Re: [Pen-l] Shemano on consumer behavior

["Craig Freedman" <Craig.Freedman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Japanese Household Saving Rate is between 2 and 3 percent. It has fallen dramatically over the past decade.

Craig Freedman

>>> raghu <mraghu01@xxxxxxxxx> 11/06/2008 >>>
On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 11:31 AM, David B. Shemano
<dshemano@xxxxxxxxxx> > Again, this ignores my quesion, which is why
is it so easy for the masses to buy into the concept of shop till you
drop, as opposed to other concepts.  Until relatively recently, was
not the bourgeoris message save, save, save, deny yourself, deny
yourself, deny yourself?  Do you believe it was a conscious goal of
the ruling classes to overthrow that bourgeois ethos and substitute a
consumer ethos?  If you do, why was it so easy, as compared to so many
of the other unsuccessful social engineering episodes we are required
to live through?  I mean, look at the end of the Soviet and Maoist
experiments -- generations of anti-capitalistic ruling class ideology
and it took about two minutes for the masses to buy into the consumer
ideology.  You can't ignore the alignment of consumerism with human
nature.
>


1) Why is it really easy for a person to learn to like heroin? What
does that say about human nature and H?

2) The Chinese are yet to learn to like consumerism and consumption,
considering the  ridiculous amount of national savings they are
accumulating. Even the Japanese, after more than a century of
practice, still have to follow highly mercantilist policies because
their population cannot learn to consume enough. How do you explain
*that*?
-raghu.

-- 
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's
too dark to read."
 - Groucho Marx
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