The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer

From: The Virginia Quarterly Review | Date: April 1, 1999| Author: | Copyright information

The Overspent American: Up,scaling, Down.shifting, and the New Consumer, by Juliet B. Schor.

Both fascinating and disquieting, this book takes the temperature of our society and finds it feverishly consumeristic. Its argument is straightfonvard: the culture is trapped in habits of overspending which empty bank accounts and yet leaves citizens hungry for ever more. Schor sees many causes for this condition, but identifies the most important as peoples' seduction by advertising, which leads people to identify (and attempt to compete) with persons much wealthier than themselves. One wishes ...

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