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The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950
Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have come to enjoy an era of rising material abundance. Yet this has been accompanied by a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, addiction, mental instability, crime, obesity, inequality, economic insecurity, and declining trust.
Avner Offer argues that well-being has lagged behind affluence in these societies, because they present an environment in which consistent choices are difficult to achieve over different time ranges and in which the capacity for personal and social commitment is undermined by the flow of novelty. His approach draws on economics and social science, makes use of the latest cognitive research, and provides a detailed and reasoned critique of modern consumer society, especially the assumption that freedom of choice necessarily maximizes individual and social well-being.
The book falls into three parts. Part one analyses the ways in which economic resources map on to human welfare, why choice is so intractable, and how commitment to people and institutions is sustained. It argues that choice is constrained by prior obligation and reciprocity. The second section then applies these conceptual arguments to comparative empirical studies of advertising, of eating and obesity, and of the production and acquisition of appliances and automobiles. Finally, in part three, Offer investigates social and personal relations in the USA and Britain, including inter-personal regard, the rewards and reversals of status, the social and psychological costs of inequality, and the challenges posed to heterosexual love and to parenthood by the rise of affluence.
Avner Offer argues that well-being has lagged behind affluence in these societies, because they present an environment in which consistent choices are difficult to achieve over different time ranges and in which the capacity for personal and social commitment is undermined by the flow of novelty. His approach draws on economics and social science, makes use of the latest cognitive research, and provides a detailed and reasoned critique of modern consumer society, especially the assumption that freedom of choice necessarily maximizes individual and social well-being.
The book falls into three parts. Part one analyses the ways in which economic resources map on to human welfare, why choice is so intractable, and how commitment to people and institutions is sustained. It argues that choice is constrained by prior obligation and reciprocity. The second section then applies these conceptual arguments to comparative empirical studies of advertising, of eating and obesity, and of the production and acquisition of appliances and automobiles. Finally, in part three, Offer investigates social and personal relations in the USA and Britain, including inter-personal regard, the rewards and reversals of status, the social and psychological costs of inequality, and the challenges posed to heterosexual love and to parenthood by the rise of affluence.
480 pages, Hardcover
First published March 9, 2006
2 people are currently reading
228 people want to read
About the author
Avner Offer
14 books6 followersAvner Offer is an Economic historian who currently holds the Chichele Professorship in Economic history at the University of Oxford, England. He is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and of the British Academy. He specializes in international political economy, law, the First World War and land tenure. Over the past decade Professor Offer's main interest has been in post-war economic growth, particularly in affluent societies, and the challenges that this affluence presents to well being.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 17, 2021
Actually a bit uneven but some of the chapters on the impact of affluence on parenting, planning, and buying are so good people should be forced to read them.
Basically, what do you want out of life and what does the data show us about when and how we've taken wrong turns?
Basically, what do you want out of life and what does the data show us about when and how we've taken wrong turns?
December 4, 2012
Remarkable book, It is thoroughly writen, really properly footnoted with remarkable wealth of scholarship being present at every page.
Thematicly I was mostly reminded of Erich Fromm having acquired a full knowledge of current days modern economics and writing a follow up to To have or to be on 400 pages not referring to buddha and epicurus, but to Friedman, Thatcher and Henry Ford.
Loved every page of it, must read, but not just a quick whizz in an afternoon.
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June 4, 20071st paragraph of book:
"Affluence breeds impatience and impatience undermines well-being. This is the core of my argument. For detail and evidence, go directly to the chapters; for implications, to the conclusion, which also has chapter summaries."
"Affluence breeds impatience and impatience undermines well-being. This is the core of my argument. For detail and evidence, go directly to the chapters; for implications, to the conclusion, which also has chapter summaries."
Want to read
November 5, 2010Reviewed by Economic History
December 10, 2013
Compelling analysis of the key economic challenge in the 21st Century
April 5, 2017
An interesting & important work even if spotty & sometimes inconclusive. Offer build on the concepts of Amartya Sen employing the techniques of Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman in exploring the distributed results of economic growth and technological innovation. Central themes include the importance to individual and family welfare of commitment and the frequently negative or "myopic" effects on commitment associated with wealth & novelty. Among the strongest findings are the uneven payoffs to the haves and have-nots over the recent history accompanying the ascendance of neoliberalism.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews