Page 89 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

438 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of
natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently,

kind of personal passion that modern consumerism quick assimilation of many consumer interests. Depart-
could entail. Emotional definitions changed. Envy had ment stores began to mark the fashionable Ginza district
traditionally been criticized as a debasing emotion, but by in Tokyo by the 1890s.The same kinds of outlets showed
the late nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries it began up in Western-influenced Shanghai by the early twentieth
to be praised as a motivation for healthy consumerism. century. These geographical extensions of consumerism
Modern consumerism made many people uncomfort- were not automatic.Asian department stores often mixed
able, which is not surprising given the magnitude of traditional displays with Western-style consumerism.
change involved. From the late eighteenth century on- They offered concerts and other lures to demonstrate that
ward, criticism dogged the phenomenon. Religious au- consumerism was culturally acceptable. Even with this,
thorities objected to secularism—though by the late nine- many locals stayed away, convinced that there was noth-
teenth century some mainstream Christian groups came ing in these outlets that they wanted; and of course there
to terms with consumerism, noting that a good appear- was massive criticism of consumerism not only along the
ance was one of God’s blessings. Social critics of course lines already present in the West, but on grounds of its
attacked the presumptions of the lower classes and the debasing foreignness. As before, the spread of con-
weaknesses of women. Emile Zola’s novel Germinal was sumerism involved really new values, including an inter-
a long harangue against department stores and women’s est in challenging existing social lines and power
frailty, which distorted family budgets and led to ruin. structures, and the process did not occur overnight.
Medical authorities might get into the act, noting the bad The spread of consumerism also brought new possi-
health effects of too much indulgence (particularly, of bilities for protest.A number of boycotts developed, seek-
course, in food and drink). Socialists sometimes opposed ing to use denials of consumerism as a means of
consumerism in the name of purer proletarian tastes; but attacking foreign intervention or other issues.The Boston
sometimes they merely insisted that workers be given the Tea Party, before the American Revolution, was a con-
means to join in consumerism. Anticonsumerism was sumerist protest of sorts. By the 1920s Indian national-
also an element in anti-Semitism in Western Europe, with ists and others frequently used boycotts of foreign
Jews blamed for department stores and other lures to products to attack British imperialism, with some success.
depraved taste.While some of these reactions eased over African Americans employed boycotts in places like Bal-
time—there was less anticonsumerism in the West by the timore during the interwar period to protest racial injus-
later twentieth century—they remain a factor. tice. Boycotts were involved in attacks on apartheid in
South Africa in the 1980s. By this point, also, human
Global Consumerism rights groups frequently spurred boycotts against multi-
Modern consumerism began to spread beyond Western national companies accused of shoddy labor practices in
Europe during the nineteenth century.The United States Third World countries. Other kinds of consumer move-
followed European fashions in its imports of clothing and ments in the twentieth century sought protection against
food from the 1840s onward, though there had been fraud and poor quality.
some signs of consumerist interest earlier. The purchase
of watches in rural New York, in the 1820s, has been The Twentieth Century
traced to a desire to copy English fashion, only later lead- and Beyond
ing to an actual interest in keeping more accurate track of Consumerism intensified in the twentieth century.Again,
time. Department stores spread to major Russian cities both apparatus and motivation were involved. Advertis-
by the 1850s, indicating a new upper-class interest in styl- ing became slicker, using new imagery and technology
ish consumerism. Japan’s opening to the West involved and appealing more deeply to emotion. The first real