Australian Financial Review http://www.afr.com.au/content/990630/news/news9.html June 30, 1999 Author on the job Work relations, By Stephen Long Do you ever wonder "why do I work so hard?" Maybe you should start asking yourself "why do I spend so much?" Could it be that you work staggeringly long hours to support the consumption of more and more stuff, but don't feel any happier? Seven years ago Juliet Schor documented the decline of leisure time and the drift towards excessive working hours in The Overworked American. In its sequel, The Overspent American, the director of womens' studies at Harvard examines the reasons why millions of middle-class citizens are "trapped in a cycle of work and spend". Its conclusions are equally applicable to Australia. What people acquire has long been bound up with personal identity, but Schor argues that in recent decades peoples' reference points for spending have changed and intensified. In the early post-war decades, people spent to "keep up with the Joneses". Our neighbours set the standard for what we had to have, and people in a neighbourhood earned broadly similar incomes. Today the chances are we don't even know our neighbours, much less where they eat and what they buy. People benchmark their lifestyles against pervasive advertising and media images of the hip, the rich and the successful. But these media "friends" are often wealthier than we are - and therein lies the problem. Schor links the new consumerism to a host of social pathologies. In the 1980s, when desperation for various consumer items became intense, reported shoplifting offenses in the US doubled. Legal routes to product acquisition also flourished, as the less well off worked more overtime and took second jobs to support product acquisition. Ecological devastation and growing class inequity, Schor contends, are at the core middle-consumer patterns. The culture of desire is toughest on the poor. "For many on low incomes, the lure of consumerism is hard to resist," writes Schor. "When the money isn't there, however, feelings of deprivation, personal failure, and deep psychic pain result." I reached similar conclusions at hearings this year on the ACTU's "living wage" claim, listening to a low-paid factory worker who struggled to afford necessities talk about his children's desires for Nike and Reebok. On one level it jarred; not being able to buy designer shoes is a weird definition of poverty. But it illustrates how, in a culture where consumption means so much, not having much money becomes a profound social disability. Yet spending does not seem to lead to contentment for the well off. According to Schor, more than a quarter of households on incomes of $US100,000 plus ($151,000) say they cannot afford to buy everything they need. Half the population of the world's richest country claim not to be able to afford the basics. Ultimately, Schor provides at best a partial explanation for the overwork phenomenon - she ignores the role employers play in structuring working time - but a cogent critique of the basis of modern capitalism. Feedback to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
