The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need

Below are key lessons in the form of excerpts that I found particularly insightful from this book in which Juliet "analyzes the crisis of the American consumer in a culture where spending has become the ultimate social act":1- "While I believe all Americans are deeply affected by consumerism, this book is directed to people...whose income afford comfortable lifestyle. I focus on more affluent consumers not because I believe that inequalities of consuming power are unimportant. Far from it. They are at the heart of the problem. But I believe that achieving an equitable standard of living for all Americans will require that those of us with more comfortable material lives transform our relationship to spending. I offer this book as a step in that direction."2- "This book is about why: About why so many middle-class Americans feel materially dissatisfied...How even a six-figure income can seem inadequate, and why this country saves less than virtually any other nation in the world. It is about the ways in which, for America's middle classes, "spending becomes you," about how it flatters, enhances, and defines people in often wonderful ways, but also how it takes over their lives...IT analyzes how standards of belonging socially have changes in recent decades, and how this change has introduced American to highly intensified spending pressures. And finally, it is about a growing backlash to the consumption culture, a movement of people who are downshifting - by working less, and living their consumer lives much more deliberately."3- "...Even though products carry well-recognized levels of prestige, are associated with particular kinds of people, or convey widely accepted messages, we cannot automatically infer the motivations of the consumers who buy them...There are other sources of meaning (beyond social inequalities). Gender, ethnicity, personal predisposition, and many other factors help structure the meanings and motivation attached to consuming."4- "First, for a significant number of branded and highly advertised products, there are no quality differences discernible to consumers when the labels are removed; and second, variation in prices typically exceeds variation in quality, with the difference being in part a status premium...The extra money we spend could arguably be better used in other ways - improving our public schools, boosting retirement savings, or providing drug treatment for the millions of people the country is locking up in an effort to protect commodities others have acquired. But unless we find a way to dissociate what we buy from who we think we are, redirecting those dollars will prove difficult indeed."5- "Today, in a world where being middle-class is not good enough for many people and indeed that social category seems like an endangered species, securing a place means going upscale. But when everyone is doing it, upscaling can mean simply keeping up. Even when we are aiming high, there's a strong defensive component to our comparisons. We don't want to fall behind or lose the place we've carved out for ourselves."6- "To maintain psychological comfort, most of us must transcend the strictures of the current consumption map...The first step is to decouple spending from our sense of worth, a connection basic to all hierarchical consumption maps. The second is to find a reference group for whom a low-cost lifestyle is socially acceptable."7- "I outline nine principles to help individuals, and the nation, get off the consumer escalator...1) Controlling desire...2) Creating a new consumer symbolism: making exclusivity uncool...3) Controlling ourselves: voluntary restraints on competitive consumption...4) Learning to share: both as a borrower and a lender be...5) Deconstruct the Commercial system: Becoming an Educated Consumer...6) Avoid "Retail Therapy": Spending is Addictive...7) Decommercialize the Rituals...8) Making Time: Is work-and-spend working?...9) The need for a coordinate intervention."8- "It can hardly be possible that the dumbing-down of America has proceeded so far that it's either consumerism or nothing. We remain a creative, resourceful, and caring nation. There's still time left to find our way out of the mall."

Good book

...Harvard professor Juliet Schor has written a timely and convincing work. Schor's argument is that people are actually happier when they are not obsessed with craving material luxuries.Schor's perspective is balanced, realistic, and moderate. Unlike books that offer advice on money management, Schor cuts to the quick and goes to the heart of the problem: we buy not because we need but because we attempt to find identity, status, or security through our purchases.The volume is divided into seven chapters. The first is titled, "Introduction," but is not really merely an introduction. It is a chapter in the fullest sense and might better be titled, "overview." Let me share one of numerous quotables from this section: "American consumers are often not conscious of being motivated by social status and are far more likely to attribute such motives to others than to themselves. We live with high levels of psychological denial about the connection between our buying habits and the social statements they make."The second chapter, "Communicating With Commodities" discusses how people crave the standard of living portrayed by television sitcoms. The American majority is frustrated (and sometimes desperate to attain such a standard) because they compare themselves to these fictious upper middle classed lifestyles. Shcor illustrates where this can lead by referring to the "sneaker murders" where people were actually killed for their shoes (of the "proper" brand, of course).The third chapter, "The Visible Lifestyle" emphasizes the sub-conscious quest for status. In her typically well-balanced perspective, she distinguishes between, "the desire [for] social status [and]...trying to avoid social humiliation." This is a GREAT chapter.The fourth chapter, "When Spending Becomes You" is also superb. She quotes one statistic that 61 per cent of the population ALWAYS has something in mind they look forward to buying. She also discusses how religion used to curtail obsessive materialism and spending, but no longer does. As a professional clergymen, I'll second that. She is right.The last two chapters, "The Downshifter Next Door" and "Learning Diderot's Lesson" offer practical ways to attack this problem. We must change our attitudes and view frugality as a virtue, not a vice. She offers several case studies of "downshifters," those who have decided that, once past a modest financial threshold, family, time, and the deeper things of life are worthy of financial sacrifice.This volume exposes how shallow, foolish, and silly our society has become in our uncontrollable culture of reckless spending. It is a gem of a book, worth your time for sure!

Interesting

日本でもなじみ深い「ナイキ」や「ＢＭＷ」などのブランド名や商品名が随所に出て来て、飽きずに読むことが出来る。アメリカの話ではあるが、日本の話として読むことも出来る。「あなたらしさ」を作るためにあらゆる商品が用意され、広告され、それを借金してまでも手に入れようとする人々。かたやそのような世間に背を向けて、生活レベルを落としても自分の時間を確保する「ダウンシフター」と呼ばれる人々。私も人間として幸福を追求してやまないですが、金や物に安易に頼るのは結局間に合わせの幸福でしかない、と強く思いました。私たちが欲しいものなんて、ここ１００年ぐらいになって出て来たものでしかないんだし。

１０年ほど前に出版された本。ちょうど１０年遅れぐらいで日本で習慣が変わるので、丁度良いかも知れません。これからの人生設計を見直すチャンスに！！ダウンシフターな生き方はノマドやシェアハウス今日本で顕在化しつつあります。『大企業に拘束されずに個人の仕事で収入を得る』『家や車、生活の一部もシェア』見栄を張らずに身の丈に合った無駄のない生活を目指す。大５章の隣のダウンシフター像がなんとも納得してしまった。『ドライヤーの電力を節約する』『有機食品を買う』『買うよりも修理』『リサイクルの紙袋を再利用する』『スポーツジムをやめて夕方歩く』『充実した今を送る』など働き過ぎで時間までも消費してしまった現代の生活習慣を見直す。働きすぎているのにお金も時間もない人は必読！