". So then they can say, for example, "Climate change isn't because BP is polluting the ocean, it's because consumers demand so much oil".

But in reality, there are people at the top setting policies which heavily define what demand looks like. For example, if the people in charge of the US did a major buildup of high speed trains, demand for oil for individual cars would drop. And as long as the oil companies block policies that improve public transportation and cars are therefore the only viable way for many people to get around, demand will stay high. So it is a highly manufactured thing and how people choose to "consume" on an individual level has little to do with it.

But when people believe in the narrative of the consumers-as-defining-demand, it's easier for them to believe in a false power in boycott that isn't there. Certainly the way people purchase does something, but it is a minor influence compared to the policies set from the top down.