Debra Goldman's Consumer Republic

There's nothing like a business scandal to show Americans the error of their ways. For the last several years, we've obsessed about the rich, worshiped the corporate wheeler-dealers and worked overtime to accumulate the latest toys. Yes, we've been indulgent and self-involved. But we've learned our lesson. The Me Decade is over. It's time to reconnect with family, friends and community. Welcome to the We Decade. Oh, did you think I was talking about today? No, I'm pointing out the consumer sentiments that prevailed at the beginning of the '90s. The We Decade was but one of the labels widely offered to predict how the '90s would turn out following Wall Street's bust in the late '80s. But a funny thing happened on the way to the simple life. As the decade went on, it got more complicated. It got more individualistic. And it got much more expensive, as expectations inflated to match the billions that gushed forth from the bull market. In other words, anyone who had relied on consumers' professed sea change in attitude at the end of the '80s to understand the coming decade would have missed the '90s entirely. Indeed, the '90s so completely failed to live up to their initial ethos that now, in the '00s, we've got to try it all over again. Just as the '80s had Drexel Burnham Lambert, Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky to expose the pitfalls of greed, today we've got the Enron debacle to illuminate everything that is wrong with the mores to which we so recently and enthusiastically ascribed. Once more consumers are having second thoughts about their dreams of IPO millions. Once more they yearn for a lifestyle that is more balanced and less materialistic. Yet again they are rejiggering their notion of the good life—and this time, damn it, they're going to get it right. Well, maybe. It is possible that we've embarked on the We Decade for real this time. But it is also possible that, just as the economy revolves through boom and bust, the consumer psyche has cycles of its own. That every episode of irrational exuberance is inevitably followed by one of sober reassessment—which in turn is trumped by irrational exuberance at the first possible opportunity. These cycles seem to be related to the state of the economy, with greed and individualism reigning when times are good and piety and community values holding sway when things are dicey. But economics alone do not explain them. Back in the '80s, the bloom was off the Beemer long before the country fell into recession. By the same token, Enron was still one of the most admired corporations in America when consumer research uncovered signs that Americans were buying more cashmere sweaters but enjoying such activities less.Is there such a thing as pros perity fatigue? If such a thing exists, it is surely a baby boomer syndrome. It's almost as if boomers are driven to relive their coming-of-age drama over and over again. They seesaw between the lure of material comfort they consider a birthright and the conviction that they need something more "authentic" and "meaningful." For several decades now, boomers have struggled to reconcile materialism and meaning, and repeatedly failed, only to try again.Of course, with every turn of the cycle, boomers are older, and the terms of the struggle shift accordingly. Thus, every period of material excess is excessive in its own way. The '80s had its poofy couture, cocaine and English country-house clutter, the '90s its Prada, day spas and midcentury modern. The excesses of the '00s, should the gods grant them, will surely have their own flavor. And every retrenchment, every return to more "spiritual values"—whatever that vague term means—has its own characteristics, too. And so the circle goes. Which is fine by advertising people, who tend to like dramatic breaks in consumer consciousness. They like new decades and new paradigms. Such occasions make for clever coinages that look good in PowerPoint presentations and encourage a sense of urgency in clients who don't want their brands left behind. Yet in looking at research that shows consumers seeking more spiritual satisfaction from their material life, I see not a break but a continuity. These aspirations are still with us because, somehow or other, we fail to achieve them. It's far too early to bet that we'll have any more luck achieving them now than we have in the past.

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Debra Goldman's Consumer Republic

Debra Goldman

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Debra Goldman