The barriers to a consumer society were therefore numerous and effective. To overcome them required changes in attitude and thought, changes in prosperity and standards of living, changes in commercial technique and promotional skills, sometimes changes even in the law itself. Above all it required the commercialization of society.

— Neil McKendrik, John Brewer, J.H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society, (Hutchinson, 1983)

McKendrick et al continue to also point out that these changes were more than just processes in the world of advertising and selling, fashion and credit; it importantly touched things like:

• Politics;
• Commercialization of leisure;
• of childhood;
• Invention and creation
• Economic, intellectual and social adjustments

The Campaign Began

In his book, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), Richard Robins describes that for the rise of consumerism in the United States to occur, buying habits had to be transformed and luxuries had to be made into necessities. He describes numerous ways in which this was accomplished :

• A major transformation in the meaning of goods and how they were presented and displayed. This included:
  • The evolution of the department store into a place to display goods as objects in themselves. Orchestras, piano players, flower arrangements, and so on would be used to “present goods in a way that inspired people to buy them. The department store became a cultural primer telling people how they should dress, furnish their homes, and spend their leisure time.” (p. 15, emphasis added)
  • Advertising was another “revolutionary development” to influence the creation of the consumer.
  • The idea of fashion would help in the “stirring up of anxieties and restlessness over the possession of things that were not ‘new’ or ‘up-to-date’. Fashion pressured people to buy not out of need but for style — from a desire to conform to what others defined as ‘fashionable.’”
  • Creation of, as well as improvement of service also helped. Customers were to be treated like guests. The adage of “the customer is always right” rings true here.

• A transformation of the major institutions of American society, each redefining its function to include the promotion of consumption.

• Workers had to be given buying power in order to be able to create a consumer economy. This was accomplished via things like
  • higher wages
  • expanding consumer credit. An effect of this credit was to increase consumer debt, while creating mass markets for consumer goods that stimulated economic growth.
    • 45 years ago, there were no credit cards in Britain.
    • The U.S. had introduced the world’s first credit card in the 1950s with dramatic success, allowing people to buy things that could not have been imagined before for some people.
    • But it was harder initially, to convince the British public into accepting the credit card. Anothony Snow, Account Director of Barclaycard (a leading bank and credit card company in U.K.) from 1965-70, was one of many who went to the U.S. to see how they did it, to try and apply it in the U.K. A number of things were attempted to break through the resistance. He described some examples:
      • In 1966, Barclays launched the Barclays Card, introduced as a “shopping card” rather than a credit card.
      • Barclays then aimed it at women to show they could shop wherever and whenever they wanted. This also would have an effect of breaking the mold of the husband of the household owning the money flow.
      • But the Bank’s agenda, the documentary said, was to make the shopping card a credit card, and so they extended the payback period.
      • It would be more profitable for the bank if people did not pay back in full immediately, but instead pay in smaller parts, because of the interest that would be added.
      • But in the 1960s the British government tried to stop it, though eventually relaxed their attempts because, as an internal memo revealed, there was a belief that such a significant amount of credit could never be involved as feared. (How wrong they would be!)
    • By the 80s well after credit restrictions were lifted, credit cards were well accepted with millions of customers rather than being looked upon negatively as in previous years.
    • Today most adults have a credit card in Britain.
    • But they also have an average of 6,400 British pounds (about 10,000 U.S. dollars) in credit card debts and loans, the highest in Europe. “Its what the critics feared; its what the bankers hoped for, though I don’t think anyone realized how far it would go,” commented Leslie Hannah, Chief Executive of Ashridge Management College.
    • By the 1970s shopping habits had been transformed by credit.
    • Recession at that time meant new techniques were needed to get people to consume.
      • One way was by major designer brand companies, formerly targetting exclusively to elites now started producing for the high street and for ordinary people.
      • Michael Gross, a New York fashion journalist commented that, “Designer products are to a certain extent, a con. But the con is that you are paying for the marketing.”
      • Calvin Klein jeans, for example, were really jeans contracted out and just given the CK label. Their Obsession fragrance was made by Unilever.
      • But brand loyalty is a hot selling device. “The triumph of designer labels is that most of us have almost unwittingly fallen into line. Whether it is mass market brands … or exlcusive brands … branding is now all pervasive” as the documentary highlighted.
      • “A huge reason why people buy designer clothes and crave designer labels is insecurity,” according to Alice Rawsthorn, Head of Design Museum, London. “Its very simple psychological way of somehow placating people or convincing them that they have bought the right thing so they don’t feel nervous about the symbols of consumption that they associate themselves with. it sort of gives them that guarantee that if Prada designed a certain type of clothing, Prada is the right look to have.”
      • “Aided by easier credit and seduced by the designer revolution, consumers in the 80s just couldn’t stop borrowing and spending,” continued the documentary. “With the ‘buy now pay later’ culture gethering pace, the economy had started to become increasingly sensitive to consumer behaviour. Sudden changes to spending could bring disaster.”
      • Alarmed by the boom, the government in the 80s was unable to put a tax on credit, that it wanted to do, due to political pressures, that it would be unpopular. With consumer spending soaring and risking the British economy over-heating the interest rates shot up to 15% at one point. The spending revolution bust for a while.
      • Consumer spending rose in the 90s. This time, the area was technology such as mobile phones. In just less than a decade the UK market for mobile phones had saturated. For the phone industry to survive, the documentary said, consumers today need to buy into the phones more often than their grandparents did the car.
      • “Speeded up obsolesence” is a phrase the documentary used where by the speed at which things get obsolete is so quick that this is to keep the cycle going.
      • In Britain, 1 million people are thought to have a serious shopping addiction. In the U.S., it is 5 million. “You’re urged to buy and you are urged to define yourself by what you have and what you can buy and what you own…. so I think it is a matter of some people being more vulnerable to this, than others,” said Dr. Lorrin Koran, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. “Its not just individuals who are addicted to shopping, our economy is too. Personal spending now plays a bigger and bigger role in keeping the modern economy going. And when things start going wrong, there is no magic pill. Governments rely on consumers to bail them out. There was a very real fear that September 11 would cause spenders to lose confidence and plunge the world into recession. ‘Keep spending’ was the plea. [The documentary showed the former New York mayor, Guliani urging people to spend, shortly after 9-11, in order to help the economy, as well as other ads of a similar nature]. So shopping is now the new patriotism. Keeping people spending has become the top economic priority.”
      • “The economic dream. We refuse to let anyone take it away. So GM announces interest free financing … ‘Keep America rolling’ says another documentary” as this documentary was concluding.
      • The documentary also highlighted the price that consumers may have paid. “In Britain, consumers fell happily into line. Spending soared, the economy prospered. But this new consumer boom, as in the 80s has been paid for by record borrowing. Now consumers, worried by debt and the Iraq war, have started to tighten their belts — the economy is paying the price. Up to now, Britain’s shopping obsession has helped keep the economy afloat, but it has meant huge personal debt.”

Around 2001, the issue of rising consumer debt in America was fairly constant news on the mainstream media, yet the habit of saving in comparison was rarely promoted!

On May 3, 2003, the Britain’s BBC aired a documentary titled “Spend Spend Spend” (a second of a three-part series, the first of which is mentioned further below). They looked at the issue of consumerism and credit, mostly in Britain, and is summarized here:

§ Side Note»»

Currently in many parts of the world, the level of consumption, in comparison is low. With “corporate-led” globalization, the fear is that these negative aspects of consumerism will be pushed throughout the world as well. What is not clear is the cultural resistance to this, and also how different cultures will also assimilate this with their own blend of consumerism, and whether or not the same problems would show up, or not, or if they would be different. Studies are slowly coming out on this aspect (some showing negative signs others showing signs of more choice and freedoms for people) and over time hopefully I will be able to highlight some of those here.

• There had to be a “change in spiritual and intellectual values from an emphasis on such values as thrift, modesty, and moderation, toward a value system that encouraged spending and ostentatious display.”

Hmmmm.  Does the name “Tammie Fay” ring a bell.