The Challenge of Affluence Avner Offer is Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford and Fellow of All Souls College, and a Fellow of the British Academy. Prior to his academic career he spent eight years working as a soldier, farmer, and conservation worker in Israel, where he was born and raised. His other books include In Pursuit oft he Qµality ofL ife (1996), also published by Oxford University Press, and he has been researching the question of the quality of life in affluent societies since the early 1990s. He has also been a research fellow at Merton College, Oxford, the University of Southampton, Clare Hall, Cambridge, The Australian National University, Rutgers University, and New York University. Praise for The Challenge ofA ffluence: 'Sparkling and intellectually pugnacious ... a tour de force of scholarship and provocative argument ... this is an enormously rich and highly pene trating and stimulating study, based on vast and perceptive reading and research.' Barry Supple, English Historical Review 'An intriguing book ... one of Britain's most subtle thinkers about how we live now.' Will Hutton, The Observer 'This insightful book provides a fresh and refreshing new look at life in the United States and Britain over the past half century ... provides invaluable insights.' John F.Helliwell, EH.Net 'In the 1960s and 1970s, economists started worrying about environ mental and social limits to growth. Avner Offer has added a weighty new critique to this tradition.' The Economist ' ... powerful argument ... This is a book that uses the tools of economics to illuminate the myopic lens through which economics views the world.' Barry Schwartz, London Review ofB ooks 'Avner Offer inserts a moral dimension into the study of economic history that has been missing since R.H. Tawney, offering a warning of the undesirable consequences of the pursuit of individual self-interest.' M.J. Daunton, Economic History Review 'An invaluable source of information on changing attitudes and practices in the US and Britain since the end of the Second World War.' Samuel Brittan, Financial Times ' ... diligently and readably exposes the extent to which the past 25 years have forced people in the English-speaking world to believe that there is no alternative to dualincome workaholic consumerism, the "hedonic treadmill"'. Oliver James, The Guardian The Challenge of Affluence Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950 Avner Offer OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD UNIVBllSITY PllBSS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy japan South Korea Poland Portugal Singapore Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ©Avner Offer 2006 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) Reprinted 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover And you must impose this same condition on any acquirer ISBN 978-0-19-921662-8 Printed in the United Kingdom by Lightning Source UK Ltd .. Milton Keynes For Leah, again Only a very small part of the art of being happy is an exact science Stendhal, Love (1822) Pref ace Resources and cravings do not map precisely on to well-being. Back in the eighteenth century, Adam Smith asked, 'What are the advantages which we propose to gain by that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition?'1 In the 1980s, the answer was often that 'greed is good'. That notion was the spur for my inquiry. It was brashly counter-intuitive, but why? Over the last two decades, a new understanding began to emerge, especially from psychology and economics, that what we want and choose can often fail to deliver, and can even be counter-productive. It might be paraphrased (brutally) by asking 'what is greed good for?' This understanding is the work of many inquiries and disciplines. My effort here is to extrapolate it to the personal dynamics of affluence during the last six decades, in the United States and Britain. The argument is that affluence is driven by novelty, and that novelty unsettles. It is summarized in a brief introduction. The chapters connect with common experience at many points: how to evaluate well-being; the dilemmas and rewards of choice, reciprocity, and trust; the impact of advertising, eating, appliances, and automobiles; the prizes and penalties of personal appearance, of social status, of love, of parenthood, and of separation. I conclude with summaries of findings, and with some larger reflections. The book navigates the vast river of social-science research, both old and new. For its primary sources, it draws on archives, on statistical sources, and on magazines and books from the times and places it studies. Modem universities are typical products of affluence, but also provide a haven where truth can be pursued. Thanks to those I have worked in, Oxford primarily, and before that the Australian National, and York in England. Nuffield College provided challenge and companionship, and the relentless bustle of current thinking. It was a joy to be there. All Souls College is equally friendly, but tuned to longer cycles of experience. My Oxford colleagues in economic and social history have helped in various 1 Smith, Moral Sentiments, Bk 1, ch. 11.1, p. 50. vii Preface ways, and have stood in during sabbaticals. Visiting fellowships at Duke, Rutgers, and New York Universities gave observation posts on American society. Especially warm thanks to Victoria de Grazia and to Tony Judt, my academic hosts in New Jersey and New York. Among archivists, I am grateful for hospitality and help to the late Michael Cudlipp and to Margaret Rose at the History of Advertising Trust, to Elaine Gartrell McGeorge at Duke University, to Darleen Flaherty at the Ford Industrial Archives at Dearborn, Michigan, to the Henry Ford museum and archives in the same town, and to the late Mark Abrams, for the generous loan of personal papers on advertising and market research. The Leverhulme Foundation, Oxford University, Nuffield, and All Souls also gave financial support. Over more than a decade, my graduate course on 'the challenge of affluence' enrolled able students from the four comers of the earth. Of their dissertations, those of Bryan Leach, Sara Franks, Michael Hicks, Joo Lee Lim, Joyce Liu, Shinobu Majima, Craig Mullaney, Raphael Schapiro, and Christine Whelan are acknowledged here. Harold Carter was an incisive commentator in those classes. Over the years, a succession of research assistants have each made distinctive contributions and comments. I include their names here among the many friends and colleagues who have generously made time to read separate chapters (sometimes many more than one) or to make helpful criticism. The list is long, and comes with apologies for any oversights: Rebecca Abrams, Robert Allen, Tony Atkinson, Eleni Bantinaki, Katerina Bantinaki, Yoram Barzel,Joanna Bourke, Sue Bowden, Gavin Cameron, Harold Carter, Annie Chan, Tak Wing Chan Jerry Cohen, Lynn Cooke, Paul David, Chris Davis, Eleni Delivani, Nicholas Dimsdale, Juliet Dowsett, David Engerman, the late Charles Feinstein, James Foreman-Peck, Robert Frank, Diego Gambetta, David Garrard, Jay Gershuny, Joshua Getzler, Flora Gill, David Halpern, Irit Harchol, Jose Harris, Mala-Laura Ibsen, Harriet Jackson, Heather Joshi, Daniel Kahneman, Pramila Krishnan, Robert Lane, Tim Leunig, Christian List, Ian Little, Ofra Magidor, Robin Mason, Katharine Massam, Siobhan McAndrew, Mara Meacci, John Muellbauer, Sharon Musher, Shepley Orr, Andrew Oswald, Derek Parfit, Joy Parr, Matthew Polisson, John Robinson, Raphael Schapiro, Hetan Shah, Todd Shaiman, Martin Spat, Peter Temin, J.L.H. Thomas, Mark Thomas, Julia Twigg, Hans-Joachim Voth, Christine Whelan, and Jay Winter. An earlier version of Chapter 8 was initially published jointly as an article with Prof. Sue Bowden. Four other previously published papers have also been rewritten and updated. Along the way, editors and referees were viii Preface usually helpful and reasonable, and sometimes not. Blame me alone for anything shoddy or wrong. My tentative intuitions were encouraged by George Ainslie, initially through his tour-de-force Picoeconomics (1992), and later in personal meetings. Other inspiration was provided by Jon Elster, in his Ulysses and the Sirens (1979) and a sequence of equally elegant books. Daniel Kahneman, David l.aibson, George Loewenstein, and Andrew Oswald were also import ant influences. As with previous efforts, my wife Leah has supported me throughout, and has enlarged my vision with her subtle conception of well-being, derived from the teachings of South Asian philosophies. Thanks to my son and daughter too, whose own lives are sources of happiness and reflection to me. The book has taken long to write, and is still not quite fin ished. But it is ample enough for now. Please come in. Samuel Madden, a friend of Dr Johnson, said that in an orchard 'there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot upon the ground.'2 I feel that way about this book. Make it yours as well. Avner Offer Oxford March2005 2 Dr Samuel Madden, cited In Boswell, Life off ohnson, 296.