What would happen if consumers decided to simplify their
lives and spend less on material goods and services This question is taking on
a certain urgency as rates of economic growth continue to decelerate through the
industrialized world, and as millions of consumers appear to be opting for more
frugal lifestyles. The Stanford Research Institute, which has done some of the
most extensive work on the frugality phenomenon, estimates that nearly five
million American adults are pursuing lives of "voluntary simplicity", and double
that number "adhere to and act on some but not all" of its basic
tenets. The frugality phenomenon first achieved prominence as a
middle-class rejection of high-consumption lifestyle in the-industrialized world
during the 1950s and 1960s. In The Silent Revolution, Ronald Inglehart
of the University of Michigan’s Institute of Social Research examined this
experience in the United States and 10 Western European nations. He concluded
that a change has taken place "from an overwhelming emphasis on material
well-being and physical security toward greater emphasis on the quality of
life," that is, "a shift from materialism to post-materialism."
Inglehart calls the 1960s the "fat years". Among their more visible trappings
were the ragged blue jeans favored by the affluent young. Most of the retreat
from materialism, however, was less visible. Comfortably fixed Americans were
going without change, making things last longer, sharing things with others,
learning to do things for themselves and so on. But while economically
significant, it was hardly discernible in a US Gross National Product climbing
vigorously toward the $ 2 thousand billion mark. Yet as the
frugality phenomenon matured—growing out of the soaring 1980s and into the sober
1990s—it seemed to undergo a fundamental transformation. American consumers
continued to lose faith in materialism and were being joined by new converts who
were embracing frugality because of the darkening economic skies they saw ahead.
Resource scarcities, soaring energy prices, persistent inflation, high-level
unemployment, balance-of-trade deficits, the declining value of the US dollar on
foreign exchange markets forced consumers to look to their own resources. The
one device which seemed most promising, the one over which they had the most
control, was frugality—learning to live with less in a world where a penny saved
was still a penny earned. The frugality phenomenon was less visible in the 1960s because ______.
A. most Americans were comfortably fixed and didn’t want to change
B. the robust American economy then made it hardly discernible
C. the retreat from materialism was not economically significant
D. most people didn’t want to be accused of resisting the
tradition