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In her book A Consumers Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Lizabeth Cohen douses the exuberance in a sobering shower of social history. Where the view of postwar consumerism is that we were coming together as one nation under tailing, push buttons and broadcast TV, Cohen asserts that in more important respects we were actually moving farther apart. Lizabeth Cohens thoroughly given research is a readable history on consumerism, and how it came to be such a force and part of our lives in America. Cohen bases her views mostly on an analysis of her home state of New Jersey, but she could be writing about anywhere in these United States of Generic. The explosive growth in the 50 s of the consumer market in New Jersey and elsewhere in the nation pushed many economic totals to new highs. But socially, politically and even physically, the American landscape became more divided along lines of class, race and gender.
Fueling this process was the increasing privatization of all aspects of American life. Consumer movements have long flourished in America, Cohen maintains, most notably in the muckraking of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries (which resulted in federal standards for food and drugs) and the cost-of-living protests and buy where you can work boycotts of the Great Depression. Cohen argues that mass culture and consumption standardized American life in the 1920 s. What changed in the Consumers Republic was the shift in emphasis from the citizen consumer to the purchaser consumer.
The first represented the public interest, the second the marketplace. The first had rights, the second demographics. The story of the Consumer Republic is the story of the rise of the suburbs, where the majority of Americans now live, work and shop. Henry Ford predicted the demise of the urban environment earlier in the 20 th century when he said, The city is doomed.
We will solve the problem by leaving the city. The private automobile provided the means of transportation, but government literally and figuratively paved the way. Federal subsidies for highway construction and home mortgages gave many urban dwellers the physical and financial means to escape the perceived troubles of the city. At the local level, zoning rules for developing residential subdivisions and shopping centers broke up the mass public and erected strict boundaries of class and race. Ground zero of the Consumers Republic was the single-family house. Its division of labor consisted of Dad as chief executive and treasurer, Mom as the manager of operations and the kids as the productive output.
There was also the plethora of goods and services of the domestic economy, from appliances, furnishings and maintenance supplies to the daily consumables, clothing and personal effects of each family member to the vehicles needed for work and play and so on. These items were duplicated in every home in every neighborhood in America, all the responsibility of the individual homeowner. The perfect metaphor of self-reliance in the Consumers Republic was the home fallout shelter, where each family became accountable for its own survival in the event of nuclear holocaust. And not surprisingly, these facilities were most often built in suburban areas by people with middle-class incomes and above, who had the space and money for them. Where Cohen really excels is showing how social, economic and political forces came together in the Consumers Republic.
After the Second World War, converting back to the peacetime economy meant also reestablishing the dominance of the mostly white men coming home from service. The nuclear family was promoted as the fundamental social and economic unit, tightening gender roles that the wartime economy had loosened. Programs such as the GI Bill and VA loans worked to men's advantage, especially for those originally from more privileged backgrounds. The income tax code and lending guidelines further concentrated financial power in the hands of men. (What we now call the marriage penalty started out as a bonus given to predominantly male head-of-household taxpayers to subsidize their nuclear families; married women did not have legal access to credit ratings independent of their husbands until the Fair Credit Act was passed in the 70 s. ) Homeowners associations and shopping center security policies kept out undesirables, typically the poor and blacks. Moving into the 60 s, market segmentation techniques began to slice and dice the population into even smaller groups, spilling over into the special interest politics we know today. As an outgrowth of Cohens New Deal research, this book seems intent on representing the Consumers Republic as a missed opportunity for furthering the social welfare agenda that arose between the two World Wars.
Hence, little space is devoted to how the stage was set for the postmodern condition in which we live. Cohen recognizes that production practices shifted around the 70 s, as Third World sweatshops began supplying designer jeans, Nike running shoes and other consumer items to the First World. But her claim that growing income disparity in the US simply prompted marketers to move upscale and abandon the mass market isnt entirely accurate. Census Bureau statistics from the 70 s show that personal consumption continued almost unabated across the board even though real incomes dropped.
These consumption levels were maintained by the entry of more women into the workforce (typically in working-class occupations) and the expansion of unsecured debt, primarily higher revolving credit card balances. This legacy lives on today. Still, this doesnt negate Cohens basic thesis so much as show that theres plenty of grist for grinding out the next chapter of the story.
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Research essay sample on Lizabeth Cohen On Mass Consumption In America
