An All-Consuming Century

Rating:
Summary: Consumerism Hurts
Review: Anybody who thinks we do not live in a consumer society has either slept for the past fifty years or has something wrong with their heads. What many people do not realize is how ingratiating consumerism is, how it worms its invidious head into every facet of our existence. It is getting to the point where it seems we exist solely as receptacles for useless products. This is where Gary Cross's book, "An All-Consuming Century" comes into the picture. This is a truly eye-opening book, full of deep insights into this sickness currently ailing our society.

Cross's most cogent claim is that consumerism is the "ideology" that toppled all the other -isms of the 20th century. At the dawn of the new millennium, consumerism alone stands on the corpses of fascism, socialism, and communism. Even capitalism (or democracy, whichever you prefer) stumbles in the face of consumerism. It makes no difference which system stands up to consumerism; they all topple in the face of this colossus.

Cross attempts to prove his point by showing how, time and time again, consumerism always rises above adversity. In the early 20th century, America faced an enormous influx of immigrants from dozens of countries, all of them speaking dozens of different languages. No problem, as consumerism acted as an integrating system bringing all these people together. There may be a Yiddish speaker, a Frenchman, and a Pole in the same room without any recourse for conversation, but all three of them recognize that bottle of Coke sitting on the table. Cross argues that consumerism allowed disparate people to overcome linguistic, cultural, and class issues while making them Americans. Going even further, consumerism allowed people to define themselves in terms of products.

The Great Depression and World War II certainly offered a stiff blow to consumerism and its proponents. Or did it? Not according to Cross, who argues that the expansion of credit buying, installment plans, and advertising allowed consumerism to not only survive, but to learn how to expand its reach in lean times. World War II, which followed the Depression, also served to bolster consumerism. The use of rationing coupons contributed to a national sense of delayed gratification. Once the war was won, people would once again indulge in the sweet fruits of shopping. Moreover, the primary role of government began to move towards the promotion of consumerism by claiming that a multitude of goods were an important sign of the triumph of democracy and capitalism.

Even the 1960's counterculture movement, with its rabid mania for anti-consumerism, quickly became co-opted by consumerism. The Hippy lifestyle was a marketable commodity, as was the protest music culture. Those who promoted an individual lifestyle quickly discovered consumerism adjusting its herd marketing of the 1950's to the individual's taste. Niche marketing began appearing everywhere, as did products designed for individual use. In the 1950's, families used their products together, as a group. From the 1960's onward, Junior might watch TV in his room while sister Sally listened to records in her room on her brand new record player. Following this to its logical conclusion, the personal computer and Internet is the acme of this movement towards individual consumption. The implications of this type of consumerism should be clear to everyone: less participation in politics, less volunteering, and less activity within society.

According to Cross, consumerism rolls roughshod over every attempt to bring sanity to our buy crazy culture. Moral, intellectual, economic, and sociological arguments all failed to put the brakes on consumerism. All these arguments (Cross calls them jeremiads) failed because consumerism appeals to humanity's basest element, desire. People in a land of plenty do not want to curb their appetites. When the Joneses down the street pick up the latest model, they want one too.

About the only problem I had with this book concerns the chapter on Reagan. I am certainly no Reaganite, but it is obvious Cross is a liberal. His arguments about Reagan opening markets wide open while opposing the moral consequences of doing so are convincing, but his tone towards republicans grates. Leave the bias at the door, Mr. Cross!

This is a brilliantly conceived book, required reading for those who think sitting in front of the television set for eight hours a day is a good thing. I would like to make this required reading for everyone in America, but I do not think most people would put down their DVD's, Gameboys, and celebrity magazines in order to read the book. That, I fear, is a loss for all of us.

Rating:
Summary: he is my history prof
Review: dude you should give me an a for buying your book it is great

Rating:
Summary: Excellent history of consumerism; some disagreements
Review: It is not easy for me to review this book about consumerism. The subject is far more complex than its critics admit. Mr. Cross's book underscores this point very well, though in the end I feel that he overstates this (see last paragraph).

I am an unabashed critic of consumerism, its banality, its lowest common denominator mentality, and yet as an American with sufficient funds I can certainly buy anything I want to, what little that is these days. I do feel grateful that I live in a society where there is such an abundance it is beyond belief. I sometimes wonder what the availability of the things I do want would be if the capitalist machine, which has created and sustained this overabundance of "things" and services, did not function so efficiently.

Far more importantly, I have seen and read about societies in which people do not even have enough to eat, where their basic psychological needs are not met. Such peoples are not in a position to philosophize about which is the best economic system, or what is the meaning and value of life. I have always felt some guilt about this in addition to gratitude.

Mr. Cross has written a book that very well documents the spectacular rise of consumerism in American in the 20th century. "The All-Consuming Century" is very scholarly yet is also quite accessible. The author brings out a number of penetrating points that I feel are worthy of consideration and discussion by anyone who is interested and concerned about consumerism. For example, he claims that consumerism has been a powerful force for democratization, "creating social solidarities," allowing for participation by widely different groups of people, thus facilitating in a way different kinds of unities.

The author shows many contradictions with consumerism, which is why the topic is so complex. To give several examples, consumer goods have excused people from the pain and "humiliation" of exposing who they really are publicly because they can simply buy their way into communities of like-minded consumers. Yet at the same time they perhaps avoid realizing *who* they really are! Consumerism has at once provided the opportunity for people to express their individuality and gain privacy in homes with their own possessions, yet at the same time media (TV and movies) have actually atomized people. Automobiles certainly have provided tremendous freedom, yet the experience itself is essentially limited and homogenized. Perhaps the standardization of experience was true when cars were first mass produced, and not so much today.

While I did enjoy the thorough history of 20th century consumerism I did find the details to be very excessive: the chapter "Promises of More" was particularly uninteresting for me because it seemed to be nothing more than the details of consumerism with little analysis. I did find it surprising that even during the depression consumerism did not diminish nearly as much as I would have expected, which certainly brings home the point that people want things, rewards for their hard work, and they do identify with their possessions.

My favorite two chapters of the book were the final two. The first covers the period when capitalism really moved into high gear from 1980-2000, where the author makes the very cogent point that the Reagan Right criticized the lack of values and morality in society, while at the same time opened up markets to the maximum, practically w/o restraint, and saw no conflict! The final chapter is a very good summary of the book with some advice on how we can perhaps moderate consumerism. which the author feels is unsustainable in the long term. The author states that it is not an easy matter to constrain consumerism because it operates so efficiently, because people want goods, and because there is no mass phenomena that can successfully challenge this "machine." He does call for a balance, but I felt that it was a shame that he waited until the second-to-last page to state this magic word, balance! For in my view there is no solution to gross consumerism except for 1) an economic collapse, or 2) finding a balance between consuming and enjoying non-material things.

Who is define the balance between consuming and not consuming is clearly a personal matter, and that is why I feel that each of us has to decide for ourselves, rather than assuming that some societal program will come about to provide the answers. Most institutions are in complete disrepute these days, and perhaps rightfully so. Also, unfortunately the author barely mentions that Americans especially are almost totally co-opted by the hegemony of corporations's endless greed for profits, which has created a system where few get more than a week or two of vacation, and thus have little time to express

themselves any other way than through what they consume. I felt that his comments about the failure of the "jeremiad" against consumerism by such authors as Vance Packard (whose "old" books are not dated) were incorrect. These authors accurately pointed out the simple truth that long ago powerful interests created a "totalitarianism" of materialism, and their books still ring largely true in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Accessibly academic, very interesting.
Review: The struggle between consumerism and anti-consumerism in America is not a recent phenomenon. In fact, the United States has hosted numerous movements critical of consumption: Puritanism, Prohibition, the simplicity movement, the hippies of the 1960s and the Nader's consumer rights movement. Still, few will deny that American consumerism has emerged a triumphant force. In this book, Cross analyzes the growth of materialism and consumerism in America, and examines the history of U.S. spending and socilizing patterns. Unfortunately, while products once brought people together (think of how the radio promoted domesticity and family time in the 1930s,) Cross believes that today's thriving consumerism is dividing and isolating Americans. "Americans have to bear a terrible responsibility for perfecting twentieth-century consumerism," Cross writes. What we must do now is "find ways to control the overpowering success of our past all-consuming century." Fortunately, this book's got plenty of suggestions for how to do just that. I found An All-Consuming Century accessibly academic, well-rooted in history and fact, but still a very interesting read. Highly recommended to those interested in critiquing American consumer culture.