浪費するアメリカ人―なぜ要らないものまで欲しがるか [単行本]

現代アメリカの中間階級はまるで明日はないかのように消費している．以前にもまして多くのものを手に入れているにもかかわらず，消費が増すほどますます不満を強め，貧しく感じるようになっているという．なぜここまで浪費が浸透してきたのか．どうすれば「過労と浪費の悪循環」から抜け出すことができるか．豊富な実例を紹介しながら提言する．

中流階級のアメリカ人は、まるで明日はないかのように消費している。にもかかわらず、消費が増えるほどますます満たされない思いが強まる。現代社会では、商品はある種のコミュニケーションの手段であり、人びとは何を持ち、何を身につけているかで自己のアイデンティティと社会的ステータスを表現しようとする。なぜアメリカ社会にここまで消費主義が浸透してきたのか。どうすれば「働きすぎと浪費の悪循環」から抜け出すことができるのか。実例を豊富に紹介しながら具体的に提案する。

中流階級のアメリカ人に、消費が増えるほど不満が強まるという「消費主義」が浸透している。日本人と瓜二つの「働きすぎと浪費の悪循環」からどうれば抜け出せるのか、実例を紹介しながら具体的に提案する。

If getting and spending define our lives, then Juliet Schor now has us covered. Six years ago, her book The Overworked American scrutinized the getting part. It focused public attention on the disappearance of leisure and the harmful effects thereof on families and society. It sparked a debate over whether Americans really work as much as we proudly claim. (If so, how to explain the audience for Monday Night Football?) Nevertheless, Schor can take credit for helping push Congress into passing the Family Leave Act in 1993.

Now she is back with a critique of our spending. Schor notes that, despite rising wealth and incomes, Americans do not feel any better off. In fact, we tell pollsters we do not have enough money to buy everything we need. And we are almost as likely to say so if we make $85,000 a year as we are if we make $35,000. Schor believes that "keeping up with the Joneses" is no longer enough for today's media-savvy office workers. We set our sights on the lifestyles of those higher up the organizational chart. We seek to emulate characters on TV. For teenagers, "enough" is the idle splendor that hardly exists outside of what MTV un-ironically calls The Real World. Schor offers an original and provocative analysis of why many Americans feel driven and unhappy despite our success. As an alternative, she profiles several "downshifters" who've taken up voluntary simplicity in search of a more satisfying way of life. No policy solutions suggest themselves this time, only a change of heart. --Barry Mitzman
--このテキストは、 ペーパーバック 版に関連付けられています。

Whereas Schor's 1992 bestseller, The Overworked American, touched a nerve among all classes of American society, her latest study is geared to middle- and upper-middle-class consumers who, in her diagnosis, are participating in a national orgy of overspending and living beyond their means. She traces this competitive, status-conscious consumption to the diverging income distribution and growing inequality beginning in the 1980s, as increasingly overworked, insecure, dissatisfied consumers, pressured by advertising and television imagery, sought to emulate the upscale lifestyle of the most affluent. An economist and director of women's studies at Harvard, Schor presents her arguable conclusion that the more TV a person watches, the more he or she is likely to spend. In counterbalance, she also reports on her nationwide survey of "downshifters," people who deliberately reduce their hours on the job in exchange for more leisure, time with family or other pursuits. In self-help fashion, she outlines nine steps individuals can take to break free of the cycle of compulsive spending. Although Schor's jeremiad lacks the impact of her earlier book, it offers trenchant commentary on Americans' overspending lifestyle and lack of savings.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

The Overspent American explores why so many of us feel materially dissatisfied, why we work staggeringly long hours and yet walk around with ever-present mental "wish lists" of things to buy or get, and why Americans save less than virtually anyone in the world. Unlike many experts, Harvard economist Juliet B. Schor does not blame consumers' lack of self-discipline. Nor does she blame advertisers. Instead she analyzes the crisis of the American consumer in a culture where spending has become the ultimate social art.
--このテキストは、 ペーパーバック 版に関連付けられています。

Juliet B. Schor, bestselling author of The Overworked American and senior lecturer and Director of Studies, Women's Studies, at Harvard University, writes and lectures widely on issues of work and consumption. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her husband and two children. --このテキストは、 ペーパーバック 版に関連付けられています。