Juliet Schor

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Juliet Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College, currently is studying trends in environmental sustainability, consumerism, and the relationship between work and family. She is a cofounder of South End Press, the Center for Popular Economics, and the Center for a New American Dream. Schor is a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, and her awards have included the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language from the National Council of Teachers of English. Her books include The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need (1998), Do Americans Shop Too Much? (2000), Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (2004), Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth (2010), and The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (1992), from which this reading is taken. Here, Schor examines Americans’ increasing material wealth and questions the assumption that it leads to greater fulfillment. After reading the essay, answer the critical reading questions that follow.

AS YOU READ: How does Schor connect material prosperity and unhappiness?

1

There is no doubt that the growth of consumption has yielded major improvements in the quality of life. Running water, washing machines, and electrical appliances eliminated arduous, often backbreaking labor. Especially for the poor women who not only did their own housework, but often someone else’s as well, the transformation of the home has been profoundly liberating. Other products have also enhanced the quality of life. The compact disc raises the enjoyment of the music lover; the high-performance engine makes the car buff happy; and the fashion plate loves to wear a designer suit.

2

But when we add up all the items we consume, and consider the overall impact, rather than each in isolation, the picture gets murkier. The farther we get from the onerous physical conditions of the past, the more ambiguous are the effects of additional commodities. The less “necessary” and more “luxurious” the item, the more difficult it is automatically to assume that consumer purchases yield intrinsic value.

3

In an era when the connections between perpetual growth and environmental deterioration are becoming more apparent, with the quality of public life declining in many areas (public safety, decline of community, failing education system), shouldn’t we at least step back and re-examine our commitment to ever-greater quantities of consumer goods? Do Americans need high-definition television, increasingly exotic vacations, and climate control in their autos? How about hundred-dollar inflatable sneakers, fifty-dollar wrinkle cream, or the ever-present (but rarely used) stationary bicycle? A growing fraction of homes are now equipped with jacuzzis (or steam showers) and satellite receivers. Once we take the broader view, can we still be so sure that all these things are really making us better off?

4

We do know that the increasing consumption of the last forty years has not made us happier. The percentage of the population who reported being “very happy” peaked in 1957, according to two national polls. By the last years these polls were taken (1970 and 1978), the level of “very happy” had not recovered, in spite of the rapid growth in consumption during the 1960s and 1970s. Similar polls taken since then indicate no revival of happiness.1

5

Despite the fact that possessions are not creating happiness, we are still riding the consumer merry-go-round. In fact, for some Americans the quest for material goods became more intense in the last decade: according to the pollster Louis Harris, “by the mid-1980s, the American people were far more oriented toward economic growth and materialism than before. Most significant, young people were leading the charge back to material values” (148).

6

Materialism has not only failed to make us happy. It has also bred its own form of discontent—even among the affluent. Newspaper and magazine articles chronicle the dissatisfaction. One couple earning $115,000 tallied up their necessary expenses of $100,000 a year and complained that “something’s gone terribly wrong with being ‘rich’” (Hewitt). An unmarried Hollywood executive earning $72,000 worried about bouncing checks: “I have so much paid for by the studio—my car, my insurance, and virtually all food and entertainment—and I’m still broke.” Urbanites have it especially hard. As one New York City inhabitant explained, “It’s incredible, but you just can’t live in this city on a hundred thousand dollars a year” (Tobias 24). According to the New York Times, the fast lane is not all it’s cracked up to be, and Wall Streeters are “Feeling Poor on $600,000 a Year.” “When the Joneses they are keeping up with are the Basses...$10 million in liquid capital is not rich” (Kroeger).

7

Whatever we think of these malcontents—whether we find them funny, pathetic, or reprehensible—we must acknowledge that these feelings are not confined to those in the income stratosphere. Many who make far less have similar laments. Douglas and Maureen Obey earn $56,000 a year—an income that exceeds that of roughly 70 percent of the population (Mishel 25). Yet they complain that they are stretched to the breaking point. Douglas works two jobs “to try to keep it all together....I feel I make a fairly good income that should afford a comfortable life style, but somehow it doesn’t....[I’m] in hock up to my eyeballs.” The Obeys own their home, two cars, a second rental property, and a backyard pool (Coakley 1).

8

Complaints about life style have been particularly loud among the baby-boom generation. One writer explained a state of mind shared by many in her generation: she was convinced she would not achieve the comfortable middle-class life style enjoyed by her parents (four-bedroom house, two-car garage, private schools for the children, and cashmere blankets at the bottom of the beds): “I thought bitterly of my downward mobility...and [had] constant conversations with myself about wanting...a new couch, a weekend cottage, a bigger house on a quieter street” (Butler 34). Eventually she realized that more money was not the answer. Her needs were satisfied. As she acknowledged: “Discontent was cheating me of the life I had” (37).

Credit: Schor, Juliet. “The Creation of Discontent.” Copyright © 1992 by Juliet B. Schor. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

Works Cited

Butler, Katy. “The Great Boomer Bust.” Mother Jones June 1989: 32–38. Print.

Coakley, Tom. “One Couple’s Lament Captures Anti-tax Mood.” Boston Globe 2 Feb. 1990: 1. Print.

Harris, Louis. Inside America. New York: Vintage, 1987. Print.

Hewitt, Paul S. “Something’s Gone Terribly Wrong with Being ‘Rich.’” Los Angeles Herald Tribune 7 Jan. 1989. Print.

Kroeger, Brooke. “Feeling Poor on $600,000 a Year.” New York Times 26 Apr. 1987. Print.

Mishel, Lawrence, and David Frankel. The State of Working America. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1991. Print.

Niemi, Richard G., John Mueller, and Tom W. Smith. Trends in Public Opinion: A Compendium of Survey Data. New York: Greenwood, 1989. Print.

Tobias, Andrew. “Getting by on $100,000 a Year.” Esquire 23 May 1978: 24. Print.

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