The 1950s marked the beginning of a cultural change called consumerism. The new culture convinced Americans the need to buy new homes, cars, appliances, credit-cards and even succeeded in redefining ‘freedom’. From the pre-world war meaning of freedom, which was to starting to focus on anti-segregation policies, the meaning of freedom shifted to consumption. Foner does not go into much detail but does make it a point to mention that this new idea of consumerism, being the goal of freedom, resulted in American’s being comfortable with living in never-ending debt.
I believe Foner is right in that redefining freedom; consumerism began an a culture Americans are still struggling to deal with. Consumers in American to this day live under the pretense that comfortable means ‘buying more than you can afford’. Although consumerism has succeeded in redefining freedom, it has failed to redefined what the realities of such life-styles are. The fact that debt became a part of life ‘comfortable to live with’ is shocking. As a result we live in a country that is experiencing an economic recession, loss of jobs, a growing national debt and increasing deficit in international trade. Foner even mentions that the goal of women obtaining jobs was not to help the family out of poverty rather to promote the ‘family’s middle-class-lifestyle’. A life-style that put more families in debt. Of course there are exceptions to all this and the middle-class ‘revolution’ did promote better living conditions in America. But it has come at a cost the US is still struggling to deal with – an ever expanding national debt. I fail to see the freedom or comfort of consumerism because reality says otherwise.
National and Individual Debt Clock
I am not so agree that if people buy more it means that they are more successful, now in this time there a lot people that they were beyond the limit of consumerism. We can noticed how people spend so much money in credit cards most in holiday season, they don’t realize that they are more in debt and deb, and in reality this people they are never happy because they are not satisfied with anything. Unfortunately for many people the only way to have fun is spending and spending, that is way there are s many malls in America. Sometimes we should ask ourselves if we can be happier with many material things, like those people that we can see in the program “Little house in the prairie” In that era people were happy and with more communication without so much luxury. I hope one day we can learn to control our spending.
As I can see from the conversation, we all agreed that consumerism is the key to the economy. But Foner also mentions that industrial jobs have substantially decreased in the 50s and 60s, shifting the production of merchandise out of the States, which stimulated other countries to manufacture for the US huge market of goods. As an example, US is the number one consumer of goods made in China, and if tomorrow the US suddenly decides to stop importing, it will definitely affect the economy of China which will collapse. So, this integration seems to be a vicious circle to me – Americans are buying (overspending, consuming) so that the other countries build their economies.
I was confused about what would be good and bad in business world. This country is the wealthiest nation on earth based on consumerism. Also other countries follow up the way of what America History got done in that matter. Consumerism make indutries work more and get people busy maybe. I think Utopia never come as Clark Kerr, an economist, said that if we can get one thing, we get to give up another. We have to give up other disadvantages maybe..
Consumerism is the reason why America is the number one economy in the world. Our society and culture drives us to spend more. Being patriotic means going out there and buying that big screen TV or that LV bag we can’t afford. The consumerism culture is a bit worrying as more and more people go into debt buying lavish unnecessary things.
I do agree that consumerism creates more opportunity for the consumer to buy what he likes. It creates buying power of the consumer. It does create debt problems too, as consumer buys more than their affordability.
Indeed, there are pros to consumerism. Consumerism gives the individual purchasing power to decide what products he/she likes. In that power also lies the capability of either deciding to support a company or not. I agree with Jing that the best solution to the current problem is educating consumers to be rational consumers.
To respond to Bogdan’s question, it can be true that we fail to motivate people to do better. But from my experience it isn’t that easy to motivate people, with say incentives, anymore because they have too much. Wars, unmotivated people are indeed factors to the growing problem of debt but I think they have in most ways stemmed from consumerism. Also, the problem I have here is with freedom being used to define consumerism. Yes, I do understand the freedom of the ‘purchasing-power’ and the freedom to make choices as a consumer but most times this freedom comes at a negligence of the fact that we still have a growing debt. Going along with what Jing mentioned earlier, I don’t think we are making rational decisions on a national level let alone an individual level. Taking the wars for example, we are of course spending more than we can afford. And if you start to look at other spendings in the budget, its not hard to see that most them are not matched up with the national debt to see if the country can afford it.
Consumerism is key to the U.S. economy. Consumer spending is 70% of GDP in the U.S. Ironically some consumers over-spent more than they can afford. Our federal government and some states are on debt too. Promoting consumerism is a good business concept; however, we need an organization to educate consumers how to spend their money wisely. Freedom has a price. Rational consumption is the most economic way to save consumers from deep debt. Rational consumption is a topic every consumer needs to learn.
I also believe tha there is a serious problem in America this day due to consumerism, especially in such an economy; the increase in national debt is indeed pretty frightning. However, I am also interested in pros of consumerism. Are there any?
Is there an upside for consumerism though? I would think that if more and more people spend, it would mean the creation of jobs for people that make the goods that other people buy. Also, doesn’t increased spending from consumers mean higher GDP overall? My economics is a little rusty.
David, I think you are very right when you say that consumerism was a good idea in the 1950s. Now that everything has changed I don’t believe that is an advantage any longer. I think it some of it has to do with the U.S. government, who pushed people to believe that it is alright to buy things they can’t afford and don’t necessary need. We are guilty as well because we are educated people who can analyze the current economic situation and make an informed decision when it comes to careless spending.
I disagree with you when you say that you fail to see freedom and comfort of consumerism because of today’s reality. I don’t think United States of America is in debt because of consumers; it is in debt because we fail to motivate people to perform better in school and workplace. We are in debt because we spend all our money in pointless wars, don’t you think?