[Futurework] Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

[Karen Watters Cole]

In what I’m coyly referring to as the midsummer version of the nearly furious Winter and Spring debate over the European and American divide, TIME’s Michael Elliott writes from Paris that Europeans Just Want to Have Fun Long vacations. Lots of dancing. So why can’t we loosen up? Excerpt:  “In a famous series of essays collected in his 1976 book, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Daniel Bell noted how the decline of the Protestant small-town ethic had unhinged American capitalism from its moral foundation in the intrinsic value of work. By the 1960s, Bell argued, "the cultural justification of capitalism [had] become hedonism, the idea of pleasure as a way of life." This magazine agreed. In a 1969 cover story titled "California: A State of Excitement," TIME reported that, as most Americans saw it, "the good, godless, gregarious pursuit of pleasure is what California is all about ... 'I have seen the future,' says the newly returned visitor to California, 'and it plays.'" But the American future didn't turn out as we expected. While Europeans cut the hours they spend at the office or factory — in France it is illegal to work more than 35 hours a week — and lengthened their vacations, Americans were concluding that you could be happy only if you work hard and play hard. So they began to stay at their jobs longer than ever and then, in jam-packed weekends at places like the Hamptons on Long Island, invented the uniquely American concept of scheduled joy, filling a day off with one appointment after another, as if it were no different from one at the office. American conservatives, meanwhile, came to believe that Europeans' desire to devote themselves to the pleasures of life and — the shame of it!--six weeks annual vacation was evidence of a lack of seriousness and would, in any event, end in economic tears. Why do Europeans and Americans differ so much in their attitude toward work and leisure? I can think of two reasons. First, the crowded confines of Western Europe and the expansive space of North America have led to varied consumer preferences.  Broadly speaking, Americans value stuff — SUVs, 7,000-sq.-ft. houses — more than they value time, while for Europeans it's the opposite. Second, as Bell predicted, America's sense of itself as a religious nation has revived. At least in the puritanical version of Christianity that has always appealed to Americans, religion comes packaged with the stern message that hard work is good for the soul. Modern Europe has avoided so melancholy a lesson. Whatever the explanation, the idea of a work-life balance is a staple of European discourse, studied in think tanks, mulled over by policymakers. In the U.S., the term, when it's used at all, is said with the sort of sneer reserved for those who eat quiche. But it might still catch on. When Bill Keller was named executive editor of the New York Times last week, he encouraged the staff to do "a little more savoring" of life, spending time with their families or viewing art.” (end of excerpt.  July 28 issue, pg. 76 or http://www.time.com/time/columnist/printout/0,8816,466081,00.html) Most of us on FW have argued or agreed that the Puritanical influences are alive and well in America today, we take ourselves much too seriously.  It’s led to a religious idolatry of Free Market sects, created mass markets of medicated and numb worker bees, and allowed the proliferation of a consumer culture based on plastic and home ownership, not much else.  So is one solution to Pax Americana and Big Brother 2004 a big party?  I am interested in American culture being less identified with product lines and profit margins and more recognized for its literary and artistic performances; indeed, we cannot sustain (note how popular this word is now and generically applied) the momentum of a superpower for much longer if we forget what we are fighting for, and that does include real culture and sense of time and place – and play?  We cannot even have a good time being patriotic these days, it’s become an exercise in intensity and loyalty.  Is it arrogance that led us down this path?  Or ignorance?  Or what else?  We have reminders all around us, from friend and foe that empires do not last forever.  Blair managed to sneak that warning in his speech to Congress, and Italy’s Berlosconi added his two cents worth (also in this same issue of Time) that what Italy learned from the Roman Empire is that “every prince needs allies, and the bigger the responsibility, the more allies he needs.” So should Americans be stepping back and looking at the horizon, reflecting on the small and simple things that make life worthwhile, rather than being force-fed superpower heroic vitamins?  I vote yes.  KWC