Pursuing Happiness (ebook)

Argumento de Pursuing Happiness (ebook)

Whether watching baseball or undergoing heart surgery, Americans have bought a variety of goods and services to achieve happiness. Here is a provocative look at what they have chosen to purchase. Stanley Lebergott maintains that the average consumer has behaved more reasonably than many distinguished critics of "materialism" have suggested. He sees consumers seeking to make an uncertain and often cruel world into a pleasanter and more convenient place--and, for the most part, succeeding. With refreshing common sense, he reminds us of what many "luxuries" have meant, especially for women: increased income since 1900 has been used largely to lighten the backbreaking labor once required by household chores.

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"Lebergott ... entertainingly explores that history [of consumerism] and ... documents in marvelous detail what we buy, what it costs, and how our choices have changed over time"--Doug Bandow, Fortune

"What did Americans consume during the 20th century, and what happiness did they reap? In addressing this question, the economist Stanley Lebergott, has written in effect two books. Pursuing Happiness is both an entertaining compilation of just what Americans consume and of how consumption patterns have changed, and a truculent ideological tract."--New York Times Book Review

"Lebergott's entrancing ... Pursuing Happiness ... makes the point that much of the twentieth-century spending binge of Americans, sneered at by the intelligentsia from Veblen to Galbraith, was to substitute for housewives' time."--Don McCloskey, University of Iowa

"Writing with lucidity, wit, and forthrightness ... Lebergott argues that the great American shopping spree is not mere self-indulgence but an essential part of what has been a remarkably successful pursuit of happiness."--Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post0List of Tables and Figure Preface Pt. I Economic Well-Being 1 Consumers and Their Critics 3 2 Happiness and Economic Welfare 12 3 Consumer Choice: Advertising 16 4 Consumer Choice: Externalities, Varieties 21 5 Consumption Inequality 28 6 Immortality and the Budget Constraint 34 7 Per Capita Consumption and the Angel of the Lord 41 8 Women's Work: Home to Market 50 9 Work, Overwork, and Consumer Spending 61 10 More Goods: The Twentieth Century 69 Pt. II Major Trends, 1900-1990 Food 77 Tobacco 84 Alcohol 87 Clothing 90 Shoes 93 Housing 95 Fuel 104 Domestic Service 108 Household Operation 110 Water 117 Lighting 119 Health 121 Transport 128 Recreation 135 Welfare 140 Religion 142 Postscript 145 Appendix A: Personal Consumption Table 147 Appendix B: Estimating Details 165 Works Cited 171 Index 187