Economics Essay Example: Consumerism in America

Consumerism just refers to a theory in economics that claims that a progressively higher level of consumption is helpful to the users or the consumers. In America, since the 19th century and the industrial revolution period in the world there has been more significant levels of consumption than any other time. The consumerism revolution permitted all the goods and services to be availed into different markets in massive amounts for the very first period in history. The products were offered to the consumers at meager prices making them consume more products that were being produced resulting in the mass consumption era. The problem became that people were going for newer products and quitting on the previous models which made those sectors to experience a lot of questions in running their organization because of their low volume sells and thus all members working in these industries suffered a lot of losses. This, in turn, made some people live low lives while the wealthy people continued to amass wealth for themselves. This, in turn, resulted in them taking control of significant positions in the government which saw them have a higher capacity to keep producing more goods while the poor continued to suffer.

The New Left

It was one of the most significant political campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s which consisted mainly of the activists across the European nations (Williams, 2015). The western activists call for a wide range of reformations on problems of Civil as well as political rights, gay rights, gender roles, feminism, and abortion rights. It was intended for bringing about social justice to all regardless of their sexuality, gender, and even social classes. In achieving this, the activists wanted people to know more about the various social structures that have resulted in the issues of discrimination in the community (Williams, 2015). However, some people believe that the new left movement was just a renewal as well as a continuation of the classical leftists objective and goals. They refuted involvement with labor movement as well as the Marxisms historical approach to social class struggles. In the United States of America, the New Left Movement was linked with the collegeprotests that were against the war; they comprised of the Free Speech Movement.

NSC 68

It is a fifty eighty paged highly confidential policy article written by the NSC and presented to President Harry S. Truman in 1950 (Young, 30). The NSC 68 document had an important role in the launching of the deadly cold war in the nation. It was written to the president to help him decide the next cause of action against the Russian Soviet Union as well as the communists in different parts of the world. It was compiled by the Defense Department, the State Department, the CIA, as well as any other security units that were interested (Young, 13). It highlighted the Soviet societies region of influence if it was permitted to grow and it showed the way the body would turn out to be very influential and that it will reach a point where no alliance in the entire world would resist it and succeed. The document primarily calls for the militarization of the army with a core interest in self-preservation of the countrys image as well as imperialism. It motivated the president in forming a strong army to fight the body in an attempt to make suppress its fast growth.

Briggs Amendment

It was an initiative in California in 1978 that was fully funded by John Briggs, who was a staunch conventional State lawmaker originating from the Orange County in America. The main aim of the movement was to make sure that the gays, lesbians, bisexuals, as well as the transgendered people or anyone who supported such acts, would be banned entirely from working in public institutions in the country. It failed despite being headed by very prominent people such as Anita Bryant and all the members of the Save Our Children (SOC) organization from Dade County, to ban the regional gay rights law. The failure was because of the input is done by several public figures such as Harvey Milk who was gay, Governor Ronald Reagan, and even President Jimmy Carter. They managed to call for a public opinion on the issue that saw the campaign failed to attain its core objectives.

The Combahee River Collective

It was an organization that was based in Boston and active 1974 to 1980. It was made up of feminists from the Black African American society consisting majorly of lesbians who were being criticized by the Whites. They brought to peoples attention the interplay that exists between sexism, economics, racism, as well heterosexism. They aimed at bringing equal and fair treatment to the people especially women who were being discriminated because of their sexual behaviors. The movement was set to help the ladies from the Black Africa American society I getting a position in the politics of feminism as well as developing a space apart from the white women and the men from African American Society. Therefore, it was out to show the people that there were a lot of disagreements or inequality towards the women especially the blacks which made them remain vulnerable to poor treatment by the men.

Part Two

Backlash refers to the efforts that were being put in place by the people in the middle class to deal with the rising liberalization of the American community who faked a conservative renewal that significantly changed conservatism from being a peripheral force that was entirely preoccupied by communism I the first years of 1960s into a federal political society by the last years of the decade. Therefore, the first characteristic is that they were highly marginalized and ridiculed because every area or every group had its reasons for being involved in reformations. There were also higher levels of the dominance of moderation in the government which had reached its peak being marked by the rule of Johnson that tried to merge the politics of the New Deal as well as its strategies into a set of Great Community programs. It was thought that the New Deal comprised of a group of schemes that were meant to offer a incentive for economic growth and do away with the poverty problems that were affecting the people, especially the disadvantaged ones.

The activists believed that the New Deal did not respect the personal responsibility ad it motivated autonomy, which was believed to endanger the stability of the country as well as its traditional values. For instance, the Civil rights Movements intensified the fears held by the conservative groups in that the state intervention in saving some teams so as to bring about social justice would only raise political volatility as well as put at risk the status of independent people who fought hard to obtain their positions. "The progressively volatile race problem also assisted to split the liberal association apart. While in 1963, TVs across the nation had flashed pictures of white police officers beating black and white civil rights demonstrators in the South, in the summer of 1965, the media carried pictures of furious black youths in Watts raiding dealings and areas in flames. Increasing African-American aggressiveness resulted in a rising white backlash and campaigned for order, and hollers against growing delinquency often attended as a coded dialectal that acted to white suburban reservations of the black crowds of the central towns" (Lisa, 204).

It was characterized with a greater feeling of discrimination or isolation by some groups in the community especially the white people in the middle class and they were ready to accept change. The reason being that primary focus of the movement was only put on the high class and the low-class demographics in the society. Moreover, it was also marked by the ethical relativists values in the different academic organizations across the nation, and they were demanding for a change in the program to be ethics based. They also did not accept any of the ideas that were being promoted or brought forth by the communists which led them into considering the country as a revolutionary organization. From the statement, it is apparent that a lot of focus was now being put on the way the religious organization would help the other institutions such as schools to uphold more significant levels of ethics in everything that they were doing in the country. It was believed that this would help make sure that the revolutions being done in the country were mostly of best interest to all the people such that they were to be designed in a manner that they would put all the groups in the nation regardless of its background, in mind and make sure that the nation is ruled fairly and all people are treated equally in the nation.

Works Cited

McGirr, Lisa. Suburban Warriors: The origins of the new American right. Princeton University Press, 2015.

Williams, Raymond. Politics and letters: interviews with New Left Review. Verso Books, 2015.

Young, Ken. "Revisiting NSC 68." Journal of Cold War Studies 15.1 (2013): 3-33.