[wordup] In Cheap We Trust

[Adam Shand]

Accidentally stumbled across this link while trying to remember this  
quote from Douglas Rushkoff:

> we're moving into an era when we will define ourselves more by the  
> technologies we refuse than the ones we accept.


Following this text (on the source site) is an excerpt of the book,  
but I haven't included it because I thought it wasn't nearly as well  
written as this review. :-)

Interesting story though!

Adam.

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112557219

Treasuring Thrift: 'In Cheap We Trust'

Journalist Lauren Weber knows a little something about being cheap.  
When she was growing up, her father refused to set the heat above 50  
degrees during the winter in New England.

He turned out the lights, even if someone had left a room for just a  
moment. And for a little while he even tried to ration the family's  
use of toilet paper. Seriously.

Rather than traumatize Weber, all that — and more — made her the  
perfect person to explore the roots of frugality in the United States.

"When I started working on the book," says Weber, "a friend of mine  
suggested I call it 'Thrift: A Short History of a Dying Virtue,' but  
the more I did reporting on it, the more every person I talked to  
would say, 'Oh, you've got to interview my father, my brother, my  
wife, or you should interview me.'"

America's Cheap Roots

Some trace the roots of frugality in this country to the Puritans. And  
it was an important part of the Puritan ideology. But Weber believes  
it was a virtue dictated during the American Revolution by the likes  
of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

Not only was it good for the soul, it was good for the American economy.

"They believed this was the way the United States could be less  
dependent on Europe for all of its trade and all of its goods," says  
Weber. "The patriots believed that if Americans could be industrious,  
work hard and save their money, that would provide them the capital to  
then till a new field or open a new workshop or hire more apprentices.  
We would be able to cut off more trade with Britain and become more  
self-sufficient here."

And Weber believed it was a strategy that worked. But, she adds,  
frugality never was the most popular ideal. "I like to say that thrift  
was a virtue Americans couldn't wait to relinquish. That's as true in  
the period right after the revolution as it was in the period in the  
1950s when credit cards were brought into being."

When Cheap Went Out of Style

If you want to pinpoint the moment when being cheap went out of style,  
look no further than the end of World War II. American economists,  
manufacturers and politicians were worried the post-war nation would  
fall into a deep recession. The Great Depression was still a fresh  
memory after all, and the war had amounted to the largest government  
stimulus program the country had seen at that time.

So what could keep the postwar economy afloat? The American consumer.

"So right before the war ended there was a lot of talk about how  
Americans needed to buy more washing machines, buy cars, get prepared  
for the consumer economy that was coming and Americans really took  
that to heart," Weber says.

And, she says, pop culture offers proof:

"It's not ironic that Scrooge McDuck, the famous miserly uncle of  
Donald Duck, emerged in 1947. And Jack Benny's famous cheapskate  
character on radio and TV came in the late '40s and early '50s. Thrift  
went from being a national virtue to being kind of a punch line."