Book Review: Affluenza - The All-Consuming Epidemic

Posted on August 14, 2007

Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic

After seeing some other personal finance bloggers churn out book reviews like machines, I figured it was my turn to give a critique of a few of books. I will be posting more book reviews in the future, but today I just got finished with Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic.

Affluenza is defined as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.” Affluenza explores Americans relationship with money, credit, and the acquisition of more stuff. In the context and terms of a medical report, the book details symptoms of the disease in detail and then offers relevant suggestions for treatment. The book is divided up into three high level sections including Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment.

Symptoms. The book begins by detailing symptoms of Affluenza and how we have gotten to this point. Symptoms include historical and cultural perspectives detailing where we have come from and where we are at this point in terms of our relationship with materialism. Examples of symptoms presented include shopping as recreation (retail therapy), expanding homes (McMansions), massive, inefficient automobiles (Ford Excursion), and electronic addictions (the latest iPod/iPhone/etc). “Possession overload” is described as everything you have actually owning you instead of vice versa. The point is made some are taking care of their “stuff” more than the people in their life. Retail therapy is examined and the analogy of a short term is high is used. Buying “stuff” temporarily making you happy, but in the long run eroding at your financial security causing even more problems.

Causes. The industrial revolution brought along material conveniences with the capacity to be produced in a fraction of the time. The book stresses the fact that at this point in time the choice was there: Do we work more and thus produce more, or work less producing the same amount previously produced without the technology? With the introduction of steam power and assembly line techniques, a three or four hour work day could produce the same amount of textile or other goods as was previous produced by hand. Production obvioulsy began to substantially rise at this point, dramatically increasing labor hours and profits.

Another root cause of affluenza documented is TV presenting an inflated and unrealistic standard of living and pushing that as the norm. The fictional “keeping up with the Jones” has turned to keeping up with the wealthy. The wealthy are the new person next door as we continue to emulate the images we see on TV.

Treatment. Voluntary simplicity is the overall theme of the treatment plan for the individual. Voluntary simplicity is a lifestyle in which individuals consciously choose to minimize the pursuit of wealth and material acquisition. Instead, wealth is measured by the amount of time you have as opposed to the amount of stuff you have.

The book also documents numerous federal and local government treatment options, some far fetched and others rooted with realistic potential including “reducing working hours (1500 hours per year max), restructuring the tax and earnings systems, corporate reform for product cycle responsibility, more sustainable infrastructure, and campaign finance reform.”

Statistics to note the authors present:

Americans each spend more than $21,000 per year on consumer goods.
Our average rate of saving has fallen from about 10 percent of our income in 1980 to zero in 2000.
Our credit card indebtedness tripled in the 1990s.
More people are filing for bankruptcy each year than graduate from college.
We spend more for trash bags than 90 of the world’s 210 countries spend for everything.

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