hello everyone welcome back this is history 146 today we will be doing the very first lecture of the consumerism section from this point on will be on the next exam okay so consumerism this is what we're going to be talking about today and really what is consumerism buying and selling okay it's all about goods and services and wanting to buy stuff okay we are a country that was founded on buying stuff as a matter of fact America is so significant in shaping the modern world today that consumerism really being at the heart of that is important to look at when we look at how America has developed into what it is today it was designed to be the world's very first truly consumer economy and that is what we're going to be looking at as how that takes shape over time okay so where does it start it starts with an extreme money shortage among the empires of Europe okay basically what's going on is technology is advancing to the point where it's getting more and more expensive to keep up with it and back in the Middle Ages when you had swords and armor wood armor necessarily go bad after say 200 years know it might have to be refitted readjusted but you could still use it sword you keep it rust free and sharpened and it'll you know kill somebody just as fine in the Year 800 is it will the year 1200 you don't have to replace swords every year however as soon as weaponry starts becoming more sophisticated and new technological advancements make old designs completely obsolete and give new armies with the new weapons huge advantages all of a sudden you have to replace all of your weapons overnight and that is crippling the economies of European empires so as Britain France Spain Portugal the Netherlands and other European countries start competing with each other this international competition is economic and not just a nationalistic rivalry don't get me wrong the nationalism is a big part of it so you have these rivalries that are driving economic competition in order to create more income and the reason is because of how they tax the old way of taxing things back in the feudalism era was the aristocracy owned these big pieces of land and they got their tax income from the farm produce okay so whatever the land could produce that's what their taxes were the problem here is what happens if your economic costs rise above your ability to tax the land the land can only grow up to so much food and then beyond that if you try taxing the peasants beyond that they start to starve starving peasants staged uprisings uprisings become revolutions and when revolutions happen the aristocracy starts dying because the peasants are going to kill them and so basically they had to find another source of tax income if you can't tax land what Kenya tax they came up with the answer for that trade and so by encouraging trade more and more trade interaction going on the more people buying and selling things you can start taxing these different transactions you can start taxing imports and exports you can come up with all sorts of new tax revenues to come in that is all trade based and that is why they will start shifting from a feudal economy where land production is taxed to a capitalist economy where trade is taxed okay so this transition from feudalism to capitalism is what we're going to be talking about as America is right in the sin of all of this shifting that's going on so as feudalism goes into decline economic growth is necessary beyond farm production and also coinciding at the same time the rising trade is encouraging this buildup of wealth among the middle class the wealthier the middle class gets the more assertive they're going to be about what they want now as long as the middle class is relatively small they had a very little political voice but over time that voice is going to build and they're going to want more say they're going to want more influence more power and this is one of those cases where money translates into power okay so the rising middle class that is conducting the trade will eventually start challenging the aristocracy for power and so this really has the seeds of revolution within it so understanding that pattern and what's happening here will also give you some insight into why the American Revolution happens why the French Revolution happens why a number of big revolutions happen all within the space of 20 or 30 years of each other right at the end of the 17 and 1800's and the American Revolution is the first of these and arguably the most important the reason is because of consumerism consumerism is really at the heart of all this royalty back in Europe recognizes the advantages that revenues in a market economy can provide but they fear the rising power of the middle class so they don't want merchants to have complete control of the economy they don't want to create a free trade environment instead they want to try creating a controlled trade environment and so the first stage of the transition toward capitalism is something called mercantilism mercantilism is sort of this early form of capitalism and what it really is is economic competition and rivalries at the national level the royalty the kings of Europe are trying to protect their wealth they're trying to protect their power and they're also trying to limit the growth and power of the middle class so all of that is tied in to mercantilism so what is the advantage of mercantilism how does it work what is it mercantilism recognizes the need for large cash reserves European nations need gold and silver because that's their money now today money is based not on gold and silver reserves or at least not entirely on them it's more based on debt money is structured around debt if you look at a dollar bill it says one dollar note it's a Federal Reserve Note and what a note is is a debt okay that's basically saying the US government owes the Federal Reserve one dollar and they pass the IOU around as currency okay so you get a debt a debt currency that basically is just being passed around and that becomes the new money the back then money was based on gold and silver reserves what they call specie SPE C ie specie your gold and silver bullion the reserves that you have the actual cash was critically important to European nations now as we look at colonization and when it's when it's going when it starts heating up Portugal is really the first major European empire to build up a large cash flow where huge amounts of gold and silver are starting to flow into Portugal and it's coming because they are running the silk trade back and forth between China and Japan and they're making massive amounts of money doing it so they're exporting a lot of money from there problem is they've closed off the African and an Indian Ocean route in getting to Asia any other European nation that tries sailing through there are going to face a gauntlet of Portuguese ports so when the Spanish are saying hey we want a piece of the action out there in Asia they have to look for a new way to get there enter Columbus Columbus will head west instead of East he will be looking for an alternate way to China he thinks he found it unfortunately he was wrong he names the islands that he lands in the East Indies and makes the mistake of thinking that they're actually in or he calls them the West Indies excuse me and makes the mistake of thinking that they are actually Asia but they're not they're a different place but this gives the Spanish the first real presence of European nations establishing a firm foothold in the new world well the Spanish start branching out they take over the Aztecs they take over the Incas they start dominating a bunch of different Native American groups and what do they start exporting massive amounts of silver especially now gold - but they actually come into possession of the largest silver mine ever found in the entire world the potosi silver mine and this silver mine produced so much silver that it devalued silver globally by more than 40% that's how much silver they dug out of that they also killed 8 million people working them to death doing it but here you have two nations Portugal and Spain that are now very very cash rich England and France decide to get into the colonization game a little later they were involved in some battles some skirmishes some Wars and so they weren't really ready to start exploring until the late 1500s ok so that's when they start getting into the game where as the Spanish were doing it in the late 14 1500 s so understand the progression the Spanish and Portuguese have been making a lot of money for a long time and they are cash-rich England and France the Netherlands Sweden and other countries who get into colonization are also going to be looking for getting those resources especially gold and silver that's what they want and so when England sends over colonization teams into North America they immediately start looking for gold and silver they don't find any why they landed in Virginia there's no gold and silver in Virginia okay so here they are in a situation where they are a cash poor country England is in a cash poor situation and if you start doing things that is pulling money out of the country then it's stripping your nation of more and more cash reserves okay so when England's colonists land in America they find a new cash crop tobacco they start growing tobacco in large quantities but here's the deal follow the money you have England you have America okay America you're growing tobacco the tobacco goes this way which way does the money go that way England does not want the money going that way they want the money staying here okay so this is a big case of follow the money England is afraid of their cash reserves being drained too far by having all of it flow out to the colonies so how do you get the money back from the colonies after they sell you all that tobacco you sell them stuff back as they start making more money you convince them that they want to buy stuff and when they start buying stuff the money starts coming back to England and that's what they're after that's what mercantilism does it keeps the money where he wants it and at any given time the king can simply say okay it's October but we've already imported enough tobacco this year stop importing tobacco from this point on and so from the rest of October November and December no more tobacco is allowed to legally be imported into England now if you are somebody who is now dependent on consumer goods hooked on them like a drug you're not gonna really like it too much when they start cutting back how much you can import an export and this is going to create tensions between the colonists and royalty back in England okay so the mercantilist system is one where the colonies provide raw materials back to the parent country England in this case England then turns the raw materials into finished manufactured goods and transports them that way so that they can get their money back okay this is what consumerism is designed to do and the king loves it because he gets taxes on this transaction taxes on these transactions everywhere people are buying and selling stuff the King makes a little money okay so the king wants the trade to flow but he's also afraid of it because the more trade is flowing the merchants and the middle class are starting to rise in power and this has a big impact in the mentality of people at this time keep in mind this is a time of the Enlightenment well who are these Enlightenment rule of these Enlightenment writers people like John Locke people like Voltaire and Rousseau who are these guys they're in the middle class that's who these people are they're representing these changing ideas and desires of the middle class and as the middle class is saying hey what about me what about my rights the royalty can't just do anything that they want they're saying that they have absolute power no no no no no there are natural laws in place that Kings cannot violate that are higher than King laws so on one hand you have absolute power that the Kings hold to and the middle class is saying no no your power is much more limited than that we have some power we have some influence we have some stay and you have to do things with our cooperation or we're going to throw a fit and that ultimately is going to create problems and tensions that are ongoing back and forth between the aristocracy and royalty on one side and the rising power of the middle class on the other okay so the King once tax income but he wants the money to stay in England that's what mercantilism is designed to do okay so what this does is it creates a new type of business structure called a joint-stock company basically what a joint-stock company is is an early version of a corporation the problem here is that a man named Sir Walter Raleigh set up the first of England's colonies in America he set up the Colony of Roanoke Roanoke Virginia was a colony that he established using his own funds he funded the entire expedition himself reason he didn't have a queen who could give him the kind of resources Queen Elizabeth the first could not give him the kind of resources and grants that Spain's crown could for their colonial expeditions so he had to fund the expedition himself but she did give him certain control rights over in the colonies in exchange for that so more influence but less but a lot more risk was involved as well if the royalty is funding the expedition it's not really that big of a problem they lose their money the person running the colonial expedition isn't out that much however Sir Walter Raleigh put his entire family fortune in this and ultimately Sir Walter Raleigh created a company called the Virginia Company or excuse me rather it let me come back to the Virginia Company Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition Roanoke he dropped the settlers off they started to form their colony he went back to England and when he got there he had a little dalliance with the Queen's lady-in-waiting and basically she didn't like it because he also had a dalliance with the Queen and she got jealous and she got angry when she found out that he had been with one of her ladies-in-waiting and worse he got her pregnant and worse he married her without permission something you don't do and so she locked him up in the Tower of London so here he is in prison and then come calling the Spanish fleet in 1588 the very famous Spanish Armada challenging England at this point and Queen Elizabeth is desperate she needs a capable sailor and Sir Walter Raleigh's it she goes up and says okay I'll tell you what you go out and find a way to beat the Spanish and I'll give you a pardon and you can go back to doing whatever you were doing before however if you don't beat him you better not come back and so he takes a vastly inferior fleet up against the Spanish and somehow manages to defeat the Spanish Armada absolute naval brilliance in this case so she gives him his pardon turns him loose by the time he gets back to Roanoke Roanoke is completely depopulated as a result he lost everything the entire family fortune wiped out and what people in England realized is hey colonisation is a risky proposal here this can cost a lot of money and it'll be roughly 20 years before England tries another expedition after this and this is where the Virginia company comes in following the same basic route the colony that Sir Walter Raleigh established at Roanoke he named Virginia after Queen Elizabeth the Virgin Queen and so Virginia had a name and so the next expedition they decide that they want to create a way to split the risk and so they create a joint-stock company called the Virginia Company now joint stock companies are not quite like corporations today if you want to start a corporation is there any reason you can't no all you have to do is pay your fees file the right paperwork and hey voila you have a corporation back then it wasn't that easy not anybody could just up and get a joint stock company you had to have one of two things either the King had to give it to you or you had to have an act of parliament created okay so one of those two things either Parliament had to create it through a law or the king had to give it to you that's the only way to establish a joint stock company and the reason is because the king recognized the inherent power that these things had now the good news with a joint stock company is that it splits out the risk because instead of one person putting in all the money for the expedition it splits it up among a number of different people who are all involved in trying to get ahead in this but say only have to put in maybe 10% of the expedition cost instead of everything so it's a risk but it's a more limited risk limited profit limited risk and that's ultimately what the joint stock companies offered similarly the expedition that led to the founding of New England the Plymouth expedition the one that landed with the Mayflower the one that we celebrate on Thanksgiving that Plymouth expedition was also driven by another joint stock company called the Plymouth company so joint stock companies were something that were heavily restricted and the reason is the government is a little nervous and jealous of their power and they're they're nervous to let that power out of their hands okay so once all of the consumerism starts up the colonies start making money they start exporting goods back to England and the money starts coming to America England needs to figure out a way to get that money back and they start selling consumer goods to the colonists so they're saying well hey how about some new dishes these are some nice dishes how about some new rugs how about some new furniture how about some new fill-in-the-blank all sorts of new consumer products and people in the Americas start becoming enamored with consumer goods the more they bought the more they wanted it was a drug to them it was also a sign of status keep in mind there's very little aristocracy and nobility in America the people who are really in control of things are the wealthy okay so money is the secret of power in the colonies how do you get money buying and selling stuff so that is where they put their emphasis money starts creating the status and what good is it to have money if people don't know you have money so in order for you to have status people have to see your wealth and that comes through buying consumer goods okay especially portable and fashionable goods okay so the desire for all of these new consumer products creates a new phenomenon that is called the consumer revolution the consumer revolution was incredibly significant and the reason this is why the Industrial Revolution started the consumer revolution in America created such a demand for products that the English manufacturers the or the English artisans who are making the consumer goods couldn't keep up they had to start mass producing things what is Industrial Age industrialization what is the Industrial Revolution it's where you're transitioning from making consume goods by hand to making them in a factory that's what industrialization is about mass production okay so the desire for consumer goods got so strong so powerful over in the colonies that the only way the people back in England could meet the increasing demand dramatically increasing demand is to start mass producing consumer goods that's what kicks in the Industrial Revolution the Industrial Revolution started in England in 1760 that's the big magic year it starts because of the consumer revolution in the colonies okay that's how significant the rise of this consumerism is it will change the shape of the world all over the world industrialization is going to take off and why because the American colonies were thirsty for consumer goods this is a buying country it is a country that once its stuff and it still remains to be that same entity today that's still part of the American character you don't really see much of a difference in American culture from then to now when it comes to their consumer goods ok people around the world look at America as these incredibly greedy consumers why because we are all around us we've got so much stuff that we don't need and yet we just keep buying it and buying it and buying it everybody's got it think about how much stuff you've bought just in the last 30 days and this is even you know in a limited economy like what's going on with the quarantine during the Kovach epidemic when you have that going on you're still buying stuff we're still consuming and yeah we may not be consuming as much but think about even when everything was normal and we weren't being quarantined that the amount that you would spend on just stuff you don't need I would bet it would exceed what you actually spent on stuff that you do need so all of that really comes to get put in place in this period of the consumer revolution okay so the consumer revolution what is it simply put this is when goods were previously only available to the aristocracy and the very very wealthy upper middle class and suddenly they start becoming available to lower classes the center middle class the lower middle class even down into the working class when all of a sudden the same goods that used to be restricted to the people up at the top now start finding their way into the rest of society when everybody wants access to those Goods also comes a change in how people buy things and this is really why the consumer revolution is a revolution let's define our terms I don't want to throw the word revolution out there without you thinking about what we mean by that a revolution is where one pattern from before is completely overturned and replaced by something else that's a revolution whether it's a government or in this case a buying pattern the consumer revolution the change in how people consume goods is dramatic during this period of time because a major shift occurs in America and it will affect the history of the entire world from that point forward and it's simply this people stop buying what they need and they start buying what they want okay it's not that they stop buying what they need they keep buying what they need but before their focus on spending was need-based purchasing well I'm not gonna buy something that I might want because you know I might need something later so I'm gonna save my money for what I need okay and England is encouraging the colonists hey you know you want it buy it buy it buy it and they start buying it and then they find that they like buying it and they want to buy more and then they realize their social rank starts going up the more they buy and then they buy more and now everybody wants to catch up to the social rank of the people who are up here and so they start buying more and then that pushes them up to buying more and the people at top are saying hey they're getting too close so they start buying more and it has this ongoing chain reaction we're buying creates an urge to buy more which creates an urge to buy more everybody is trying to keep up with the Joneses you're trying to keep up with the person who's got that think of it like today let's say somebody a friend of yours buys a brand-new car you know fill in the blank call it a Camry okay somebody buys a brand-new Camry now you have a Camry too but yours is four years old and you're going well you know my Camry still runs as good as the day I got it I've kept it up the paints great everything's great I still even have a little bit of the new car smell in it even after four years but boy that new Camry I like it I like it a lot I like the new styling whoo the taillights I like what they did and its new oh I want a new one I don't need it my cars running great it's I don't need that I want it I want it a lot and so you don't have to get it yours is working just fine and yet you go down you trade in your four-year old one for a brand new one did you need it no but you wanted it okay that's what is created in this environment that mentality of buying is created in the consumer revolution this is what's happening people are looking to define their social rank by the possession of consumer goods keep in mind that before social rank was based on the amount of land that you owned that's what defined the power of the aristocracy they were the land owners well in America land is cheap it's plentiful it's all over the place land is not an indicator of wealth consumer goods are and so the more consumer goods you have the more consumer goods you show the more social rank you have because people see that wealth and all of a sudden you rise in status and so among the wealthy there were desires for these new fashionable and portable consumer goods now what do we mean by this okay you hear this word fashionable all the time but what is fashion okay fashion is something that is in style now but it is designed to go out of style very quickly so in order to keep up to maintain your social rank you have to have the latest greatest fashion I mean think of the fashionistas who are constantly buying the latest greatest clothes okay fashionable and portable something you wear something people see oh that's this season's whatever I don't know Vera Wang whatever oh those are the the new Jimmy Choo shoes okay those are last season oh they're behind in things and all of a sudden people see that and their opinion of those people drops so social rank is about keeping up with the newest fashions in order to do that you have to make enough money to keep up with the fashions and it means replacing things that don't need to be replaced that's the other component of being fashionable how many people have clothes in their closet that are perfectly functional you can wear them they're in great shape no problem but you don't wear them because they've been out of fashion for a little while and if you wear it it's kind of like well that's kind of what this is getting at you have things that are perfectly fine you don't need a new set of clothes yet you go out and buy them anyway okay so fashionable but portable people have to see the wealth on you it's not enough to just have consumer goods that nobody sees people need to see those consuming they need to see you having that wealth in order for your status to go up so portable and fashionable are an emphasis here also something that comes out of this as more and more portable and fashionable goods come out some people see some of those goods as a little bit higher status than the others think of it today you want some new tennis shoes so you go to the store to buy some shoes and you see these shoes that are on sale and they fit great and they're comfortable and very functional but they're an off-brand okay and then you see the new Nikes for $250 and you want the Nikes the other ones are 59.95 okay the Nikes are 250 and yet you fire the gun at the Nikes why did you spend 250 well you're spending $200 for the swoosh okay so name brand recognition becomes even more during this period of time it's not just that you have that consumer good you have to have the right brand of the consumer goods so name brand recognition is something that really kicks in at this period of time also social roles it's not enough to own something you have to be able to use it properly you ever go over to somebody's house and see this beautiful grand piano you got a Steinway over there they go oh wow that's beautiful I didn't know you play I don't this looks good yeah that belonged to my mom that belonged to my dad whoever but you know it looks good over there so I keep it around what good is a piano like that if you don't know how to play it okay and so consumer goods also come with the component of being able to use them properly it's not enough to simply have the consumer goods you have to be able to use the consumer goods and think of it in a different way manners you want to throw a dinner party to show off these brand-new dishes and some new crystal glasses and some new sterling silver flatware that you have you want to show people that you have all of this beautiful imported you know high-quality dishes and all the rest of that and so you throw a really nice party and all the people come and all of a sudden you pick up the wrong fork when the salad course is out you don't know which silverware you're supposed to use you have enough to buy the stuff but you don't have enough leisure time to actually learn how to use it properly so all of a sudden manners and expertise become important because not only do you have to have enough money to keep up with the consuming you have to have enough time left over to learn how to use whatever it is properly so new social roles were created and generated by consumerism ultimately what this leads to is mass consumption mass consumption really takes off and there are a lot of things that will end up being very important products in the consumer revolution because they are luxury goods but they are affordable for everyone even the very poor can afford the luxury goods and this starts blurring social lines back in England for example if you go to a place for say well they didn't really have coffee houses back then they had tea houses so you go to a place where they serve tea the aristocracy go to one of those shops but that's not really open for non aristocracy okay for the middle class they go to a different place for working-class they would go to a different place the blending of these classes is not really acceptable back in England but in the colonies social divisions are more about wealth than they are about title about class and so your social standing in society is a little more fluid which means the lines are starting to blur it's harder to tell who belongs up here who belongs here and who belongs down here when you are consuming cheaper products and so out in England where if you are wanting to sit down to tea with a friend if you were aristocracy you go to this place if your middle-class you go to this place back in America you want to sit down for tea or coffee go wherever you want coffee becomes the big one the products of mercantilism start creating a consumer economy and the first big product of the English colonies was tobacco think of tobacco do you need it well once you get hooked on it you do but do you really need tobacco to survive no you can go your entire life without ever touching tobacco fact that would encourage you all to do that spoken as a former smoker don't do it okay but tobacco became an incredibly popular leisure product and there were different grades of tobacco there were different brands that were viewed as superior they were smoother smoking they tasted better when you chewed depending on how you were consuming the tobacco but regardless of what class you are even the poor could afford a little tobacco and so tobacco became a leisure product something you do not need something that you only consume when you're not really doing anything else something that is a leisure product it's a luxury item it's not something that is necessary and so it became a popular social and leisure substance that was relatively inexpensive that blur those social lines over in the colonies it became very very common for everybody to be using tobacco but it also created an opportunity for some of these new portable and fashionable items things like new luxury pipes that can be made I don't know how many people have seen the movie national treasure but in that movie there was this really cool pipe that had been made from the colonial era that was called a meerschaum pipe and it was very intricately carved to look like a castle kind of thing and it was carved out of this this stone or maybe marble or something it was beautiful and it ended up being used as a key in the movie but the whole thing is it was this really elaborate pipe it was something that somebody only very wealthy could really afford to buy now if you're a middle class you have a nice pipe you have something that's very well-made very solid but it might not be super expensive but at the same time it's it's a good pipe now let's say you're dirt-poor maybe you made your own pipe and it's homemade but you know what doesn't matter you can still smoke okay all of a sudden you have different grades of pipes that reflect the different status of society so while it does blur the lines it also helps to reinforce the social ranks another product similar to this that is also a product of the consumer revolution is coffee even more than tobacco coffee was within reach of people of even very very modest means people can afford a single cup of coffee it wasn't like Starbucks today where they charge you an arm and a leg for a cup of coffee it was back then just very very cheap you know a cup of coffee was very quick and easy to get and it was something that people consumed on a widespread basis and so coffee houses became very very common throughout the colonies but here's the difference back in England places like coffee houses would be separated based on your social rank okay what class are you middle class do not go to the aristocracies coffee houses the middle class do not go to the lower class coffee houses all right matter of fact back in England they don't even want the lower classes drinking coffee because they see it as a luxury good that the the people in the lower ranks should not have it would encourage laziness as far as the aristocracy are concerned but back in America everybody's consuming coffee and everybody goes to the same coffee houses in America a wealthy person can sit with their friends at this table middle-class people at this table poor people at this table all consuming coffee in the same place and nobody thinks twice about it the social lines are blurring because of this and it's creating a more equal society all of a sudden the Enlightenment ideas where it's saying the individual matters and now the social lines are being blurred social rank is more about what you earn than what you're born too and all of a sudden a different character is shaping here in the colonies and it is a character that becomes the seed of revolution coffee will also become a form of social rebellion when the Revolutionary period comes when England starts upping taxes on tea America sees this as a threat to their individual control and the fact that England is not giving them a political voice they are saying no taxation without representation so it leads to the tea parties the Boston Tea Party will be repeated in places like New York Philadelphia Charlestown South Carolina I mean all sorts of different places will start having tea parties it wasn't just the big one in Boston the Boston one was the one that kicked it all off but the rest of the cities on the American coast are all going to have tea parties of their own this was devastating for England but in order to get their point across calling a stop drinking tea but they want something to drink so what do they start drinking coffee when you get up here in America in the morning people mostly drink coffee now are there tea drinkers out there sure there are okay but in England what is the National drink tea why did that change the revolution America drinks coffee England drinks tea and that's still pretty much the norm well this is where that split happens and so all of a sudden a consumer good becomes a revolutionary product as well coffee and tobacco consumption were viewed by many of the aristocracy as dangerous to the moral fiber of society they will contribute to this added tension going on another thing about the consumer revolution that's an interesting thing to look at the rising influence of women women became more important and more empowered because of consumerism and the consumer revolution will drive up the importance of women's roles in society now early in colonization women had very very low influence and status throughout the English colonies but over time the power and influence of women is going to rise especially in New York and Philadelphia those are the two big places you especially see it but also to some extent in places like Boston as well as down in Jamestown in Charleston other places and so why is this happening why are women becoming more important why is their status rising here compared to what's going back going on back in England England you don't see women rising in power like you do in in the Americas there's a reason for that and the reason is because while men still control the buying they decide what they're going to buy and when they're going to buy it but the men are working and so what that what will happen is the men will say okay honey you know that new table you wanted for the dining room fine okay we have enough money so you here's here's how much you can spend you go figure out what kind of table you want and get what you want I'll leave it in your hands and so the women become the agents of purchasing power so let's say a woman goes into shop a and the shop master is there and he sees her but just kind of blows her off and a man comes in and immediately turns to the man and says oh how can I help you well the woman's going hello well I'll get to you in a minute and so she said you know what I'm gonna go to the other furniture maker besides I think I like his tables better anyway and she'll leave and down the street to the other place and so she decides how and where that money will be spent she becomes the agent of purchasing and because she can choose to spend her money in shop a or shop B all of a sudden she gains more social power the person who has the ability to spend money has a little bit more status okay and so women because they're buying those Goods on behalf of the entire family they have become far more important far more significant the women decide how and where the money will be spent and so increased marketing toward the interests of women will be something that people will start paying attention to a lot of cutting-edge businessmen will realize hey you know maybe we should start appealing to what women want and not just what men want and this is going to be an ongoing problem something that the United States will really not figure out entirely until the 1980s okay the 1980s is when all of a sudden the marketing for everything just kind of shifts and people finally figure out all those agencies that have been selling things to men exclusively and the ads toward women are relatively sexist by comparison all of a sudden you'll start to see a bit of a change happening okay so women are becoming more significant now what this means is that there are two big impacts of the consumer revolution first there is a class intermingling atmosphere that has been created especially in the colonies that will shape the colonial character to become different from what's back in England the English will see this as dangerous and subversive and they will take a hostile approach to it essentially England pushes America into revolution the Americans don't really embrace it on their own they are reluctant to take that step they see themselves as English but it's England that actually sees the colonies as different and England was right the colonies have become different the other big impact is the creation of a culture that is based on consumption rather than survival consuming what you want rather than what you need becomes how individuals make their choice about how they buy and sell goods so this all of a sudden starts reorienting the priorities of society and this also will go to fuel this revolutionary mindset as people want more they want more influence they want more say they want more stuff they want more more and more and more and more and more and as they push for more England's not wanting to give them more the King says hey now wait a minute what are you doing you're not supposed to have that much influence that much power who are you to tell us that you want a right to vote revolution so part of the problem with the consumer revolution because of these two big impacts one of the byproducts of it is political paranoia the people up in the aristocracy are going to become afraid of the changing ideas socially men and women and their social roles that have been in place for centuries are starting to change the men are becoming a little bit more paranoid of the rising power of women people traditionally who are in power fear the increasing power of the middle and lower classes that's a natural response and the economic hold that the aristocracy has in the colonies has has systematically been deteriorating over time so from the 1600s through the 1700s as consumerism continues to increase especially by the 7 40s and 50s all of a sudden consuming is going to go into high gear and by the 1770s revolution that'll kick in so advertising during this period of time was somewhat in its primitive state when they were selling products to people most of the product announcements were their form of advertising hey we have a new product it does this this this this and this buy it today and that's basically how their ads went however they did learn something very important they learned that if you sell something that people want a concept that people want you don't sell the product you sell what the product will do for you they start to figure out that if they can sell that concept they can sell the product in this particular case what do they want the American colonists want respectability they want status okay so they start saying well if you use this it'll make you more respectable it'll rise your social status and they start to figure out that hey selling a concept sells a product now they haven't fully figured that out and they won't until the 20th century it'll really be the 20th century where you start seeing that selling respectability being at the heart of marketing but at this point most of the ads that have been going on are largely driven by product announcement so consumerism and revolution become something that go hand in hand because consumerism becomes a very powerful weapon at the time of revolution colonists realize that not only are they addicted to buying consumer goods the British economy is desperate to sell consumer goods the king and his tax income is dependent on those consumer goods the King spent a massive amount on a war called the seven-year war it just about emptied England's coffers completely they have very little money left over after that war it was hugely expensive and France is in a similar position as well and so the king is looking for all sorts of new ways to make money and so on one hand he's encouraging people to buy stuff but at the same time he's really nervous about what's happening in the colonies as they start wanting more and more say they are seeing their taxes rise and say hey what are you doing you're charging us too much we don't want to pay that much in tax and so the colonists find a new weapon that they can use against the King boycotts if all of a sudden the colonists get together and say you know what let's send England a message they're dependent on our money for their taxes let's stop buying stuff and so as a form of social rebellion they will stop buying consumer goods from England they will start an economic boycott they'll buy consumer goods from French imports or from somewhere else but they will not buy English goods that are paying English taxes so this is a way to use the mass mobilisation of economic boycott as a form of political control and it is this economic boycott where the colonies start realizing how much power they really have and how dependent England is on the money that they're making another thing that it does is it becomes very easy to see the people who are loyal to the colonial cause and the people who are what they would call Free Riders ok the people who are still willing to go by the consumer goods and not boycott them are suddenly using those consumer goods and they'll say oh look at them they're using those new goods mm-hmm they don't really support the colonial cause and all of a sudden those kind of people got start getting singled out they mark might get harassed they might get sworn at in public they might even get thar feather'd oh that is not fun having hot searing tar poured all over you is burning your skin then they dumped feathers all over you so that people think it's funny when you start jumping around because you're getting burned by the tar and so you start flapping around like a chicken that's what being tarred and feathered essentially does to people and then it becomes incredibly difficult to get all that tar off of you so it becomes easier to identify traitors to the colonial cause and chastise them for this for their disloyalty so consuming becomes a way to unify new immigrants from other places around the world to this common cause of increasing push for democracy while they are undermining the power of the monarchy in the process so this is laying the seeds of the revolution that will come okay so that gives us a little bit of an introduction into the roots of consumerism in America alright so that'll do it for today's lecture I will see you again in lecture number fourteen