The 1950’s and 60’s saw a great increase in consumerism. People made more money and had the desire to go out and purchase all of the luxurious goods they could afford. There was also an increase in advertisement for these new goods. Commercials began playing in people’s homes on their new televisions. During this time, the overall economy increased by 37%. Credit also got introduced at this time with the idea of “buy now and pay later”. With this there was a massive debt increase. In the twentieth century, we have one day a year that consumerism sky rockets. Black Friday. During this time, sale prices bring shoppers into stores to spend hours and hundreds of dollars on “great deals”. Advertising continues to be one of the main ways of catching
The phrase “history repeats itself is quite evident in this film. Currently, China’s economy is in a massive industrial revolution, similar to the American industrial revolution of the early 19th century. After three years of following the Zhang family, first time director Lixin Fan released The Last Train Home, attempting to raise awareness to the down side of China’s powerful economy. While the film The Last Train Home seems to just depict the lives of factory workers, it is also making a political statement about how western capitalism exploits factory workers to produce cheap goods. The film makes this exploitation evident by depicting the fracturing of the Zhang family and the harsh working conditions they must endure.
The chosen article is Two Cheers for Consumerism by James Twitchell. In this article he talks about consumerism, commercialism, and materialism. He argues the stand point of consumers and the role they live by every day. In other hands the critics, Academy, gives the consumers and overview description to their consumers.
1. The main idea is not only that owning stuff is not the key to happiness, it’s also that consumers today own more than they need to thrive which directly impacts the environment. Hill illustrates the environmental impact by showing statistics of global warming today versus the past century, and how consumerism is leading to a hotter climate. Hill debunks claims of buying happiness by discussing a study where stress hormones spike to their highest when people are managing their personal belongings. Hill’s most prominent example that consumerism is not the answer is himself, as he discusses some of the most stressful times of his life being right after coming into a large sum of money and buying whatever he fancied. When Hill concludes his article, he states that “I have less—and enjoy more. My space is small. My life is big” (213).
To an extent Britain’s post-war years could be described as affluent. Consumption patterns in the mid twentieth century included the emergence of new household goods as well as the popular dominance of the motor car. Amongst modernisation the term of ‘teenager’ emerged as one of Britain’s main consumers. Leisure patterns embraced the contemporary appliances such as the dominance of television, the choice of cinema showings as well as the effect of Americanisation. Consumerism fever invaded all sectors of society as more and more people had better paid jobs and more free time. However in describing Britain’s post-war society it is important how we define the terms. Consumption is how the British people absorbed the modern possessions of the household and how they influenced their free time. Consumption also includes how modern trappings affected peoples lives. Leisure patterns describe what seized the attention of the public as a whole and that most of the population had more time to spend as they wished. Affluence describes the prosperity of society and how they have a great deal of wealth. Although Britain did prosper during the post war period, it is inaccurate to describe British society as affluent.
Harlem’s public life was controlled by consumerism, there was democratic interaction by citizens. Chandler Owens, an African American writer and socialist, believed that cabarets invoked self expression and liberation. He wanted them incorporated into Harlem’s public life. However, other citizens were afraid that their community was going to become the central place for “entertainment and profit” (312). These citizens were afraid that their neighborhood was going to become a place solely for the purpose of making money. In the last paragraph of page 312 to the last paragraph of page 313 of Kevin Mattson’s “The Struggle for an Urban Democratic Public: Harlem in the 1920s” Mattson makes the argument that not only citizens, but also intellectuals came together to fight against issues that they believed were detrimental to their community. He argues that their battle against cabaret had everything to do with their morality and their “balance between rights and duties” (314) and nothing to do with Victorian prudery as Chandler Owen believed.
The growth that happened before the 1920’s made it possible for the U.S. to become a consumer-based society ("The Rise of Industrial America, 1877-1900”). “Buy now, pay later,” became the main slogan of the twenties when credit was introduced into the market. Companies wanted middle class families to be able to afford the leisure’s of life just like the upper class. This idea was transformed into “credit.” Department Stores took part in this idea from the start along with installment plans.
The 1950s seemed like a perfect decade. The rise of suburbs outside cities led to an expansion of the middle class, thus allowing more Americans to enjoy the luxuries of life. The rise of these suburbs also allowed the middle class to buy houses with land that used to only be owned by more wealthy inhabitants. Towns like Levittown-one of the first suburbs- were divided in such a way that every house looked the same (“Family Structures”). Any imperfections were looked upon as unfavorable to the community as a whole. Due to these values, people today think of the 1950s as a clean cut and model decade. This is a simplistic perception because underneath the surface, events that took place outside the United States actually had a direct effect on our own country’s history. The rise of Communism in Russia struck fear into the hearts of the American people because it seemed to challenge their supposedly superior way of life.
The Cult of Domesticity is an offensive gesture; however in the 1950s’ there was validity this gesture. The rise of feminism has created a society in which there are more single mothers than ever before, long side more children born out of wedlock. The United States Census Bureau states, “During the 1960-2016 period, the percentage of children living with only their mother nearly tripled from 8 to 23 percent and the percentage of children…” (1). The article the Cult of Domesticity indeed points out the valid flaws of Ideal duties/expectations of domesticity in the 1950s’; however, I would like to state that anything man-made idea or material mechanism is not without faults. The agreeable points of the list were that there should be a genuine respect and act of service shown to our husbands each day. However, the list made a hard-left turn in suggesting that women are not to question the motives of their husband, and/or the location of their husbands if they chose to be late after work. Lastly, if husbands choose to
After WWII many economists predicted a recession in the American economy. It is easy to do so when at the peak of post war unemployment in March 1946 2.7 million searched for work. In 1945 people were laid off from their jobs. However, “ in 1945 the US entered one of its longest, steadiest, periods of growth and prosperity” (Norton 829). How could this be? With many new developments affecting the United State’s social and economic behavior, the wealth of the nation burgeoned. It is the extreme wealth of this society which supports and creates consumerism, the “Americans’ [increased] appetite for goods and services” (Norton 832). The automobile, television and rising personal income contributed to enhanced consumerism. The American economy in the 1950s is simply defined by increased output and increased demand. The primary economist of the 1950s was John Kenneth Galbraith. According to Galbraith’s The Affluent Society, the economy’s production proliferation in the 1950s created consumerism, forming a beneficial relationship that would serve each others’ needs.
The Consumers’ Republic began in 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt launched the New Deal to fix the American economy after the Great Depression. The New Deal allowed more government intervention to strategically invest in industries which created more production and jobs opportunities. The New Deal was slow to fix the Great Depression, but when World War II came into play in 1937 production was booming and many jobs were created due to the need for military production. This era, called the age of mass consumption or “The Golden Age of Capitalism”, revitalized the health of the American economy, but was also an ideological weapon in the political struggle of the Cold War era. The United States explained how the mass consumption of cars, new homes,
The bureaucratization of business in the 1920’s meant that more people could be employed in higher paying white-collar jobs than before, including, for the first time, housewives. This new income combined with the reduced prices for goods that resulted from mechanized production, assembly lines and a general decrease in the cost of technology created a thriving consumerist middle class that went on to fuel the economy in all sectors, especially the upper classes. Likewise, during World War II Americans saved up around 150 billion dollars, and this sum combined with the income of the GI Bill allowed normal people to buy expensive things, from houses to cars to electronics to education at a rapid rate, fueling the trademark prosperity of the 1950’s. The new automobile culture of the 50’s spawned new businesses that catered to mobile Americans, such as nicer and more standardized hotels like Holiday Inn, and drive-up restaurants like McDonalds. Just as the culture of the 1920’s was transformed by modernist ideas, the world of the 1950’s was reinvigorated by the introduction of the automobile to the middle class....
‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley is a science-fiction book in which people live in a futuristic society and a place called the World State. In ‘Brave New World’, Aldous Huxley used the idea of consumerism to describe the behaviors and lives of the citizens of the World State. The practice of consumerism by the people of the World State fulfilled their satisfactory and happiness. However, it also blinded purity and truth among its people. Different classes and different genders of people practiced different acts of consumerism such as consuming soma, technology and bodies. They sought happiness from them and eventually these acts became a social norm. However, these practices of consumerism also had side effects. It blinded truth such as
In Western Europe, after World War II, there was an economic boom due to the baby boomers and the need to advance the welfare of the countries that were affected by war. This caused a rift between the middle and lower class. Consumerism played an important role in the cultural and political changes after World War II.
During the post WWII period in America, the face of the nation changed greatly under the presidency of Truman and Eisenhower. America underwent another era of good feelings as they thought themselves undefeatable and superior over the rest of the world. Communism was the American enemy and American sought to rid the world of it. Because of the extreme paranoia caused by Communism, conformity became an ideal way to distinguish American Culture from the rest. Conformity became a part of every American Life to a large extent. It became evident through the medium of culture, society and politics throughout the era of the 50s.
In Don Delilo’s, White Noise different themes are displayed throughout the novel. Some themes are the fear of death, loss of identity, technology as the enemy, and American consumerism. The society represented in the novel views people as objects and emotionally detached from many things. Death is always in the air and trapped in peoples mind. The culture that’s represented in the novel adds to the loss of individualism, but also adds to the figurative death of the characters introduced in the novel.