The American Consumer Revisited: Struggling Thru a Difficult Rehabilitation

November 2, 2009

Several years ago, George W. BushGeorge W. Bush famously remarked in one of his speeches that "we’re addicted to oil". I will give Mr. Bush this: on that particular occasion he was actually at least partially correct in his assessment.

But Bush didn’t go quite far enough. While our thirst for gasoline, petroleum products and of all its many derivatives apparently can be somewhat like the "fix" craved by the addict, we in reality have far bigger problems. We’re addicted to oil, yes, but that is probably a naïve oversimplification. The real fact is: we’re more widely addicted to consumption.

For most of us, this, of course, is really nothing new. For most of my life, in fact, I’ve experienced consumerism as being virtually the American way of life. It has been only more recently, I think, that more and more Americans seem to be taking notice of this fact and finally coming to terms that this may not be a very good idea.

In the most recent boom times of the late 90’s, no one seemed too concerned about our rampant consumption. In fact, the underlying message we heard was generally one of more, more – bigger, bigger, - unrealistic upward economic growth, and then even more and still more of the idea that consuming everything was the answer to all our ills.

We may not have recognized it for what it was at the time, but we lived in what was an insatiable culture; one which in retrospect appeared intent on devouring virtually everything in its path. We seemed to believe we had the right to destroy just about anything in the name of economic growth.

It was not just simply okay, but it was good business to strip the life from the land, to effectively sponge up and soak up every drop that supported our throw-away mentality. We seemed not to notice what was actually happening. We busied ourselves with sucking the very marrow out of the earth.

Well, times change. And minds change too; that is when more important things begin to take a backseat to the idea of consumption for consumption's sake. Economic problems can have a way of rapidly changing our ideas about what works well for society and individuals, as well. And in the end, change usually finally suggests some form of sober realization that what we once believed to be not just acceptable, but good for us may have in fact been very bad for us.

Rehab of a sort, then, often looms large on the horizon. We suddenly begin to try to sober up; to go cold turkey; we resolve to find other ways; better ways to live. The problem is, though, there’s always a junkie waiting for us on the corner. This is the guy who tries to convince us we can’t give up what we’ve grown used to. He appeals to our sense of reason; and to our sense of dependency; that what we really need is our "fix". The harsh reality, though, is that we’ve become addicted. It won't be easy to correct the problem; but then it never is.

In this metaphorical example which represents our addiction to consumerism, that junkie who awaits us, as it turns out, is most often our "Uncle Sam". In spite of the difficult road we’ve been down lately and all of the pain that our journey has brought our way, we’re nevertheless now being encouraged to get back in there and consume – this time until it’s all gone.

The President’s Economist, Larry Summers even goes so far as to tell us flat out that "the economic recovery will absolutely fail if the consumer doesn’t once again spend and consume." Guilt, of course, can not only make us feel really badly about ourselves; it could – if things worked out just so – even maybe make us give up the idea of rehab.

Our reluctance to give up this "rehab", though, could be one reason why it is that this recovery that we keep hearing about; the one that everyone wants so very badly isn’t happening quite as fast as we would like. It could be that this time we simply don’t believe that the junkie who's waiting for us down on the corner actually has our best interests at heart.