During the 19th and 20th centuries, production grew rapidly and supply far exceeded the consumer demand. As a result, scarcity of goods was replaced by surpluses causing the markets in America to reach a point of saturation. In such a scenario, the business community and the economists opined that the problem of excess production could be effectively countered by boosting public consumption, which in turn would help the economy to grow (Beder 2).
With an aim to increasing business profits and maintaining work ethics, businessmen and economists promoted consumerism by enlisting the working class along with the existing consumers namely, the upper and middle classes. Using advertising as their tool, the employers of the 1920s trained people to act as consumers in addition to as workers and promoted the culture of hard work and free spending. Advertisers and marketers positioned consumer goods as symbols of one’s status, and used advertisements to appease political strife among workers and to encourage the working class to spend more instead of working fewer hours. The advertisements were also used to redefine the needs of the people, increase their wants, and provide them with solutions in the form of the goods produced (Beder 1).
With the advent of consumerism, the traditional principle of spending in a thrifty manner came to be eroded. The habit of people to identify and solve personal problems on their own or depend on one another for the same gave way to advertisers identifying and providing solutions to their everyday needs. Instead of living a prudent life, people began to indulge in excessive and often wasteful spending in an environment that was bogged down by quick obsolescence created artificially. Thus, recycling gave way to the use-and-throw culture and success in life revolved around acquiring goods instead of nurturing relations (Beder 1).
The Crisis of Over-Production
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, production grew and demanded a growing consumer market that at that time constituted of only the upper and middle classes. In a situation where production in America increased 12 to 14 times and the population only by 3 times, supply easily exceeded demand and saturated the markets in the nation to the point where there were simply too many goods than what the thrifty population desired to consume. Indeed, it was the excess production fuelled further by limited demand during the early 1920s that was held responsible for the economic recession that affected the entire world (Beder 2).
As a solution for this problem of over-production, the workers and intellectuals proposed that working hours be decreased so that the production met the demand and stabilized the economy. On the other hand, the economists and the business community stated that over-production could be resolved by boosting consumption, which they said would also promote economic growth, discourage corruption among workers, and increase profits for manufacturers. According to the business class, the solution to over-production was not reducing production, but maintaining and expanding it by boosting consumerism using advertisements, promotional devices, and scientifically-proven facts, and by increasing the working hours. To ensure that this solution was implemented, the business class extolled work rather than leisure as a means to earning higher wages, making consumer goods more affordable for the working classes and leading a better lifestyle. This solution effectively pushed people, particularly the working classes, into a vicious circle of working more and consuming more (Beder 2).
Opposition to a Shorter Working Week
In the 1920s, while the labor leaders, intellectuals, and reformers sought fewer working hours, manufacturers and economists opposed it as they opined that it would destabilize the existing work ethics and make work seem less important in the lives of people. These people also feared that less work would give people more leisure time, which the latter might spend in conjuring radical ideas and creating social and economic unrest. Manufacturers, the National Association of Manufacturers, and its president argued that while leisure bred unhappiness, work made people feel more happy and great. They argued that it was more and better work that kept workers away from corruption, crime, and other unsociable behaviors, and also helped to keep a check on the feelings of the workers against businesses that offered them less-than-ideal working conditions in the factories. Such an opposition from the business community stemmed more from their own interests in expanding their markets and fattening profits (Beder 2).
When the manufacturers offered workers higher wages instead of more leisure time, the latter realized that it made leisure goods and a better lifestyle more affordable for them. Having experienced the pleasures of leisure goods and improved lifestyles, workers too started to prefer higher wages and began opposing the idea of a shorter working week (Beder 3).
‘Getting Ahead’ and its Meaning for a Consumerist Society
In a society that supports consumerism, ‘getting ahead’ has come to mean earning plenty of money rather than doing work that one enjoys. Studies have shown that in a consumerist society, making more acquisitions via fatter salaries was more important than the type of work being done. The identity and status of an individual has come to be recognized more on the basis of how much money he earns and how many consumer goods he owns rather than by the kind of job he does. To put it succinctly, ‘getting ahead’ in the consumerist society is measured in terms of the amount of leisure goods consumed such as electrical appliances, vehicles, and white goods, and the money that can be spent for them (Beder 7).
Beder’s Perspective on Status
According to Beder, in a consumerist society, social status is determined in terms of the amount of leisure goods consumed and possessed. This is particularly true in societies where people do not know each other well and form opinions regarding status based on external appearances and consumption. Thus in these societies, people possessing a car, flaunting fashionable clothes and leading a particular lifestyle are considered to be standing higher on the status ladder than others even if their occupation does not indicate their affordability of such a lifestyle and the individuals have obtained loans to maintain it. However, Beder states that the attainment of this kind of a social status is not sustained. On the other hand, it is the status that is attained through one’s occupation that upholds itself (Beder 8).
Consequences of Consumerism
While consumerism is said to enhance economic growth, on a long-term basis, it may only make people unhappy instead of promoting happiness and well being. In a consumerist society, with advertisers vigorously promoting consumption, rivalry in terms of consuming and owning goods becomes rampant that leaves people who can ill afford them highly dissatisfied. This way, consumerism only promotes discontentment in the society, instead of spreading happiness and luxurious lives as it is portrayed to (Beder 4).
In addition, consumerism makes people excessively pre-occupied with materialism and pushes them to acquire more and more of material possessions that they associate with their inner worth. Thus, people with more consumer goods are considered to stand higher on the social hierarchy ladder than others (Beder 7). In fact, people in a consumerist society are even willing to get into debt if it helps them climb the social status ladder (Beder 8). Consumerism also makes people think that success is about having more money and consumer goods rather than living a contented life (Beder 7). Although such thinking does give an individual a feeling of living in luxury and happiness, the experience is quite short lived. In reality, consumerism increases the dependency of people on consumer goods and spreads unhappiness when they are unable to afford the same. Quite often, people aspiring to acquire material wealth disregard their social lives, which can actually foster lasting pleasure (Beder 8). Hence, in the long run, consumerism reduces the levels of satisfaction life and through it the overall well being of an individual.
Works Cited
Beder, Sharon. “Consumerism: An Historical Perspective.” Pacific Ecologist, 9 (Spring 2004): 1- 10. <http://pacificecologist.org/archive/consumerhistory.html.>
