European Integration Rise of the Welfare State






Rise of Consumerism



The decade between 1939 and 1949 had been a period of extreme privation and hardship, not to mention the threat for everyone's life. Sudden prosperity in the 1950es caused a chain of reactions - an EATING SPREE, a BABY BOOM, a construction boom, people buying furniture, motorbikes, electrical appliances such as electrical ovens, refigerators, vacuum cleaners, cars - the VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE becoming the status symbol of a generation, buying a TV, going abroad for vacation.
Prosperity over a succession of years ultimately changed the lifestyle; accustomed to a regular income, many acquired a house in the suburb, becoming dependent on the car for transportation. OBESITY became a problem. Entertainment, in the past limited to the movies, the radio, the local pub and sunday's soccer game, intruded into family life in form of TV and radio, more and more as broadcasting hours were extended and the number of TV channels increased, but also as self-restraint in regard to content was gradually given up, the content becoming more violent and sexually explicit. Society became a LEISURE SOCIETY, industry supplying hobby supplies.

Among the consequences were a dramatical increase in garbage, people becoming preoccupied with earning money and consuming. This lead, for instance, to a decrease in figures of church attenders and, as many spent less time with their families, in both a reduced birth rate and in an increase of divorce figures.
ADVERTISEMENTS had a significant influence on society as well; many of the new electric appliances had been popularized that way. Cigarette smoking had been strongly promoted by advertisements, and only emphatic protest by medical doctors lead to governments introducing restrictions on tobacco sales and advertisements. In Scandinavia, with its thin population density, relative limited entertainment choice and specific climate, ALCOHOLISM had become a significant problem; the governments dealt with it by imposing high taxation on the sales of alcohol and limiting sales to state-licenced licquor stores following strict guidelines.

People living in the econiomically less developed regions of Southern Europe and in Ireland wanted to join in that prosperity, too. The strong demand for workforce in the bustling economies of central Europe, from the late 1950es onward, caused an economically motivated LABOUR MIGRATION.

The inhabitants of the socialist countries wanted to consume, too. A problem was that productivity was not sufficient to pay for it. An attempt by the GDR government in 1953 to raise productivity by shortening the times for piece-work and raising the prices for consumer goods caused demonstrations which threatened to go out of control and had to be suppressed by the Red Army. Socialist governments were now checkmated by their own ideology; over-subsidized prices had to be upheld, labour conditions could not be altered, because theirs was, by definition, a WORKERS' AND FARMERS' PARADISE.
The people enjoyed the advantages, such as almost free housing and guaranteed jobs, but yearned for the products western consumer economy offered. Over the years, the socialist economy tried to provide their citizens with the same goods - electrical appliances, motorbikes, cars, tvs, tourist facilities. Czechs, Poles, East Germans bought their Skodas, Fiat Polskis, Trabants, but were very well aware of the superior quality of products made in the west. East European society consumed more than it could afford, but much less than the average East European longed for; the dream of the GOLDEN WEST as a consumer's paradise became the stronger, the more he felt deficiencies in his own society.


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This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on July 8th 2001, last revised on November 11th 2004

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