Did the Protestant Ethic Disappear? The Virtue of Thrift on the Cusp of Postwar Affluence

David Steigerwald

doi:10.1093/es/khn082

Did the Protestant Ethic Disappear? The Virtue of Thrift on the Cusp of Postwar Affluence

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2015

David Steigerwald

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Abstract

After World War II, the United States moved into what historians are now recognizing as a full-blown consumer society. Consumer society carried with it vast cultural changes, including shifts in fundamental values. Not least important were shifts in the practices of thrift, as seen in how Americans regarded personal savings and debt. Traditionally seen as opposites, those two economic behaviors became intertwined in the 1950s, as Americans continued to save, not to accumulate wealth but to spend and often even as they took on consumer debt. Thus, the 1950s were a tipping point between industrial capitalism and consumer capitalism.

Type: Articles
Information: Enterprise & Society , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 788 - 815

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/es/khn082 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Author(s) 2008. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

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