Editing Consumerism (section)

===Mass production===
{{main|Mass production}}
The [[Industrial Revolution]] dramatically increased the availability of [[consumer goods]], although it was still primarily focused on the [[capital goods]] sector and industrial infrastructure (i.e., mining, steel, oil, transportation networks, communications networks, [[industrial cities]], financial centers, etc.).{{sfn|Ryan|2007|p=701}} The advent of the [[department store]] represented a paradigm shift in the experience of shopping. Customers could now buy an astonishing variety of goods, all in one place, and shopping became a popular leisure activity. While previously the norm had been the scarcity of resources, the [[Industrial Revolution|industrial era]] created an unprecedented economic situation. For the first time in history products were available in outstanding quantities, at outstandingly low prices, therefore available to virtually everyone in the industrialized West.

By the turn of the 20th century, the average worker in Western Europe or the United States still spent approximately 80–90% of their income on food and other necessities. What was needed to propel consumerism, was a system of [[mass production]] and consumption, exemplified by [[Henry Ford]], an American car manufacturer. After observing the assembly lines in the [[meat-packing industry]], [[Frederick Winslow Taylor]] brought his theory of [[scientific management]] to the organization of the assembly line in other industries; this unleashed incredible productivity and reduced the costs of commodities produced on assembly lines around the world.{{sfn|Ryan|2007|p=702 |ps=.{{qn|date=August 2012}}}}

[[File:DCUSA.Gallery10.TargetBlackFriday.Wikipedia.jpg|thumb|[[Black Friday (shopping)|Black Friday]] shoppers, [[DC USA]]]]

Consumerism has long had intentional underpinnings, rather than just developing out of capitalism. As an example, [[Earnest Elmo Calkins]] noted to fellow advertising executives in 1932 that "consumer engineering must see to it that we use up the kind of goods we now merely use", while the domestic theorist [[Christine Frederick]] observed in 1929 that "the way to break the vicious deadlock of a low standard of living is to spend freely, and even waste creatively".<ref name="DEADMALL">{{cite web|url=http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=11747|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091114231851/http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=11747|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 November 2009|title=Essay – Dawn of the Dead Mall|date=11 November 2009|work=The Design Observer Group|access-date=14 February 2010}}</ref>

The older term and concept of "[[conspicuous consumption]]" originated at the turn of the 20th century in the writings of sociologist and economist [[Thorstein Veblen]]. The term describes an apparently irrational and confounding form of economic behaviour. Veblen's scathing proposal that this unnecessary consumption is a form of status display is made in darkly humorous observations like the following:
{{cquote|It is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; so that it is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate, for people to go ill clad to appear well dressed.<ref>{{cite book|last=Veblen|first=Thorstein|title=The Theory of the Leisure Class|year=2010}}</ref>
}}

The term "conspicuous consumption" spread to describe consumerism in the United States in the 1960s, but was soon linked to debates about [[media influence|media theory]], [[culture jamming]], and its corollary [[productivism]].

{{cquote|By 1920 most Americans had experimented with occasional installment buying.<ref>{{cite book|last=Calder|first=Lendol Glen|title=Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|year=1990|location=Princeton, NJ|page=[https://archive.org/details/financingamerica00cald_0/page/222 222]|isbn=0-691-05827-X|url=https://archive.org/details/financingamerica00cald_0/page/222}}</ref>
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