Week #4: The Possibilities and Limitations of the “Affluent Society”Lecture #6: Consuming Our Way to Mass Prosperity

Tuesday, February 22, 2006

1. Tension between extension—even expansion—of New Deal progressivism vs. return of old order resolved through embrace of a “Consumers’ Republic” and “democracy through prosperity”a. New role for state in fueling private economyb. Working-class Americans “included” in mainstream America not through powerful unions asserting authority on shopfloor and in company management but through participation in mass consumption and national prosperityc. Return of importance of nuclear family and men’s authority within in

2. GI Bill as case of government resources supporting male breadwinner, privileging middle class and whites

3. Concluding points:a. Suburbanization key to strategy of egalitarianism based on consumption, but also created new kinds of distinctions along class, race, and gender linesb. Mass consumption as national duty of citizens and central to American superiority vs. Soviet Union (see kitchen debate)