A pdf is available by request to jmheyman@utep.edu . Provides a fundamental theory of consumption in capitalism in political ecological perspective. Basic transformations of time (e.g., time discipline) and space (e.g., reduced access to resources) occur because of the proletarianization of work and consumption/material provisioning. Consumer proletarianization is a novel and powerful concept (loss of the means of self or local provisioning). Case material is provided for working class urban Mexicans, who are poor consumers, a large and important group on a world scale. Conventional privileged feelings in response to consumerism of either greed or guilt are shown to fail to encompass the realities of hard-pressed poor consumers.