An All Consuming Century or Ethical Issues in Business

An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America

Author: Gary Cross

The unqualified victory of consumerism in America was not a foregone conclusion. The United States has traditionally been the home of the most aggressive and often thoughtful criticism of consumption, including Puritanism, Prohibition, the simplicity movement, the '60s hippies, and the consumer rights movement. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, not only has American consumerism triumphed, there isn't even an "ism" left to challenge it. An All-Consuming Century is a rich history of how market goods came to dominate American life over that remarkable hundred years between 1900 and 2000 and why for the first time in history there are no practical limits to consumerism.

By 1930 a distinct consumer society had emerged in the United States in which the taste, speed, control, and comfort of goods offered new meanings of freedom, thus laying the groundwork for a full-scale ideology of consumer's democracy after World War II. From the introduction of Henry Ford's Model T ("so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one") and the innovations in selling that arrived with the department store (window displays, self service, the installment plan) to the development of new arenas for spending (amusement parks, penny arcades, baseball parks, and dance halls), Americans embraced the new culture of commercialism -- with reservations. However, Gary Cross shows that even the Depression, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the inflation of the 1970s made Americans more materialistic, opening new channels of desire and offering opportunities for more innovative and aggressive marketing. The conservative upsurge of the 1980s and '90s indulged in its ownbrand of self-aggrandizement by promoting unrestricted markets. The consumerism of today, thriving and largely unchecked, no longer brings families and communities together; instead, it increasingly divides and isolates Americans.

Consumer culture has provided affluent societies with peaceful alternatives to tribalism and class war, Cross writes, and it has fueled extraordinary economic growth. The challenge for the future is to find ways to revive the still valid portion of the culture of constraint and control the overpowering success of the all-consuming twentieth century.

Publishers Weekly

According to this absorbing cultural history of how Americans' personal and public identities have evolved in relationship with consumer goods, the battle between consumerism and anti-consumerism has been a defining struggle of 20th-century life. While Americans have always actively partaken in consumer culture, Cross (Kids' Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood) notes that there have also been equally strong movements and even aesthetic traditions that resist consumerism and materialism, ranging from Puritanism and strains of immigrant Catholicism to the 1960s counterculture and the simplicity movements exemplified by E.F. Schumacher's 1973 classic Small Is Beautiful and Ralph Nader's consumer rights work. Still, the ethos of commercialism won out by the end of the century. Deftly integrating the theoretical arguments of anti-consumerists (from Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class to Vance Packard's Hidden Persuaders) with a complex analysis of the history of U.S. buying and socializing patterns, Cross explains why. His provocative study investigates the Americanizing effect of amusement parks on immigrant identity in the early century; how the manufacture of the inexpensive radio promoted domesticity in the 1930s; and how the conflation of toys and fast food radically altered children's consumption patterns. While continually critiquing free market consumerism, Cross makes clear how consumerism shaped, and continues to shape, our lives today. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

The triumph of consumerism in 20th-century America has received mixed reviews, which indicates that this country's puritanical heritage has proved to be no match for the market forces dominating our contemporary life. Cross (history, Pennsylvania State Univ.) has written extensively about American society. His Kids' Stuff examined changes in children's toys, but this time he focuses on products and trends that appeal to adults, from the introduction of Henry Ford's Model T in 1908 to the current American love affair with bargain shopping. Cross asserts that even the Depression, the two world wars, and the counterculture of the Sixties did no lasting damage to the growth of commercialism. Exploring the economic causes of this triumph and documenting the social and environmental costs of America's desire for goods, Cross argues that consumerism diverts people from ethnic and class warfare. Even though his study is far more suggestive than conclusive, it will still nicely supplement other recent works on consumerism. Academic and large public libraries should consider.--Judy Solberg, George Washington Univ. Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Cross (history, Pennsylvania State U.) discusses how market goods came to dominate American life over the course of the 20th century and why today, for the first time in history, there are no practical limits to consumerism. He argues that the challenge of the next century will be to create rational limits to the overpowering success of the past consumption-driven century. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

Preface
1. The Irony of a Century
2. Setting the Course, 1900--1930
3. Promises of More, 1930--1960
4. Coping with Abundance
5. A New Consumerism, 1960--1980
6. Markets Triumphant, 1980--2000
7. An Ambiguous Legacy
Index

See also:

Ethical Issues in Business: A Philosophical Approach

Author: Thomas Donaldson

This widely used business ethics book begins by introducing students/readers to moral reasoning. A collection of readings and cases from both philosophical literature and business articles apply ethical theory to real-life business situations. Well-known scandals involving companies like Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Merrill Lynch, and Parmalat have increased public awareness of business ethics, underscored its importance, and ushered in a new era of increased corporate regulation and governance.

 

Now, more than ever, a student planning on entering the business world, and anyone working for a corporation, investing in stock, or even interacting with businesses will benefit from a basic understanding of business ethics.