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The Creation of Consumers
By the early 1920s, once we were starting to win the Industrial Revolution, a curious wrinkle had emerged. The astounding capacity of machinery to fill human needs had been so successful that economic activity was slowing down. Instinctively knowing they had enough, American workers were asking for a shorter workweek and more leisure to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Two sectors of American society were alarmed at this trend. The moralists, who had internalized the Protestant work ethic, believed that “idle hands do the devil’s work.” Leisure is debasing, they thought, leading at least to sloth, if not to the rest of the seven deadly sins. Industrialists also sounded the alarm. Reduced demand for factory output threatened to halt economic growth. Workers did not seem as instinctively eager to buy new goods and services (like cars, appliances, and entertainment) as they did the old ones (like food, clothing, and shelter). The alternative to growth, however, was seen not as maturity but as the precursor to the stagnation of civilization and the death of productivity. New markets were needed for the expanding cornucopia of goods that machines could turn out with such speed and precision and for the continued profit of the industrialists. And here’s the stroke of genius: These new markets would consist of the same populace, but the people would be educated to want not only what they needed but also new things that they…