The Gospel of Consumption and the Better Future We Left Behind
May 7th, 2008Highly recommended.
Via: Orion:
By the late 1920s, America’s business and political elite had found a way to defuse the dual threat of stagnating economic growth and a radicalized working class in what one industrial consultant called “the gospel of consumption”—the notion that people could be convinced that however much they have, it isn’t enough. President Herbert Hoover’s 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes observed in glowing terms the results: “By advertising and other promotional devices . . . a measurable pull on production has been created which releases capital otherwise tied up.” They celebrated the conceptual breakthrough: “Economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied.”
Thank you for posting this article Kevin. If I worked a 6 hour day, I would have read this article last night when it was posted.
The thought that people used to think time at home to garden, be with their families, and spend time with friends doing things like playing Ping Pong.
Sigh. Oh for a better day.
It also makes think that shouldn’t all factories be run like the former Kellog? Do what needs to be done and get out of dodge?
I spend more time in my job trying to keep myself awake, than the time I spend doing something productive. I want to spend 8 hours or more per day in the garden, or for that matter, living a freaking life. With less than 3 years left til when I can actually retire with my benefits though, I ain’t about to radicalize my life, but would surely love to.
Methinks the high cost of gasoline and all of the shit going down in the U.S. economy may well bring on a sudden shift to the Kellogg model. Work your job, make less money, but still keep on keeping on. Time to take the dead air out of the working life.
Thanks for that link, Kevin. A very nice piece of writing, and well-referenced.