There’s also no doubt that advertising exploited the concept of goods as status symbol.
(Japan is notorious for things like the $500 steak dinner; and consuming the most expensive of everything, such as $500 scotch, because ostentatious display is a means of showing wealth and status.)
China has gone through a wave of industrialisation and consequent migration of workers to the cities and from a meagre subsistence economy to one of mass consumption driven by manufacturing. All this happened in the very recent past. Compare 1988 with 2018…a mere thirty years. The political changes in China that led to it embracing a market economy coincided with the container ship logistics revolution and allowed factories to be relocated wherever there was a container port.
This economic progression happened in the Europe, the US and Japan long ago. In each case it took an innovation and the right political environment to spur it on. The assembly line example of Henry Ford and its geographic distance from centres of conflict that devastated rival industrial economies made the US very rich in the post WW2 years. What do you do with all that manufacturing capacity,in peacetime? Making stuff for prosperous worker is an obvious direction to take. With a bit of marketing and built in obsolescence, you can stoke up the demand in peacetime.
The Chinese economy is now going through a similar transition, albeit in a more planned manner rather than the peacetime freeforall that happened in Europe and the US. Its manufactures make it prosperous and with that begets consumption. Some of it is conspicuous and vulgar. I daresay there is generation who regret the erosion of values that enabled people to survive in what was a wartime economy and live in rural poverty; that consider the Millennial generation to be weak and pathetically addicted to techno fripperies and have minds obsessed with puerile fashions driven by a life over-saturated by media.
Japan went through a similar transition when it rapidly industrialised after Commodore Perry’s visit. The old values were violently overturned and the Japanese rapidly industriailised to become a world power within a generation. Russia tried to do the same after the revolution, at huge cost. But they did not develop a market economy and that allowed industry to respond to consumer pressure in peacetime. They stuck with a centrally planned economy that makes sense only in wartime and suffered a stagnant economy as a consequence.
This economic progression seems to be a pattern that could be repeated anywhere as long as the political conditions strike the right balance between regulation and free trade. How developing countries deal with the transition will vary. It ended very badly in Europe and Japan, the industrial economies ended up slugging it out in devastating wars. The US fared somewhat better, being a long way from the bombers. However, the US has not used its economic power in the world wisely and found itself mired in expensive, damaging wars after WW2. We can only hope that emerging economic super powers like China have learnt something and do not repeat these mistakes. I expect it will be rather more concerned with reconciling its internal tensions.
A more interesting question is how this post industrial society will evolve. The most developed economies have made a transition to service based economies. No more metal bashing and manufacturing. We are all software people now. Or at least, some are. This has happened quite suddenly and the popular mindset is still conditioned by the experience of the industrial past and national economic rivalries that went with it. Current political trends are regressive and very worrying. The mass communication we are experiencing now is liberating, but it does not seem to be making us any wiser. Where will it take us? Our political leaders are rather more comfortable looking at the past rather than the future.
If you want to put a single name on it, try Alfred Sloan.
Sloan was the head of General Motors in the thirties. Prior to Sloan, carmakers like Ford focused on the manufacture of cars. Their goal was to build the best cars they could and they took it for granted customers would buy them.
Sloan looked at the sales end of the business instead of the production end. He set out to increase the demand for his cars rather than simply assuming people would buy them.
Sloan was the guy who came up with ideas like putting cosmetic changes in each year’s model so people could see what year a car had been made. He introduced planned obsolescence so cars would wear out and be replaced. He marketed cars to people at different levels of economic success so they would upgrade their car as they had more money. He wanted people who were buying a car to quickly start thinking about the next car they would buy. Sloan basically changed cars from something you bought once to something you bought a series of.
But consider that possessions as status symbol and ostentatious displays of wealth (as status) have always been a part of human behaviour, whether ancient potentates, West Coast Indian potlachs. Even in Roman times, a VIP displayed their importance by building public works for the masses - temples, baths, etc. The difference I guess is that mass production allowed the lesser individuals to also amass a large collection of goods to display their status. Advertising is simply a way to suggest that their products are a better display of status than competitors’. “New, new, new!” just meant that you had recently had the money to buy something, thus proving your good fortune (wealth, status) was up to date.
Odd things to list. They are mostly needs in most situations in the present. But. Do you need 1000 different styles of plumbing fixtures? Will that particular color of toilet elevate your status? We often replace things that are perfectly functional due to our training in consumption. This is current, be current. Impress your cohorts. If only in your imagination.
You should actually watch the doc. It describes how things that you may not really need are made to seem far more important to have. Mostly by playing on insecurities. One of the main people highlighted in the doc is Sigmund Freud’s relative. He was employed to use psychology in advertising.
I suppose that the industrial revolution and mass production played a large part in making consumerism viable to a larger portion of the populace. Things were made in ever greater numbers at cheaper unit prices. So it was viable for the more average to buy more. For producers to make more variations to more varied target buyers.
As the middle class came into being, along with better wages, more leisure time, more media / advertising penetration. Consumerism was ready to fill a developing hole. More money, more time. Fill it with purchases.
A continuing theme.
I meant need in the present. Not a time long ago. Even large ancient cities developed some sewage and local water systems. People in some areas need long distance transport to live a somewhat equal existence to those closer to the resources. In turn they often provide resources that are not local to others. Electricity? It is a beautiful thing. Currently made mostly by dirty means. It can distribute labor to one who produces value, work, art, by their mind. Electricity, water, food, waste removal / renewal, are so much the core of elevated society. Proper and wise distribution of these things can create the level playing field where more people in more places can contribute better to the whole. They are the circulatory system.
Blind consumerism is a waste of this system and it’s resources. We seem to be at a serious tipping point. We need to spend wiser. Money, resources, labor, time.
But in a way the too little regulated capitalist system is dragging us to the cusp. Massive debt at all levels. Consumerism may be strangled by it.
But alas. I fear a debt jubilee will instead be called. For a few. A semi jubilee for most. Just enough to let us carry on in our wasteful ways.
As generic commodities, the things you list can be argued to all confer reproductive advantage upon those who have access to them. Granite countertops, cars with paddle shifters, toy Van de Graff generators, and the iPhone 114S, not so much.
True. But historically, durability was considered a sign of value. Possessions bought as status symbols were meant to last; if you had to buy replacements for them a few years later people would take it as a sign that you had bought shoddy goods.