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Transformation: Fall of the Consumer Economy, Rise of the Responsible Capitalist
by Jack Lessinger
Publisher: SocioEconomics, Inc.
Introductory Price: $24.95 $19.95
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Our Consumer Economy has run its course.
The 20th century ignited an accelerating consumer binge we can no longer sustain. Overconsumption shackles us to immoderate consumer debts, Federal deficits, trade imbalances, inequality of income and wealth, runaway speculation in real estate and stocks, insecure social security, plunging business ethics and environmental degradation. The pursuit of immediate gratification plays a role in rampant obesity and uncontrollable medical costs. And as we burn oceans of oil and mountains of coal, global warming imperils the planet.
In the 21st century, the consumer’s rallying call “what’s in it for me” is increasingly overshadowed by “what’s in it for us.” Unbridled materialism is slowly yielding to the satisfactions of defending the community—assuring full employment, preventing global warming, protecting the environment. A new society and economy is emerging. Call it the Responsible Capitalist.
When We the People seek redemption from evils of excess, we search for new meaning and direction. A transformation changes our society and economy.
After 1790, the first transformation in U.S. history (from what’s in it for us to what’s in it for me) sent dirt-poor farmers to nearly free land in the Mississippi Basin. The paradigm was clear. Take care of Number One. Own your very own piece of Valley land—no matter how small. Stay out of big cities. Prize your independence.
After 1845, the second transformation (from me to us) introduced a new vision. In a world mad with nationalistic ambitions, Americans now sought to make the nation the foremost industrial power. Us power. Millions migrated to rapidly growing cities surrounding Chicago.
After 1900, and especially after World War II, the third transformation (from us to me) opposed further industrialization and launched the Consumer Economy. The new paradigm reprogrammed attitudes from saving to spending, from waiting and sacrificing to consuming.
Our elders well remember the sexy young women, smiling from the billboards, urging strait-laced and penurious citizens to save less and spend more. Buy, buy, buy, screamed the advertisers. Buy Coca Cola and be happy. Buy Dentine gum and be kissable. Buy Camels and be manly. The Consumer Economy blossomed. Houses grew bigger and more lavish, cars roomier, faster, more comfortable. What a great time to be alive.
Emerging since the 1960s, the fourth transformation is turning us away from consumer appetites to concern for the community—from me to us.
A great divide separates 2008 from the values and beliefs of only three years earlier. In 2004, a Gallup Poll editor reported that the public is “practically dozing” on global warming (April 20, 2007, Lydia Saad). Three years later, in 2007, polls showed that 88 % of Americans now believe that global warming threatens future generations and 75 % recommend taking immediate action to help the environment. (TIME magazine/ABC News/Stanford University, June 2007.)
The facts didn’t change. We did.
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Table of Contents: |
| • The Transformation | 1 |
| • Interview: February 23, 2016 | 7 |
| 1. Transformation Economics | 12 |
| 2. The Consumer Economy is a Dead Man Walking | 19 |
| • Interview: February 23, 2018 | 31 |
| 3. Seasons of Prosperity and Depression | 33 |
| 4. Transformations, Migrations and Leading Regions | 39 |
| 5. Testing Transformation Economics | 45 |
| 6. What’s in it for us? Mercantile Aristocrat: 1735-1845 | 51 |
| 7. Prosperity initiates the Second Paradigm: 1790-1817 | 59 |
| 8. What’s in it for me? Bantam Capitalist 1790-1900 | 67 |
| 9. Schizomania: 1817-1845 | 79 |
| 10. Prosperity Initiates the Third Paradigm:1845-1873 | 93 |
| 11. What’s in it for us? Great Industrialist, 1845-1960 | 103 |
| 12. Schizomania: 1873-1900 | 115 |
| 13. Prosperity Initiates the Fourth Paradigm 1900-1930 | 131 |
| 14. What’s in it for me? Little King 1900-2020 | 137 |
| 15. Schizomania: 1930-1960 | 151 |
| 16. Prosperity Initiates the Fifth Paradigm, 1960-1990 | 169 |
| 17. What’s in it for us? Responsible Capitalist, 1960-2008 | 183 |
| 18. Schizomania 1990-2020 | 201 |
| • Interview: September 11, 2020 | 217 |
| Acknowledgements | 221 |
| Appendixes | 223 |
| Glossary | 235 |
| Index | 239 |
Excerpt from Transformation:
Interview: February 23, 2016
Interviewed by Carol Reese in the year 2016, economist Jack Lessinger explains the surprising turn taken by the economy after 2008:
CR: Hello, this is Carol Reese welcoming you to our February 23rd, 2016 telecast from the new energy-efficient city of Lovinsberg, Colorado. I’ll be interviewing economist Jack Lessinger. In 1986, he wrote his first book introducing the theory he now calls Transformation Economics. It also outlined his first predictions for the 21st century. Today, he is celebrating his 94th birthday.
CR: Happy birthday, Jack. Welcome to this table.
JL : Happy to be here, Carol.
CR: You’ve written that 1900, 1945 and 1960 were landmark dates in the transition to 2016. Apparently you see 1900 as an auspicious beginning.
JL: I do, Carol. After 1900, we slowly but inexorably embraced a new vision. We would increasingly seek “what’s in it for me.” Nineteenth-century Americans were proud of how much they saved. The new consumers believed that the saving habit was both old-fashioned and unproductive. Spending, they felt sure, would light the way to a new prosperity. Welcome the Consumer Economy.
CR: Americans became big-time consumers after 1900?
JL: Yes, that’s when the new paradigm was planted. But until the end of World War II, consumer spending continued to be restrained. Blame lingering Victorian attitudes, low-skilled and low-paid manual labor, old-fashioned rote education, extreme income inequality, congested cities and lack of consumer infrastructure—e.g. roads, supermarkets, and TV. And we also had to contend with two World Wars and the Great Depression.
CR: So 1900-1945 marked a slow beginning.
JL: Yes. High-flying consumer spending commenced in 1945. That’s when up to 15 million veterans of World War II led a mad dash to the new America. They married, moved to suburbia, bought houses, furniture, cars, boats and sired millions of future hippies. The new paradigm spread like a happy contagion. Everybody caught it. “Get it ALL and get it NOW!”
CR: What was significant about 1960?
JL: That’s when the Consumer Economy began its decade of greatest acceleration. The increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) swelled to its highest rate of the 20th century.
CR: Let me remind you. The 1960s was also the decade of the hippies.
JL: They too were symptoms of the Consumer Economy’s climax. Hippies believed they were rebelling against their parents. In fact, they pursued an even more outlandish brand of instant gratification—orgies of sex, drugs and alcohol.
CR: There was certainly a strong reaction to the hippies.
JL: Two different reactions—two different beginnings of the next transformation. The Christian Right attacked the hippie version of consumerism with its promiscuous sex and drugs. And Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring marshaled a crop of environmentalists.
CR: Both reactions gained support in every decade.
JL: Still, as late as 2004, most Americans thought we’d continue along old, familiar lines. To slow carbon emissions, for example, we’d drive smaller hybrid cars, pay a little more taxes, encourage alternative energy sources. Nothing big. No really humongous changes.
CR: In fact, the world changed rapidly after 2004.
JL: 2011 was the critical year.
CR: Ah. That’s when the directors of Pentropolis (tm), Inc. decided to build revolutionary new cities.
JL: Yes. They announced to the world that the decentralized planning so essential to shopping and consuming was disastrous in the fight against global warming.
CR.: I’d be interested in your view of their thinking.
JL: I see three premises. One: The threat of global warming trumped all other issues confronting our socio-economy. Two: Energy conservation was the most effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. Most technological innovations brought their own problems. Three: Suburbia has been one of our worst offenders. To sell large and fashionable houses at low prices, builders had been offering cheap lots at ever greater distances from work. Consequently, millions of cars “parked” on thousands of miles of suburban freeways continuously belched heavy concentrations of CO2 gas. In addition, those cavernous homes were heated and cooled by coal-fired—dirty—energy sources. America led the world in global warming.
CR: Lovinsberg—where we are today—was the first energy-efficient city to be built.
JL: That’s right. And in one fell swoop, a single corporation—not a socialist government—showed how to cut suburbia’s enormous contribution to global warming.
CR: Is such corporate planning what you mean by Responsible Capitalism?
JL: Part of it. In addition, corporate planning actively seeks to produce public benefits. The Pentropolis (tm) city was a prescription able to cure the ills of suburbia.
CR: The company located all factories, offices and shopping centers in its very center.
JL: Exactly. All commutes from the populated perimeter to the center were made via mass transit facilities offering sumptuous views, dining, package delivery and Internet services. All at low cost.
CR: And the periphery of the city offered a series of picturesque, spacious and energy-efficient villages. Great for raising children.
JL: Bucolic neighborhoods, alternative energy, good air, controlled use of cars and enlightened accommodations. Tree-lined streets, children playing, birds singing. Responsible Capitalism had arrived.
CR: No doubt, investors accepted smaller profits.
JL: On the contrary. Pentropolis (tm), Inc. earned huge profits.
CR: It’s a fact that since 2011, millions of suburbanites have migrated to the new cities.
JL: By 2014, high-priced suburban homes had lost much of their value.
CR: Believers in the old “location, location, location” were at a loss.
JL: I teach “transformation, transformation, transformation.” Every transformation changes values at all locations.
CR: 2014 was also the time of incipient depression.
JL: Schizomania I call it—a schism due to opposing socioeconomies (See Chapter 3).
CR: Those terrible years are now behind us. May they never return.
JL: Never is a long time. Let’s be content with the decades of vigorous prosperity that surely lie ahead in the early 21st century.
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