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Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
Americans can no longer spend their way out
By Greg Cusack |
June 11, 2010, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
"WE do not usually associate US citizens with overwork, or time poverty," Wan Lixin began his excellent article, "Plague of consumption stems from ills of consumption," (May 8, Shanghai Daily).
"... By holding up materially encumbered life as the only kind worth pursuing," he continued, "Americans are ... starting a global race for high, and higher, standards of living. In doing so they are also exporting such by-products as overwork, poverty, time poverty, 'affluenza,' and stress."
This disease actually began many decades ago.
Following the end of World War II the United States entered a period of peace and prosperity that helped many of us who were young in the '50s and '60s to believe that practically anything could be attained if we only worked hard enough.
In that long-ago time, we did not desire physical things as much as justice and peace. (Of course, in a time of unprecedented peacetime prosperity, we of the large middle class also had our transistor radio and stereo systems!)
The introductory words of the Students for a Democratic Society's (SDS) Port Huron Statement of 1962 still inspire: "Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people - these American values we found good, principles by which we could live ....
"[However,] we began to see complicated and disturbing paradoxes in our surrounding America. The declaration 'all men are created equal ...' rang hollow before the facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North. The proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War status quo."
Looking back, it is ironic that this same period, which fueled such idealism also significantly increased the manic consumption of ever more things. The Arab embargo of oil in the early 1970s should have triggered a "wake-up call" for us, but few were apparently listening.
Instead, within a few years we had the siren song of Ronald Reagan, serenading Americans with the words most dearly wanted to hear: "It is morning in America." Doubts be damned; full speed ahead: unleash the economy!
Even before the tragic evil of September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers in New York were destroyed, fundamental weaknesses in both the economic and spiritual lives of Americans were becoming evident. People were no longer striving to get "ahead." They were working frantically just to keep up!
From 1975 to 2009, the cost of living almost quadrupled, while the median household income rose only 39 percent (from US$48,282 to US$67,609) in that same period (1975-2007)
This first decade of the 21st century also saw wild market swings, an exploding housing bubble, widespread deep indebtedness, and declining purchasing power for most US citizens. And this was all before the banking-caused disaster (still far from over), which hit in 2008.
In the current Great Recession, middle-income men have been hit hard. The male unemployment rate is at or near the post World War II high. While overall unemployment remains at 9.7 percent (the highest in 30 years), more men (9.8 percent) than women (8.1 percent) are out of work, and the disparity by race is worse, with far more blacks and Hispanics unemployed.
How this will all play out is hard to forecast. The American economy is sputtering; relatively few "new" jobs are being created and far too many people remain out of work.
Many of them - the long unemployed (for more than a year) and the older - are coming to recognize that they may never find employment again.
Will the old "answer" of even higher consumption help us out of this mess? It is neither desirable nor probable.
All of this contributes substantially to the deep unease among the American people, and this is fueling anger and desperation to "change" things, in the hope that new people in positions of power might find new answers to these persisting woes.
Until we rediscover our deep interconnectedness to our environment, and to each other, I cannot see a happy outcome in the near future. Should we be able to do so, however, it would truly be a new "morning in America!"
(The author was a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives. He also served in the Iowan executive branch. He retired in 2004.)
"... By holding up materially encumbered life as the only kind worth pursuing," he continued, "Americans are ... starting a global race for high, and higher, standards of living. In doing so they are also exporting such by-products as overwork, poverty, time poverty, 'affluenza,' and stress."
This disease actually began many decades ago.
Following the end of World War II the United States entered a period of peace and prosperity that helped many of us who were young in the '50s and '60s to believe that practically anything could be attained if we only worked hard enough.
In that long-ago time, we did not desire physical things as much as justice and peace. (Of course, in a time of unprecedented peacetime prosperity, we of the large middle class also had our transistor radio and stereo systems!)
The introductory words of the Students for a Democratic Society's (SDS) Port Huron Statement of 1962 still inspire: "Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people - these American values we found good, principles by which we could live ....
"[However,] we began to see complicated and disturbing paradoxes in our surrounding America. The declaration 'all men are created equal ...' rang hollow before the facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North. The proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War status quo."
Looking back, it is ironic that this same period, which fueled such idealism also significantly increased the manic consumption of ever more things. The Arab embargo of oil in the early 1970s should have triggered a "wake-up call" for us, but few were apparently listening.
Instead, within a few years we had the siren song of Ronald Reagan, serenading Americans with the words most dearly wanted to hear: "It is morning in America." Doubts be damned; full speed ahead: unleash the economy!
Even before the tragic evil of September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers in New York were destroyed, fundamental weaknesses in both the economic and spiritual lives of Americans were becoming evident. People were no longer striving to get "ahead." They were working frantically just to keep up!
From 1975 to 2009, the cost of living almost quadrupled, while the median household income rose only 39 percent (from US$48,282 to US$67,609) in that same period (1975-2007)
This first decade of the 21st century also saw wild market swings, an exploding housing bubble, widespread deep indebtedness, and declining purchasing power for most US citizens. And this was all before the banking-caused disaster (still far from over), which hit in 2008.
In the current Great Recession, middle-income men have been hit hard. The male unemployment rate is at or near the post World War II high. While overall unemployment remains at 9.7 percent (the highest in 30 years), more men (9.8 percent) than women (8.1 percent) are out of work, and the disparity by race is worse, with far more blacks and Hispanics unemployed.
How this will all play out is hard to forecast. The American economy is sputtering; relatively few "new" jobs are being created and far too many people remain out of work.
Many of them - the long unemployed (for more than a year) and the older - are coming to recognize that they may never find employment again.
Will the old "answer" of even higher consumption help us out of this mess? It is neither desirable nor probable.
All of this contributes substantially to the deep unease among the American people, and this is fueling anger and desperation to "change" things, in the hope that new people in positions of power might find new answers to these persisting woes.
Until we rediscover our deep interconnectedness to our environment, and to each other, I cannot see a happy outcome in the near future. Should we be able to do so, however, it would truly be a new "morning in America!"
(The author was a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives. He also served in the Iowan executive branch. He retired in 2004.)
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