Quote Originally Posted by Fred View Post
Four part documentary by the BBC on the evolution of methods of influence of public behavior by governments and corporations since the 1920s.

The Century of the Self - Part I (1 hr)

The Century of the Self - Part II (1 hr)

The Century of the Self - Part III (1 hr)

The Century of the Self - Part IV (1 hr)
The birth of consumerism is a fascinating story. This is the first thing I've seen that made me really thankful for internet video. Great archival footage here.

When considering the course of our economy since the float of the dollar, the most relevant material in the series is in Part III. This provides an explanation for the consumer boom and economic recovery of 1982. Understanding the psychology of the time is at least as important as Reagan's supply-side economics.

Starting at about minute 36:00, here is where the narrator (Adam Curtis) discusses the transformation of the young leftists after 1968. Many individuals who led the marches in Chicago, soon became less interested in changing the system, and began to focus on their own happiness and self-realization in the mid 1970s. People embraced the project of developing themselves more fully. ("Socialism in one person . . . although that of course is capitalism.")

More broadly, the idea of "be yourself" was born, and spread rapidly through the middle class, young adult baby boomers. The question each person began to ask was, how can I express myself?

Consumer goods manufacturers needed to tap into this mentality, because their old methods weren't working on this generation. They strove to provide the answers to that now fundamental question, how can I express myself? The question opened up the relationship between consumer and corporation, as new wants and needs were defined, measured, and satisfied by a vast array of new, improved, and customized products. This was the solution to the stagflation of the 1970s.

Later, in Part IV, Adam Curtis focuses on the use of these ideas by Ronald Reagan to appeal to many Democrats.

I'd like to digress for a moment and relate this 1980 psychological transformation to something I remember from Kevin Phillips' Wealth and Democracy. Phillips quotes Kindleberger, on how this transformation changed our economy:

Much of the money individuals received from the 1981–86 reductions of the top income tax bracket from 70 percent to 28 percent, said Kindleberger, "seems to have been spent on consumption: second and third houses, travel, luxury apparel, cars, jewelry, yachts and the like, rather than being saved and invested. Some savings were held in liquid form to take advantage of 'investment' opportunities in funds for mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, or arbitrage in the securities of companies possibly subject to takeovers; in other words, held liquid for trading in assets rather than being invested in capital equipment for production." [1]

It appears to me that this was the beginning of a new period of self-indulgence for all, while investors abandoned domestic heavy industries. Reagan was not the root cause of this change, but was the politician with the acumen to catalyze it.

[1] Charles Kindleberger, World Economic Primacy (1996), p. 179, quoted by Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy (2002), p. 92.