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HISTORY OF IDEAS - Consumerism - YouTube
Channel: The School of Life
[8]
for most of history the overwhelming
[10]
majority of the earth's inhabitants have
[13]
owned more or less nothing the clothes
[16]
they stood up in some bowls a pot and a
[18]
pan perhaps a broom and if things were
[21]
going really well a few farming
[23]
implements nations and peoples remained
[26]
consistently poor global gdp did not
[29]
grow at all from year to year the world
[31]
was in aggregate as hard up in 1800 as
[34]
it had been at the beginning of time
[36]
however starting in the early 18th
[38]
century in the countries of northwestern
[41]
europe a remarkable phenomenon occurred
[44]
economies began to expand and wages to
[47]
rise families who'd never before had any
[50]
money beyond what they needed just to
[51]
survive found they could go shopping for
[53]
small luxuries a comb or a mirror a
[56]
spare set of underwear a pillow some
[58]
thicker boots or a towel
[60]
their expenditure created a virtuous
[62]
economic cycle the more they spent the
[65]
more businesses grew the more wages rose
[68]
by the middle of the 18th century
[70]
observers recognize that they were
[71]
living through a period of epochal
[73]
change that historians have since
[75]
described as the world's first consumer
[78]
revolution it was in britain where the
[80]
changes were most marked enormous new
[82]
industries sprang up to cater for the
[84]
widespread demand for goods that had
[86]
once been the preserve of the very rich
[88]
alone in england cities you could buy
[91]
furniture from chippendale heppel white
[93]
and sheraton pottery from wedgwood and
[96]
derby cutlery from the smitherees of
[98]
sheffield and hats shoes and dresses
[100]
featured in the best-selling magazines
[102]
like the gallery of fashion and the
[104]
ladies magazine
[106]
styles for clothes and hair which had
[108]
formally gone unchanged for decades now
[110]
altered every year often in extremely
[112]
theatrical and impractical directions
[115]
in the early 1770s there was a craze for
[117]
decorated wigs so tall that tops could
[120]
only be accessed by standing on a chair
[122]
it was fun for the cartoonists so vivid
[125]
and numerous with the consumer novelties
[127]
that the austere dr johnson riley
[129]
wondered whether prisoners were also
[131]
soon to be hanged in a new way
[134]
the christian church looked on and did
[135]
not approve up and down england
[138]
clergymen delivered bitter sermons
[140]
against the new materialism they called
[142]
it vanity which was a sin
[145]
sons and daughters were to be kept away
[146]
from shops god would not look kindly on
[149]
those who paid more attention to
[150]
household decoration than the state of
[152]
their souls
[154]
but they now emerged an intellectual
[156]
revolution that sharply altered the
[158]
understanding of the role of vanity in
[160]
an economy in 1723 a london physician
[164]
called bernard mandeville published an
[166]
economic tract titled the fable of the
[168]
bees which proposed that contrary to
[171]
centuries of religious and moral
[173]
thinking what made countries rich and
[175]
therefore safe honest generous spirited
[178]
and strong was a very minor unelevated
[181]
and apparently undignified activity
[184]
shopping for pleasure it was the
[186]
consumption of what mandeville called
[188]
fripperies hats bonnets gloves butter
[191]
dishes soup terence shoehorns and hair
[193]
clips that provided the engine for
[195]
national prosperity and allowed the
[197]
government to do in practice what the
[199]
church only knew how to sermonize about
[201]
in theory make a genuine difference to
[204]
the lives of the weak and the poor the
[206]
only way to generate wealth argued
[208]
mandeville was to ensure high demand for
[210]
absurd and unnecessary things of course
[213]
no one needed embroidered handbags silk
[216]
line slippers or ice creams but it was a
[218]
blessing that they could be prompted by
[220]
fashion to want them for on the back of
[222]
demand for such trifles workshops could
[224]
be built apprentices trained and
[227]
hospitals funded mandeville shocked his
[229]
audience with the starkness of the
[231]
choice he placed before them a nation
[233]
could either be very high-minded
[234]
spiritually elevated intellectually
[237]
refined and dirt poor
[239]
or a slave to luxury and idle
[241]
consumption and very rich
[244]
mandeville's dark thesis went on to
[246]
convince almost all the great anglophone
[248]
economists and political thinkers of the
[249]
18th century
[251]
there were nevertheless some occasional
[253]
departures from the new economic
[254]
orthodoxy one of the most spirited and
[257]
impassioned voices was that of
[258]
switzerland's greatest philosopher
[260]
jean-jacques russo
[262]
shocked by the impact of the consumer
[263]
revolution on the manners and atmosphere
[265]
of his native geneva he called for a
[268]
return to a simpler older way of life of
[271]
the sword he had experienced in alpine
[273]
villages or read about in travellers
[275]
accounts of the native tribes of north
[276]
america
[277]
in the remote corners of appenzell or
[279]
the vast forests of missouri there was
[282]
blessedly no concern for fashion and no
[284]
one-upmanship around hair extensions
[287]
russo recommended closing geneva's
[289]
borders and imposing crippling taxes on
[291]
luxury goods so that people's energies
[293]
could be redirected towards non-material
[296]
values
[297]
he looked back with fondness to the
[299]
austere martial spirit of sparta however
[302]
even if russo disagreed with mandeville
[304]
he did not seek to deny the basic
[306]
premise behind his analysis it truly
[308]
appeared to be a choice between
[310]
decadent consumption and wealth on the
[312]
one hand and virtuous restraint and
[314]
poverty on the other it was simply that
[317]
russo unusually preferred virtue to
[320]
wealth
[321]
the parameters of this debate have
[323]
continued to dominate economic thinking
[325]
ever since we re-encounter them in
[327]
ideological arguments between
[328]
capitalists and communists and free
[330]
marketeers and environmentalists but for
[333]
most of us the debate is no longer
[334]
pertinent we simply accept that we will
[337]
live in consumer economies with some
[339]
very unfortunate side effects to them
[341]
crass advertising foodstuffs that are
[343]
unhealthy for us products that are
[345]
disconnected from any reasonable
[346]
assessment of our needs all this in
[348]
exchange for economic growth and high
[351]
employment we have chosen wealth over
[354]
virtue
[355]
an irony laden acceptance of this
[357]
dichotomy is what underpins the approach
[359]
of many pop artists in mid-20th century
[362]
america for example kleis oldenburg
[365]
developed a reputation for taking modest
[367]
consumer items many of them food-related
[369]
and reproducing them at enormous scale
[372]
usually in outdoor settings in vibrant
[374]
polyester or vinyl in city squares where
[377]
one might once have expected to find
[378]
statues in honour of political leaders
[380]
or religious saints one now came across
[383]
outsized hamburgers giant cheesecakes
[385]
huge fries decked with ketchup or
[388]
perhaps oldenburg's most famous work a
[390]
12 meter high stainless steel inverted
[392]
ice cream cone oldenburg's vast versions
[395]
of small things playfully directed our
[397]
attention to the peculiar dependence of
[399]
modern economies on the mass consumption
[402]
of what are in human terms some deeply
[405]
negligible products yet the scale of
[407]
oldenberg's objects was only
[409]
superficially absurd because it rather
[412]
precisely reflected their actual
[414]
importance in our collective economic
[416]
destinies nevertheless as oldenburg
[418]
seemed to concede it was peculiar to be
[421]
living in a civilization founded on the
[423]
back of buns and sweetened tomato paste
[426]
a bathhouse hinted at by the deflated
[428]
detumescent appearance of many of the
[430]
giant burgers hot dogs and pizzas
[433]
the one question that's rarely been
[435]
asked is whether there might be a way to
[437]
attenuate the dispiriting choice to draw
[439]
on the best aspects of consumerism on
[441]
the one hand and high-mindedness on the
[444]
other without suffering there were sides
[447]
moral decadence and profound poverty
[450]
might it be possible for a society to
[451]
develop that allows for consumer
[453]
spending and therefore provides
[455]
employment and welfare yet of a kind
[457]
directed at something other than
[458]
vanities and superfluities
[461]
might we shop for something other than
[463]
nonsense in other words might we have
[465]
wealth and a degree of virtue it is this
[469]
possibility of which we find some
[470]
intriguing hints in the work of adam
[473]
smith an 18th century economist too
[475]
often read as a blunt apologist for all
[478]
aspects of consumerism but in fact one
[481]
of its more subtle and visionary
[482]
analysts in his book the wealth of
[484]
nations published in 1776 adam smith
[487]
seems at points willing to concede to
[490]
key aspects of mandeville's argument
[492]
consumer societies do help the poor by
[494]
providing employment based around
[496]
satisfying what are often rather
[499]
sub-optimal purchases smith was as ready
[502]
as other economists to mock the
[504]
triviality of some consumer choices
[506]
while admiring their consequences all
[508]
those embroidered lace handkerchiefs
[511]
dual snuff boxes and miniature temples
[513]
made of cream for dessert they were
[515]
flippant he conceded but they encouraged
[517]
trade created employment and generated
[520]
immense wealth and could therefore be
[522]
firmly defended on this score alone
[524]
however smith held out some fascinating
[527]
hopes for the future he pointed out that
[529]
consumption didn't invariably have to
[531]
involve the trading of frivolous things
[534]
he had seen the expansion of the
[536]
edinburgh book trade and knew how large
[538]
a market higher education might become
[541]
he understood how much wealth was being
[542]
accumulated through the construction of
[544]
edinburgh's extremely handsome and noble
[547]
newtown he understood that humans have
[549]
many higher needs that require a lot of
[551]
labor and intelligence and work to
[553]
fulfill but that lie outside of
[555]
capitalist enterprise as conceived of by
[558]
realists like bernard mandeville among
[560]
these our need for education for
[563]
self-understanding for beautiful cities
[565]
and for rewarding social lives the
[567]
ultimate goal of capitalism and adam
[569]
smith's view was to tackle happiness in
[572]
all its complexities psychological and
[575]
not just merely material
[577]
the capitalism of our times still hasn't
[579]
entirely come round to resolving the
[582]
awkward choices that bernard mandeville
[584]
and joshua rousseau circled but the
[586]
crucial hope for the future is that we
[588]
may not forever need to be making money
[590]
off rather exploitative silly or vain
[593]
consumer appetites that we may also
[595]
learn to generate enormous profits from
[598]
helping people as consumers and
[600]
producers in the truly important and
[602]
ambitious aspects of their lives the
[605]
reform of capitalism hinges on an odd
[607]
sounding but critical task a new kind of
[610]
consumerism the conception of an economy
[613]
focused around buying and selling
[615]
services and goods focused on our higher
[618]
needs
[641]
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