Consumerism of America and China
Consumerism in the United States has made America one of the leading nations in the world. There are chain stores everywhere, and almost everyone knows how to use a credit card. In comparison to China, a nation of producing goods, America has far higher consumption level. This uneven allocation of resources catches my attention. As a Chinese, I had always doubted why my country’s economy and level of consumption couldn’t be as active as that of the United States, and now that I have the opportunity to study in the United States, I finally see the cultural, social values and status, and political reasons behind.
Being a Chinese, I reckon the habit of saving that we have is developed long time ago and it even becomes a strong and deep tradition for us. For thousands of years Chinese are educated under the School of Confucian, which promotes the notion of self-discipline and modesty, denies materialism and vanity and thus promoting simplicity. For Chinese, it is embarrassing to ceaselessly show the desire of material goods for oneself. Confucian disapproves the notion of "spending everything one has" and thus it is our culture to save as much as we can to prepare for the coming worse. This conservative approach towards services and goods lasts for thousands of years. It is only until the recent years that the western theory of the benefits of "spending" comes to our attention. In the United States, it is the reverse instead. This is a quote from a college level Macroeconomics textbook used in the United States: "Consumption is a type of investment" (Miller 36). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the economist John Maynard Keynes concluded that the "cure of the Great Depression would be spending" (Miller 253), and since then this magnificent nation started their practice of extensive spending. Going out for dinner, buying new clothes for every new season, miscellaneous gifts for different people during different occasions, etc, are undeniably part of the American tradition. Even vacations in the United States seem to be designed for shopping – there are so many different and specific decorations, food, and emblems for the four biggest traditional celebrations in the United States: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. I can list very particular matches: Halloween for the consumption of pumpkin, Thanksgiving for turkeys, Christmas for pines (Christmas trees) and Easter for eggs. This can be so obvious for a foreigner like me to observe this occurrence. In China, no one plants pumpkins and raises turkeys extensively because there is no significant demand for such goods, and Chinese don’t often purchase as many things as the Americans do during celebrations. For example, my mother will think it is a waste to buy those Christmas decorations every year, and so we always save them after every Christmas for usage again in the following year. My mother persuaded my brother and I that she wasn’t just saving money for herself, but she helped saving the Earth’s resources, such as trees, by not buying new decorations every year. In the United States, to save money on gifts and decorations during Christmas may imply that one is not polite and is not respecting the others and so even poorer families will try to do some celebration with tiny spending.
As seen from the above, the tradition a nation is accommodating influences the consumption level. Chinese prefer to save money for future usage because of its tradition, but the society’s view on saving and spending also plays an important role on determining its consumption level because the social culture is greatly shaped by the conception on wealth of its population. Most people in the United States believe that spending can help to improve their economy and so they prefer to spend. Here is a description of America consumerism taken from a college level Composition course textbook:
Mass production, in other words, creates consumer societies based on the constant production of new products that are intended to be disposed of with the next product year. But something happened along the way to the establishment of our consumer cultures: we began to value consumption more than production. Listen to the economic news: consumption, not production, is relied on to carry America out of its economic downturns. When Americans stop buying, our economy grinds to a halt. Consumption lies at the center of our economic system bow, and the result has been a transformation in the very way we view ourselves. (Maasik 51)
This gives us an idea of one of the underlying driving forces of expenditure in United States– the society’s values of its economy favors spending. In my opinion, Americans feel uncomfortable whenever they think that people are not spending. They love to see malls filled with people and they automatically relate their economy progress to how crowded the shops are. When they go shopping, they may feel a sense of pride because they think they are helping their country’s economy by consuming. People easily endure lives with great spending with no savings because everyone seems to act this way and so they think life should be like that. The opposite is true in China. Every Chinese family plans to save for their children’s education than to spend the money on entertainment or merchandise. The society discriminates those who are poorly educated rather than those who dress nicely or dine in a high-class restaurant. Besides, if the economy is not good, no one will think they can help the situation, or, at least they won’t think they can help a lot. So, why not save the money for oneself? The people are not used take up the responsibility to improve the economy and they rely on the government to create new jobs and to increase expenditure. This is simply a difference in the opinion of spending between the Chinese and the Americans.
But what influenced the society’s view on consumption initially? I think the mass media should be the first one to take up this responsibility. The freedom of speech and the flexibility of the press in the United States provide a good place for manufactures to promote their products, and they achieve their goals by mingling affection, dignity, social status and their products together. "Simple, utilitarian representations of goods have evolved into something that somehow could help to transform you" and "you drink Chivas Regal not just because it tastes good, but because it’s going to say something about who you are" (Johnson 2). High –quality goods and services should accompany an idealistic life, or at least, people are directed by the mass media that way. For example, I have friends who would really rather buy a can of Coca-Cola or Pepsi rather than a can of Safeway Selected Coke jut because they feel they are going to be look down if they are seen drinking the Safeway Coke. We all agree that they taste the same though, despite that Coca-Cola or Pepsi Coke costs a few cents more. Ideas can be accepted and spread around quickly when there are more forms of media. This strategy of advertisement clearly succeeds and grabs consumers’ heart in the United States. Marketers, who figure what’s good for America is good for the rest of the world, are turning their attention to newly democratized nations and emerging economies, and one of them is China. However, consumption is a relatively novel experience for the Chinese. This so-called consumer power has not reached a point comparable to that of the industrialized countries though. I think this difference is related to the effects of the advertisements in China. According to an ad industry executive Jay Chiat, "You have to look beyond advertising to other factors that contribute to the attitude of buyers"(Johnson 4), and in this case, the educational level, financial power, and spending habits of the consumers are still playing more important roles than commercials. "It has been suggested that in most countries consumerism is a middle-class movement" (Ho 4). These are the people who are most capable of feeling and expressing their dissatisfaction in exchange process and instigating consumerist activities. For any consumerism program to be effective then, society needs a critical mass of middle-class consumers to spearhead the movement. Advertisements are effective in the United States because in this developed country, "less than 1 percent are illiterates" (Johnson 1). Meanwhile, in a study conducted in Guangzhou in 1995 by K.K Choi, sample respondents evaluated their overall social position along a continuum of five classes: 1.2 percent in the upper class; 3.2 percent in upper-middle; 40.7 percent in the middle class; 28.4 percent in the lower-middle; and 19.6 percent in the lower class. Another study, reported in the Hong Kong Economic Times (" Widening Gap…" 1), divided the country’s urban households according to their ownership of financial assists (cash, back savings, and stocks). Five financial classifications were identified: the super-rich (1 percent); the rich (6 percent); the well-to-do (55 percent); the sufficiency class (34 percent) and the poor (4 percent). China, even with its over 12 billion population, possesses way fewer consumers who can afford to look for brand names and quality when consuming. Obviously, it is the component of the population, rather than the size of the population, which is controlling the effects of advertisements, thus contributes to the consumerism of the countries. "Many Chinese can read and write only on a rudimentary level. Just 1 percent ever attends college" (Kahn 2). How can one be influence by any form of media if he or she doesn’t know how to read? In short, social status of the population plays a more determining role in this developing economic environment.
Under the former planned economy, production in China was made from administrative order. The needs of the Chinese were determined by the state and, more often than not, poorly accommodated. Because consumers had little or no choice of their own, the notion of a consumer society was nonexistent. "Before economic reform, the Ministry of Commerce controlled retail sales and distribution in China, and the States Price Bureau set prices for the goods. The State enterprises, in conjunction with their collective counterparts, monopolized the retail market, controlling 97.9 percent of sales in 1978." (Ho 3). People are not used to participate much in determining the supply, price, and demand of products and so they are more inert than Americans are to buy and influence the market. China only begins to open up its market for international investors recently, that is, since the year 1984, while western countries like the United States has adapted an open market system ever since it even starts to have an idea of what is the "market" within its economy. The capitalist economy of the United States evidently is an advantage to its larger consumerism because the market is free to have its own respond to the different elements of the economy. For example, if the price of certain good is too low, demand for that good will increase, and pushing the market price up. The co-relation between supply and price with demand definitely enables the Americans to better allocate its resources within the country. This ultimately leads to a more advantageous financial status, thus consuming power, of American citizens.
In fact, this is not only a game between the socialists and the capitalists. In my opinion, government’s attitude determines the government’s policies for the market, which affects the confidential level of consumers and determines the consumerism level. A study of consumer confidence, which is the fuel for the spending spree, can be a good support to this point. There is a great gap in the activity of consumers between the United States and China. "Consumers typically account for 66 percent of economic growth in America, but in the last year they have driven 95 percent of the economic gains" (Johnson 4) and "People are confident here in US—and confident people spend" (Johnson 5). This is a consequence of the differences in government policies on the economy between the United States and China. According to "The Ninth-Five year Plan of China" in Hang Seng Economic Monthly, China’s first consumer protection agency, the China Consumers’ Association (CCA), was established under the General Bureau of the State Administrative Bureau for industry and Commerce (SABIC) in December 1984. In comparison to America, which has numerous consumers surveys, either held officially or privately, conducting every second throughout the country for centuries, China clearly losses. It is inconceivable that the expansion of consumer organizations into a watertight network could have taken place without official blessings. This means that the cause of consumerism in China is definitely state-supported. In America, consumer movements owe their birth and growth to the sustained and concerted efforts of concerned consumer groups, whose actions have prompted government and business. The institutionalization of the movement in China was more a matter of governmental initiatives than of governmental responses to popular consumer actives. In America, consumers trust their retailers and they won’t doubt the quality and validity of the products they purchase. In China, where I had stayed for more than sixteen years, I still remember how I choose an item on the shelf every time I went shopping. I had always bought products with deficits or food which has rotten because I didn’t check carefully before buying. Furthermore, there is no such service as "refund" in China. Once an item is "out of the door", it cannot "steps inside" again. This lack of security feeling in shopping results from the market habits and government's rules and regulations. In America, I feel more likely to buy anything because I know that if there’s a deficit or if I am not satisfy with the product, I can always return the item back and get my money back. It is not a shock to see that why consumers contribute so much to the United States’ hyperactive consumerism and why there is a lack of active consumer participation in China.
Few countries have the natural resources, demographics and economic foundation needed to replicate the consumer mentality of Americans. China, a developing country, clearly cannot challenge this "spending" nation easily. Despite from all these, I believe that the gap between the United States and China consumerism is getting smaller all this time. People will get more similar in both countries as time goes by as a result of international co-operation and communication. Nevertheless, with an increasingly abundant supply of goods and more disposable income as a result of its opening market, Chinese consumer aspirations will be heightened, along with the momentum of consumerism itself. Time is an important factor here, and "China will find its own way as it muddles into the future" (Johnson 4).
Work Cited
Choi, K.K. "System Factors, Living Quality And Status" paper presented at the Conference on Social Class Structure in Chinese Societies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995.
Ho, Suk-Ching. "The emergence of consumer power in China" Business Horizons Sept-Oct 1997 v 40 n5 p15(7)
Johnson, Greg. "Americans, Review and Outlook" The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, CA. Dec 26, 1999.
Kahn, Joseph. "Some Chinese See the Future, and It’s Capitalist". The New York Times New York, N.Y. May 4, 2002
Maasik, Sonia. "The Culture of American Consumption." Signs of Life in the USA. 3rd ed. Ed. Sonia Maasik. Boston: Bedford, 2000.
Miller, Roger LeRoy. Economics Today. 2001-2002 Ed. Roger LeRoy Miller. Pearson Education, 2002.
"The Ninth Five-year Plan of China". Hang Seng Economic Monthly, November 1995, p1.
"Widening Gap Between The Rich And Poor" Hong Kong Economic Times, June 14, 1995, p. A14.
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