Consumption on a planetary wide scale really began in the Post World War II era and this consumption trajectory was entirely led and driven by the United States who, at the time (and probably still does) strongly believed that increasing GDP would lead to increasing quality of life both in America and in the world at large.

This belief may actually be correct in a world of infinite resources. In the real world, of finite resources, this approach is quite problematical.

World War II was defined by a clear and present danger to the "American Way" of life. Below is one of the better propaganda posters of the time.



The wrench with the word PRODUCTION stamped on it is particularly important. To win this war (a mostly conventional was) simply requires US shooting more bullets at THEM until they ran out of bullets. To accomplish this the US set up an enormous Production Machine.

Full employment (including most women) ensued because to win a War at this time required outproducing your enemy. Simply make more bullets and you win As a result, an unprecedented factory production machine suddenly appeared.

Here are some amazing US Production statistics (1942-1945)

  • 69,000 airplanes (aluminum industry) (55 planes per day)
  • 5,000 naval battleships (4 ships per day per day!)
  • 7 million aircraft bombs (5,500 bombs per day)
  • 31 million artillery shells (1 shell every 3 seconds)

Such enormous production required significant sources of energy/electricity and would not have even been possible if not for all the Federal Works energy generation projects (mostly hydroelectric dams) done in the 1930s. In fact, Bonneville Dam was the number one target for a Japanese Mainland air strike because it supplied electricity to the Boeing War Machine. Take out the dam and takes out Boeing's ability to manufacture war planes.

Important Quotes from this period:

    Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off (FDR 1933 Inagaural Speech). Some historians argue the FDR was putting America on a path to Socialism. We will never know this because, whatever path we were on, World War II dramatically changed EVERYTHING.

    The quote below has turned out to be quite prophetic.

    The author (an obscure person) is basically asking us if we are willing to turn the Production War Machine OFF after the end of the conflict. Its a question that we never even thought about:

      The question that I will ask you to consider today is this: When the war is over, are we likely, and do we want to keep this attitude to work and the results of work? Or are we preparing and do we want to back to our old habits of thought? Because I believe that on our answer to this question the whole economic future of society will depend. Sooner or later the moment will come when we have to make a decision about this. At the moment, we are not making it - it is being made for us (by the machine). (Dorothy Sayers 1942 College Lecture) ( i.e. do we intentionally turn the war production machine off and go back to our former means of production )



    In direct consequence is this proposed policy to our Post World II economy and we have subscribed to this thought 100%. Note the phrase "Ever Increasing Consumption"

      Only if we have large demands can we expect large production. Therefore, it is important that in planning for the postwar period, we give adequate consideration to the need for ever-increasing consumption on the part of our people as one of the prime requisites for prosperity. (Robert Nathan 1944 - an economist).

    The most alarming quote of all, but yet capturing the very essence of consumption and how American society has strongly gravitated towards it:


      Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals , that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status , of social acceptance, of prestige , is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives is today expressed in consumptive terms (Victor Lebow 1955 - The Journal of Retailing)

      The Modern World of Victor Lebow:


    The 1946 Employment Act named "purchasing power" as one of the things government was meant to promote:



      Thus prompted, Americans of the late 1940s got down to the business of buying things. In the first five years of peace, consumer spending increased by 60 percent. People bought cars and boats and clothing. They bought furniture and appliances. They bought Tupperware. Most of of all, they bought houses. Housing starts went from 142,000 in 1944 to 2 million in 1950. Let me say that again: 142,000 to 2 million in just 6 years!


    Most people in America today have never heard to The Advertising Council let alone understand the tremendous impact it had. Students today don't learn about it in any History class and so it remains one of those hidden drivers that has produced the world today.

    Some excellent material on the Ad Council can be found in the links below. If you wish to be environmentally literate then you should study this material. Your not living in a world of consumption by accident. This world has been shaped for you, by the Ad Council, very much along the lines that Victor Lebow articulated.

    Indeed one of the main functions of the AD council in the early Post WW II years was to continue casting American capitalism in the most favorable light since it was consumption that " distinguished happy capitalists from those poor benighted souls living under the communist boot. "

    One of the main projects of the early AD council occurred in the publishing of a free pamphlet titled: The Miracle of America - here are a couple of excerpts from the 1948 pamphlet:



    • The mainspring of the American standard of living is High and Increasing Productivity!

    • We take abundance for granted as we consume more than half of the world's coffee and rubber, almost half of the steel, a quarter of the coal and nearly two-thirds of the crude oil ( At this time the US had only 1/15th the population of the world ).


    American in the 1950s: The Decade that Changed Everything:

    The Atomic Age; Prosperity for All; Interstates; Suburbia; Television; Rock N Roll; The Age of Advertising; The Happy Homemaker

    The video below captures well the idea of entitled consumption



    Of course advertising requires slogans and to sell a product you have to sloganize it. This is thus the real beginning of the end of the English Language:




    And this is not a dishwasher at all, its a DishMobile!



    The main items that every American home must have were aggressively marketed as shown below:



    An so with our cars,TVs and tupperware, america moved out from the cities and into the new life of Suburbia and Conformity:

    And Networks of Freeways:

    As a result of suburbia + interstates the US built the most energy intensive transportation economy that could be built. But since the price of gas was so low, and America produced 50% of world oil during the 1950's, possible problems with the scalability of this approach were wholly ignored.




    And so set the stage for every increasing production and consumption. American prosperity required dominating the world in trade and products and for a long time we did and in the short term, it certainly did pay off. Life the 1950s and 1960s was a lot better than life in the 1920's and 1930's - personal prosperity and personal productivity were very high and the free market society was borne without boundaries. But what will life be like in 2030 compared to 2010? Will similar gains be made?