THE HERITAGE OF ABUNDANCE
A HISTORY OF ABUNDANCE
Although the population of the United States accounts for only about 5 percent of the total
population of the world, Americans use up more than 20 percent of the world's energy per year,
generating about four and a half pounds of trash and garbage per person each day. WHAT
HAPPENS TO STUFF WE THROW AWAY? Only a country that has great abundance could afford to
throw so much away. America has sometimes been criticized as a "throw-away" country, a land
where there is so much abundance that people are sometimes viewed as wasteful. Scholars like
David Potter, an American historian, believe that the abundant material wealth of the United
States has been a major factor in the development of the American character. This abundance is
the gift of nature. In what is now the continental United States, there are more than 3 million
square miles of land. When the European settlers first arrived in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, much of this land was rich, fertile farmland, with an abundance of trees and animals.
There were relatively few Native Americans living on this land, and they had neither the weapons
nor the organization necessary to keep the European settlers out. Never again can human beings
discover such a large area of rich, unfarmed land, with such a small population and such great
undeveloped natural resources. But it would be a mistake to say that the abundant natural
resources of North America were the only reason why the United States became a wealthy nation.
The beliefs, determination, and hard work of the early settlers were equally important. In the
aristocratic European nations the settlers left behind, the material wealth and comforts of the
ruling classes were guaranteed by their birth. Therefore, as Tocqueville said, the wealthy took
these things for granted and assumed they would always have their wealth and social status. The
poor people in those aristocratic nations also did not concern themselves with wealth, since they
knew that they had little hope of becoming wealthy or changing their status. In the early years of
the United States, however, wealth and social position were not permanently determined at birth.
The idea of equality of opportunity in America made the level of material wealth of both the rich
and the poor much less certain. At any time, the rich might lose some of their wealth and the poor
might increase theirs. Therefore, all classes in American society thought about protecting their
material possessions and looked for ways to acquire more. Tocqueville believed that this was not
so much a matter of greed; . rather, it was a matter of their insecurity. People might be naturally
insecure if their material wealth, and that of their children, could change so rapidly either upward
or downward during a lifetime, or even a single generation. Tocqueville concluded that it was
extremely important both to rich Americans and poor Americans to increase their personal wealth
and material comforts. Therefore, the entire population joined in the task of increasing the
nation's material abundance as quickly as possible. Tocqueville visited the United States fifty years
after the nation had won its independence from Englarid. He was impressed with the great
progress made in such a short time. Although the country was still in an early stage of
development, and there was not much money available for investment, the United States had
already made great progress in both trading and manufacturing. It had already become the world's
second leading sea power and . had constructed the longest railroads in the world. Tocqueville
worried, however, about the effect of all this material success. In such a society, materialism could
be made into a moral value in itself rather than a means to an end. Tocqueville's concern, to a
large extent, became a reality. In the process of creating a land of abundance, Americans began to
,judge themselves by materialistic standards. Unlike many countries where the love of material
things was seen as a vice or a mark of weak moral character, in the United States it was seen as a
virtue, a positive incentive to work hard, and a reward for successful efforts. Traditionally, the
people of the United States have been proud of their nation's ability to produce material wealth so
that they could maintain a high standard of living. This helps to explain why Americans use
materialistic standards not only to judge themselves as individuals, but also to judge themselves as
a nation. And the opportunity to share in the good life has attracted immigrants to the United
States for generations.
FROM PRODUCERS TO CONSUMERS
The emphasis on producing wealth and maintaining a high standard of living developed over a
period of time. In the 1 700s and 1800s, most Americans thought of themselves more as producers
than consumers. As farmers they produced food and many of their own household goods, and
later as factory workers they produced manufactured goods. It was not until the twentieth century
that Americans began to think of themselves more as consumers than as producers. This image
change is probably due to the coming of mass advertising, made possible by the beginning of radio
broadcasts in the 1920s and the spread of television programming in the 1950s. In the 1920s,
businesses agreed to pay for, or sponsor, radio programs that would run short commercials
advertising their products. Companies were able to reach large numbers of Americans at one time
to convince them to buy their products; the emphasis was now on consuming. The development
of mass advertising continued with television, and by the end of the 1960s, scholars had begun to
study the effect of mass advertising on American society. Historian David Potter observed that
mass advertising in the United States had become so important in size and influence that it should
be viewed as an institution, such as the school or the church. One effect of advertising was that
sponsors had some control over the content of television programs. If businesses did not like the
content, they could withdraw their sponsorship. A second effect was that advertising techniques
were so successful that over time they began to be used to change Americans' attitudes, behavior,
and beliefs. For example, the . government ran ads to urge teenagers not to use drugs; charities
had ads to ask for donations; and politicians paid to advertise their campaigns. In the 2012
presidential election, candidates spent a total of more than $900 million on TV ads alone, with
most of the money spent in states where the race was competitive. Advertising money follows the
consumer as well as the voter. Today, almost all homes in the United States have at least one
television set (the average household has more than two), and the family TV is in use about eight
hours a day. Some estimates are that the average American sees about 50,000 commercials a
year. When popular events such as the Super Bowl are on, mass advertising may reach 50 million
or more viewers during a single program. In addition to radio and television, there are ads in
magazines and newspapers, and marketers try to reach people outside their homes with ads
everywhere. By 2007, many Americans felt mass advertising was out of control. A New York Times
article, "Anywhere the Eye Can See, It's Likely to See an Ad," talked about the (then), new video
screens in New York taxicabs and public elevators, and the new, ever-changing digital billboards.
New York City's Times Square is the best-known and most spectacular example of American
outdoor advertising, with its huge digital billboards that have ads showing 24 hours a day. And
then came the Internet. By 2008, more than 75 percent of homes in the United States had a
computer, and over the next few years, Americans abandoned their desktops for laptops, tablets,
, and smartphones. Over 80 percent of adults 18 and older now use the Internet, and the numbers
continue to grow. This use of digital media has had a profound effect on advertising: it has
changed the emphasis from mass advertising to target marketing. That is, advertisers are now ~
creating ads for individual users on the Internet, using digital information about their use of digital
media. Perhaps mass advertising has reached the point when most consumers simply ignore most
of the ads, and businesses have learned that they can reach consumers better by appealing to
their individual buying habits and other aspects of their lives. Some aspects that target marketers
consider are geographic location and climate, gender, age, income, and education, as well as
people's values, attitudes, and lifestyles.
WHAT AMERICAN CONSUMERS LIKE
People in the advertising business, and others who study American society, are interested in the
question: What does the American consumer like? Max Lerner, a well-known scholar who has
studied American society, has said that American consumers are particularly fond of three things:
comfort, cleanliness, and novelty. Lerner believes that the American love of comfort perhaps goes
back to the frontier experience, where life was tough and there were very few comforts. This
experience may have created a strong desire in the pioneers and their children for goods that
would make life more comfortable. Today, the Americans' love of comfort is seen in the way they
furnish their homes, design their cars, and travel. How Americans choose a new mattress for their
bed is an example of the American love of comfort. Many Americans will go to a store where beds
are set up and lie down on several mattresses to see which is the most comfortable. Cleanliness is
also highly valued by Americans. Perhaps their Puritan heritage has played some role in their
desire for cleanliness. The Puritans, a strict Protestant church group whose members were among
the first settlers of America, stressed the need to cleanse1 the body of dirt and of all evil
tendencies, which for them included sexual desire. The saying "Cleanliness is next to godliness"
reflects the belief of most Americans that it is important to keep not only their bodies, but also
their clothes, their houses, their cars, and even their pets clean and smelling good. Indeed, many
Americans are offended by anyone who does not follow their accepted standards of cleanliness.
Marketing to American consumers requires an awareness of their desire for cleanliness. In his
book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg tells of
Proctor & Gamble's (P&G) experience marketing Febreze, a spray that makes things smell good.
Febreze actually destroys the molecules of odors, and P &G was sure it would be a great seller.
Their ads focused on how their product could eliminate, not just cover up, bad smells-even pet
smells. To their shock, the product didn't sell. After analyzing the behavior of potential customers,
they discovered that people didn't want to be reminded that their houses smelled bad and
therefore needed Fe breze. P &G changed their ad campaign completely. Instead of marketing it as
a cleaning product, they presented it as a reward for when the cleaning was finished: "Who wants
to admit their house stinks? .. . On the other hand, lots of people crave a nice smell after they've
spent thirty minutes cleaning .... Within a year, customers had spent more then $230 million on
the product." Sometime later, P&G began reminding customers that Febreze also gets rid of odors.
Along with cleanliness and comfort, Americans love having things that are new and different.
Perhaps this love of novelty is reinforced by their pride in their inventiveness. Americans have
always been interested in inventing new products and improving old ones. Advertisements
A HISTORY OF ABUNDANCE
Although the population of the United States accounts for only about 5 percent of the total
population of the world, Americans use up more than 20 percent of the world's energy per year,
generating about four and a half pounds of trash and garbage per person each day. WHAT
HAPPENS TO STUFF WE THROW AWAY? Only a country that has great abundance could afford to
throw so much away. America has sometimes been criticized as a "throw-away" country, a land
where there is so much abundance that people are sometimes viewed as wasteful. Scholars like
David Potter, an American historian, believe that the abundant material wealth of the United
States has been a major factor in the development of the American character. This abundance is
the gift of nature. In what is now the continental United States, there are more than 3 million
square miles of land. When the European settlers first arrived in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, much of this land was rich, fertile farmland, with an abundance of trees and animals.
There were relatively few Native Americans living on this land, and they had neither the weapons
nor the organization necessary to keep the European settlers out. Never again can human beings
discover such a large area of rich, unfarmed land, with such a small population and such great
undeveloped natural resources. But it would be a mistake to say that the abundant natural
resources of North America were the only reason why the United States became a wealthy nation.
The beliefs, determination, and hard work of the early settlers were equally important. In the
aristocratic European nations the settlers left behind, the material wealth and comforts of the
ruling classes were guaranteed by their birth. Therefore, as Tocqueville said, the wealthy took
these things for granted and assumed they would always have their wealth and social status. The
poor people in those aristocratic nations also did not concern themselves with wealth, since they
knew that they had little hope of becoming wealthy or changing their status. In the early years of
the United States, however, wealth and social position were not permanently determined at birth.
The idea of equality of opportunity in America made the level of material wealth of both the rich
and the poor much less certain. At any time, the rich might lose some of their wealth and the poor
might increase theirs. Therefore, all classes in American society thought about protecting their
material possessions and looked for ways to acquire more. Tocqueville believed that this was not
so much a matter of greed; . rather, it was a matter of their insecurity. People might be naturally
insecure if their material wealth, and that of their children, could change so rapidly either upward
or downward during a lifetime, or even a single generation. Tocqueville concluded that it was
extremely important both to rich Americans and poor Americans to increase their personal wealth
and material comforts. Therefore, the entire population joined in the task of increasing the
nation's material abundance as quickly as possible. Tocqueville visited the United States fifty years
after the nation had won its independence from Englarid. He was impressed with the great
progress made in such a short time. Although the country was still in an early stage of
development, and there was not much money available for investment, the United States had
already made great progress in both trading and manufacturing. It had already become the world's
second leading sea power and . had constructed the longest railroads in the world. Tocqueville
worried, however, about the effect of all this material success. In such a society, materialism could
be made into a moral value in itself rather than a means to an end. Tocqueville's concern, to a
large extent, became a reality. In the process of creating a land of abundance, Americans began to
,judge themselves by materialistic standards. Unlike many countries where the love of material
things was seen as a vice or a mark of weak moral character, in the United States it was seen as a
virtue, a positive incentive to work hard, and a reward for successful efforts. Traditionally, the
people of the United States have been proud of their nation's ability to produce material wealth so
that they could maintain a high standard of living. This helps to explain why Americans use
materialistic standards not only to judge themselves as individuals, but also to judge themselves as
a nation. And the opportunity to share in the good life has attracted immigrants to the United
States for generations.
FROM PRODUCERS TO CONSUMERS
The emphasis on producing wealth and maintaining a high standard of living developed over a
period of time. In the 1 700s and 1800s, most Americans thought of themselves more as producers
than consumers. As farmers they produced food and many of their own household goods, and
later as factory workers they produced manufactured goods. It was not until the twentieth century
that Americans began to think of themselves more as consumers than as producers. This image
change is probably due to the coming of mass advertising, made possible by the beginning of radio
broadcasts in the 1920s and the spread of television programming in the 1950s. In the 1920s,
businesses agreed to pay for, or sponsor, radio programs that would run short commercials
advertising their products. Companies were able to reach large numbers of Americans at one time
to convince them to buy their products; the emphasis was now on consuming. The development
of mass advertising continued with television, and by the end of the 1960s, scholars had begun to
study the effect of mass advertising on American society. Historian David Potter observed that
mass advertising in the United States had become so important in size and influence that it should
be viewed as an institution, such as the school or the church. One effect of advertising was that
sponsors had some control over the content of television programs. If businesses did not like the
content, they could withdraw their sponsorship. A second effect was that advertising techniques
were so successful that over time they began to be used to change Americans' attitudes, behavior,
and beliefs. For example, the . government ran ads to urge teenagers not to use drugs; charities
had ads to ask for donations; and politicians paid to advertise their campaigns. In the 2012
presidential election, candidates spent a total of more than $900 million on TV ads alone, with
most of the money spent in states where the race was competitive. Advertising money follows the
consumer as well as the voter. Today, almost all homes in the United States have at least one
television set (the average household has more than two), and the family TV is in use about eight
hours a day. Some estimates are that the average American sees about 50,000 commercials a
year. When popular events such as the Super Bowl are on, mass advertising may reach 50 million
or more viewers during a single program. In addition to radio and television, there are ads in
magazines and newspapers, and marketers try to reach people outside their homes with ads
everywhere. By 2007, many Americans felt mass advertising was out of control. A New York Times
article, "Anywhere the Eye Can See, It's Likely to See an Ad," talked about the (then), new video
screens in New York taxicabs and public elevators, and the new, ever-changing digital billboards.
New York City's Times Square is the best-known and most spectacular example of American
outdoor advertising, with its huge digital billboards that have ads showing 24 hours a day. And
then came the Internet. By 2008, more than 75 percent of homes in the United States had a
computer, and over the next few years, Americans abandoned their desktops for laptops, tablets,
, and smartphones. Over 80 percent of adults 18 and older now use the Internet, and the numbers
continue to grow. This use of digital media has had a profound effect on advertising: it has
changed the emphasis from mass advertising to target marketing. That is, advertisers are now ~
creating ads for individual users on the Internet, using digital information about their use of digital
media. Perhaps mass advertising has reached the point when most consumers simply ignore most
of the ads, and businesses have learned that they can reach consumers better by appealing to
their individual buying habits and other aspects of their lives. Some aspects that target marketers
consider are geographic location and climate, gender, age, income, and education, as well as
people's values, attitudes, and lifestyles.
WHAT AMERICAN CONSUMERS LIKE
People in the advertising business, and others who study American society, are interested in the
question: What does the American consumer like? Max Lerner, a well-known scholar who has
studied American society, has said that American consumers are particularly fond of three things:
comfort, cleanliness, and novelty. Lerner believes that the American love of comfort perhaps goes
back to the frontier experience, where life was tough and there were very few comforts. This
experience may have created a strong desire in the pioneers and their children for goods that
would make life more comfortable. Today, the Americans' love of comfort is seen in the way they
furnish their homes, design their cars, and travel. How Americans choose a new mattress for their
bed is an example of the American love of comfort. Many Americans will go to a store where beds
are set up and lie down on several mattresses to see which is the most comfortable. Cleanliness is
also highly valued by Americans. Perhaps their Puritan heritage has played some role in their
desire for cleanliness. The Puritans, a strict Protestant church group whose members were among
the first settlers of America, stressed the need to cleanse1 the body of dirt and of all evil
tendencies, which for them included sexual desire. The saying "Cleanliness is next to godliness"
reflects the belief of most Americans that it is important to keep not only their bodies, but also
their clothes, their houses, their cars, and even their pets clean and smelling good. Indeed, many
Americans are offended by anyone who does not follow their accepted standards of cleanliness.
Marketing to American consumers requires an awareness of their desire for cleanliness. In his
book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg tells of
Proctor & Gamble's (P&G) experience marketing Febreze, a spray that makes things smell good.
Febreze actually destroys the molecules of odors, and P &G was sure it would be a great seller.
Their ads focused on how their product could eliminate, not just cover up, bad smells-even pet
smells. To their shock, the product didn't sell. After analyzing the behavior of potential customers,
they discovered that people didn't want to be reminded that their houses smelled bad and
therefore needed Fe breze. P &G changed their ad campaign completely. Instead of marketing it as
a cleaning product, they presented it as a reward for when the cleaning was finished: "Who wants
to admit their house stinks? .. . On the other hand, lots of people crave a nice smell after they've
spent thirty minutes cleaning .... Within a year, customers had spent more then $230 million on
the product." Sometime later, P&G began reminding customers that Febreze also gets rid of odors.
Along with cleanliness and comfort, Americans love having things that are new and different.
Perhaps this love of novelty is reinforced by their pride in their inventiveness. Americans have
always been interested in inventing new products and improving old ones. Advertisements
