Wine Law

3 consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats—his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies ” 2 . While the capitalist and lasses-faire system was considered the only feasible option for many decades, it soon became apparent that a view of consumers as powerful actors in the market dynamics 3 was simplistic at best. Consumers were rather passive subjects and thus easy prey for corporations willing to orientate their behaviour 4 . Particularly in the EU, but also in countries such as Japan 5 , there was a growing awareness of the need to regulate the market to grant consumers a right of protection against the imbalance in their approach to and by corporations. The assumption and approach have been rather typical of most European constitutional systems, which not only provide for a level playing field but also asymmetric regulation whenever one of the involved parties is in a physiologically disadvantaged position compared to the other(s) 6 . More recently, in the wake of joint studies by sociologists and economists 7 , regulators have learned that consumers are not only at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiation instruments, but are also inclined to behave irrationally, which naturally puts them at further risk – hence the need to consider this factor when issuing new rules. 2 V. L EBOW , Price Competition , in Journal of Retailing, 1955. 3 W. H. H UTT , Economists and the Public. A Study of Competition and Opinion (1936) , London, 1990. 4 G. K ATONA , The Powerful Consumer , New York, 1960; P. L AZERSFLED , The Psychological Aspect of Market Research , in Harvard Business Review, I, 1934. A true “revolt” against consumerism is the focal point of a famous essay (N. K LEIN , No logo. 10 th Anniversary Edition , Basingstoke, 2009). 5 G. L EMME , Gli strumenti di tutela del consumatore come perno della regolazione del mercato e delle sue criticità: Italia e Giappone a confronto , in I. B AGHI , V. G ABRIELLI , G. L EMME , Consumatori e imprese irresponsabili. Italia e Giappone a confronto , Milan, 2018. 6 See Article 3 of the Italian Constitution, which provides, in §2, for specific actions to compensate disadvantages that prevent actual equality. The Spanish Constitution (Art. 51) specifically regulates consumer rights. 7 D. K AHNEMANN & A. T VERSKY , Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk , in Econometrica, 1979; R. H T HALER , The Winner’s Curse. Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life , Princeton University Press, 1992 and Misbehaving. The Making of Behavioral Economics , New York, 2005.