Subtitled "The Story Of A Misunderstood American Virtue," I was particularly tickled to have bought this book on sale at the Kindle store for only $2. In CHEAP We Trust turned out to be a history book as much as anything else, with over half of the book dedicated to the topic of the history of thrift in America, from the founding fathers through to the post-war boom.

 

Weber makes a pretty convincing case that people were only ever thrifty because they had to be. I was pretty surprised by this, since I (along with I suspect many other Americans) thought that everyone was just, like, naturally frugal back in the day. But no, it was more that they just didn't have any money to spend, and nothing to spend it on even if they did.

 

I was more interested in the contemporary stuff, particularly in the mechanics of how we were convinced (by advertisers) to become the spending fools that we are today. But surprisingly, that narrative - as appealing as it is - is completely wrong. It's more that, once people had money to spend (which pretty much started happening right after the end of WWII) it just became one massive gold rush among manufacturers to provide stuff for us to buy. 

 

This is as dispiriting as it is counter-intuitive. It also means that we may need to re-think our beliefs about consumer culture and its relationship to television, "The Man," corporate greed, and so forth. Maybe it's not that advertising is crazy effective mind control. Maybe we just don't need that much convincing, when you get right down to it.

 

The historical stuff is more interesting and better fleshed-out than the period set in today's culture, which mainly focuses on the Freegan movement. But this makes sense once you think about it.

 

One thing that surprised me about the book is that Freud appears so frequently. Even though Weber always brackets her references with a note about how Freud's theories have been almost completely discredited, he's still there: 17 references, according to the Kindle Search feature.

 

In one passage which is as thought-provoking as it is disturbing, Weber draws a connection between Freud's (discredited) theory of anal retention with the urge to be cheap. Could cheapskates just be retaining money the way that, as children, they retained their bowel movements? No psychiatrist would ever say so (since Freud has been completely discredited) and yet we keep circling back to this point.

 

At any rate, strange Freud preoccupation aside, this was a pretty interesting read, and great for anyone who wants a more historical context for consumer spending patterns.