The Age of Materialism, the Consequences, and the Return of Humanity

In 1949 I graduated from high school in Los Angeles and began studying Engineering at UCLA. There is nothing particularly special about that. About one year earlier, however, something that would become a major world changer did happen in a nearby city of San Bernardino, California near the foothills of the Angeles National Forest. This event heralded the impending age of corporate domination of the USA, and was the unrecognized beginning of the age of the diminished middle class.I personalize some of this narrative to emphasize that there wsa a time. not very long ago, when we lived a simpler and much more fulfilling life that many in our country do now. Many of the reasons are because of our own behavior, yet we often want to blame someone else, and seldom accept our own possible blunders that contribute to the mess we find ourselves in. Perhaps this essay will open awareness to real factors that have sent us along the path that terminates today or tomorrow. Perhaps this awareness will help change tomorrow for the better. This is my purpose, to reach a few people who will reach a few more, and maybe our nations future will improve person by person.I will try.

In 1949, Los Angeles was a sprawling area from the mountains in the east to the ocean in the west that was attracting thousands of people from other parts of the USA. WWII was over and job opportunities were abundant . The climate and seashore were added inducements for growth. Mom and Pop shops sprung up everywhere selling groceries, clothing, shoes, chickens for dinner just beheaded and feathered, and virtually anything else that was available. Privately owned movie theaters showed first run movies for 10 to 25 cent admission fees, including 3 or 4 hour long triple horror shows replete with walking and talking vampires and zombies. Electric street cars and buses enabled easy and cheap transportation. Cars were often more than 10 years old since WWII eliminated their production since tanks and military vehicles were needed. Dentists and M.D.'s owned their own offices usually as the only practitioner and public health clinics were available to all. Los Angeles was very much like a big "small town" where neighbors knew one another and said greetings upon meeting in the street and while shopping at the local family owned stores. Aside from the rebounding auto industry, corporate America was relatively small and even car dealerships were "down home" privately owned endeavors that usually served the local neighborhood. American cars, made in the USA were the norm. My first car was a 14 year old, 1936 Pontiac straight eight coupe with a rumble seat, that I bought in 1950 for $500. Used cars were still expensive because of the scarcity caused by the war.

The beginning of the new corporate era was, however, about to blossom. It was in the Los Angeles area, nearby in San Bernardino, where Dick and Mac McDonald opened their first "McDonald Restaurant" in 1948. The two brothers previously opened a barbecue restaurant called McDonald's Barbecue on a prominent intersection. After changing the menu and name in 1948 they started what was to become one of the world's largest corporations. Ray Kroc purchased the McDonald brothers operations in 1954 for 2.4 million dollars, and officially opened his first corporate McDonald restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois near Chicago.

McDonald Corporation is now the 108th largest American corporation with over 24 billion dollars annual sales and more than 4.5 billion dollars net profit, or about 20% of their annual sales. According to net profit McDonald is the 50th in the USA. The growth of McDonald from small two-brother owned fast food restaurants to a world wide fast food corporate giant parallels the growth and transformation of American corporations, society, and culture since the end of WWII.Ray Kroc who saw the potential of the small McDonald Brothers chain and changed his life at the age of 55, used his ingenuity and marketing savvy to alter the fast food business as never before. His embryonic company remained privately owned by him until 1965 when the first public stock offering of McDonald was made. Kroc became an instant multimillionaire, as did many later franchisees and executives as well as many stock investors.

In 1948 when Mr. Kroc purchased the McDonald Brothers business, the typical food server worked for tips and a minimal hourly wage generally less than $1 per hour. I had a job at a Green Eyed Monster Ice Cream Sundae and Hamburger restaurant that was part of a small privately owned Los Angeles chain. I was paid $1.05 per hour as "assistant manager". The title meant that I opened the store on weekends and was the morning cook and ice cream sundae maker. This job helped pay my entry to college the following year.

After admission to UCLA in 1949, I continued working 20 hours a week for $20 at Americo Fontana's independently owned Flying Horse gas station in the then small town of Westwood where UCLA is located. I also worked as a food server for room and board at a nearby private dorm without additional compensation, but having a very generous cook who permitted the servers to eat whenever and as much as they desired, and a shared apartment that had a private entrance attached to the dormitory. Americo Fontana the Flying Horse owner, an ex boxer with a well flattened nose and cauliflower ears, was another generous and warm person who patiently taught me to do auto maintenance. Basic car maintenance was then commonly offered at small private gas stations. I did not have a car at the time so had not been to the school of hard knocks (engine "knocks", that is), so Americo had to train a raw neophyte. I guess since I was beginning Engineering studies he figured I would catch on. Eventually, I did but not without a few blunders that really inconvenienced some car owners when I inadvertently drained their transmission fluid thinking it was engine oil, and then overfilled the oil tank!

Clearly, the American work opportunities I experienced when a teenager were much more worker friendly then now and very personal. By today's standards pay was much less than the present legal minimum pay of $7.25,but life's necessities and college education costs were much more affordable for all but the very impoverished in our country. UCLA and UC Berkley did have small tuition fees for C nonresidents, and you could become a legal resident in one year of residency in the state. The cost for a resident for a full year,was a total fee of under $90! The most expensive book required generally cost less than $2. Students in my financial situation could graduate from UCLA without any debt, ready to continue studies, work, and get on with your life.

The Korean War did interrupt my plans and sadly ended the lives of more than 55,000 thousand American combat military personnel and hundreds of thousands of North Korean civilians. I was drafted before the conclusion of the Korean War (that never officially ended) and my PhD studies ended, but I somehow was not sent into a war zone during my nearly two years of service at Fort Ord, as a vehicle maintenance instructor in The Third Army training base and headquarters. After being discharged I was required to remain in the inactive reserves ready for recall at any time for eight more years. I was not recalled during the next American war in Vietnam that also began by an American President and Congress based upon false pretenses just as the Korean War. Wars often seem to start for the same unfounded and illegitimate reasons. What definitely has changed in the USA are educational and job opportunities, and the changes are partly due to our citizen's compulsive desire for material things well beyond the necessities of life.

The USA population was about 144 million in 1948 and grew to approximately 165 million in 1956 (when I was discharged from Active duty from the US Army), compared to over 310 million today. As our population more than doubled since 1948 our country has progressively lost many millions of once well paying manufacturing jobs to foreign countries where wages are usually substantially less than they were in the USA in 1955. The exodus of well paying manufacturing jobs has and will continue to leave our country as the countries that are populated with over 6 billion more people in total than the USA continue developing .China and India alone have an aggregate population of more than 2.5 billion people and will most certainly become the economic powers of the world within the near future. China follows us by economic standards as #2 in the world and is advancing quickly while we are declining economically. I think our country will never regain its once unchallenged manufacturing status and the relative prosperity that it provided for our workers after WW II for about 30 years. The decline of manufacturing in our country paralleled the boom in low-paying service-type jobs that McDonald Corporation and other major corporations exemplify.

For comparison purposes consider one of the most well recognized corporations in the world, aside from McDonald, the GE Corporation. GE is presently the second largest corporation in the world (according to Forbes ratings based on financial and employment assets and world scope) with over 160 billion dollars in sales annually, and net annual profits between ten and twelve billion dollars. Founded by the most prolific American inventor Thomas Edison in 1890 as Edison General Electric, the company was renamed public General Electric in 1896, and one of eight companies that made up the NYSE at its inception over one hundred years ago.

In 1955 GE was the third largest corporation in the world, employing about 210,000 mainly American manufacturing workers. By then GE was the worlds leading manufacturer of electrical household devices and appliances, aircraft engines and parts, and all types of power generation equipment, and other household needs from light bulbs to toasters. The majority of GE employees were working in manufacturing jobs in the USA, producing products that the typical worker bought for home use and applications. The comparatively well paid workers generated the demand for all types of goods and the demand grew beyond the wildest imagination and spiraled into what I call the "Age of Materialism". This unfettered demand that sky rocketed during this Age that we are still part of, generated millions of manufacturing jobs in the USA and prosperity for all appeared to be around the corner. Increasing demand inevitably causes increasing prices as costs for raw materials also increases, and new investments are required to produce goods to satisfy demand. The simple supply and demand cycle ensues with its inevitable result, increasing prices follow increasing demand. New things are developed to encourage more buying.

As long as wages and jobs followed the upward prices of goods and services all was well in the USA, except for brief slowdowns and some inflationary periods when demand slacked off or suddenly increased causing brief periods of recessions or inflation. Demand did not slow much even during recessionary or inflationary periods through the early 1980's, since generally well paying jobs were still available to most sectors of middle class America, even though the single family breadwinner was replaced by the two worker household since their demand for more material goods required more money than a single family worker could generally earn.

The steel industry, auto manufacturers, and emerging electronics and computer corporations mainly located in the USA through most of the 1970's provided well paying jobs and continued to enable the demand for more material goods. Without public awareness the roots of change that would upset the dynamic balancing act of higher prices permitted by better paying jobs, the situation began to destabilize in the 1960's when the prestigious universities in the USA created the MBA, Masters of Business Administration degree. Universities including Harvard, Stanford, Yale led the wave soon followed by thousands of other colleges and universities producing many thousands of MBA's whose main goal in their future business careers was to fatten the bottom line, increase profits. Higher profits led to better pay and bonuses for the MBA elite who soon rose to manage and control the increasing number of corporations, in the USA particularly.

This infusion of MBA's into American corporations was initially beneficial, since they were able to consolidate operations, increase productivity and meet the ever increasing demand for stuff and associated services. We individually in quiescent collaboration with the emerging multi-national corporations were setting the table for unemployment and low paying jobs in the future, while all the while believing that the middle class gravy train was bottomless and forever.

The manufacturing jobs that GE provided were well paying in 1955. The typical middle class worker earned enough to purchase a family home, auto, and send their children to college with no debt except an affordable, low interest rate mortgage of 4% or less, that generally ranged from $5,000 to about $15,000, in nice, clean neighborhoods. College kids were able pay incidental costs by working part time (10 to 20 hours a week depending upon personal circumstances)in jobs that typically paid about $1 per hour.

The typical blue collar worker in 1955 earned between $150 to $300 monthly generally including full health care and pension benefits paid by GE. Most manufacturing jobs in the USA paid about the same range where ever unions represented the workers, and some benefits were typically paid by employers. White collar workers in middle class America were paid somewhat more, depending upon their skill and training levels,ranging from about $300 to $600 per month as a starting salary.

Ordinarily only one member of the family unit worked out of necessity, while, usually, the mother stayed home and maintaining home and family needs. Children were met at home my mothers who needn't work unless they were the sole breadwinners. Many were following the Great Depression and often worked in sweat in non-union sweat shops as dis my mother for bare subsistence wages.After WWII individual opportunity to economically advance was available to almost all young people after graduating from high school.If college was not their desire many on-the job training programs were available at large corporations as well as small new companies who often welcomed new hires for extended training before becoming productive employees. Most high school curriculum in Los Angeles high schools (I attended two, and both had excellent teacher/ disciplinarians) required at least basic math and sciences, shop skills, home economics and solid courses in English, history, civics and a good dose of physical fitness. Most schools in Los Angeles, during the time I was attending public schools, were run by dedicated professionals who, it seems to me, were superior and dedicated administrators and teachers who also had the parental-given authority to dispense appropriate disciplinary action when necessary.

My view of our country, based upon my admittedly narrow slice of low income American life during my childhood in Los Angeles in the 1930's and 1940's through my early college years in late 1940 and early 1950, and being drafted into the US Army in the 1950's, although oppressively difficult for my mother before her early demise at age 45 years, who provided for my and her needs as well as a sister and brother-in-law, was in my mind generally livable and satisfying albeit sometimes sad and depressing.

Most of you realize that America of the 1930's to 1960's was irrevocably different from America that we live in today. We know that time is not reversible, and yesterday cannot be recovered even if sought. The America we live in today, however, did not suddenly sprout. We collectively and individually did what ever we did and each of us who lived since the Great Depression, just as before, influenced the resultant societal conditions that now prevail. We collectively allow ourselves and our political and military leaders to make decisions that shape today and tomorrow. Political, corporate and military leaders do not alone determine tomorrow's national conditions. Our today is the accumulative result of what each one of us individual in our country, and indeed the world, passively or actively, consciously or indifferently, allows and promote. We often fail however to look inward to examine our own behavior to ask how can we make our national condition better. We create our own soup and then when it becomes bitter we often blame someone else for the bitter results.

The middle-class ability to afford a decent and satisfying life after WWII is without question illusory now. Two or more family members work to barely get by. Who can afford a college education today when saddled with a college educational debt that is $50,000 to more than $200,000 for a four-year undergraduate degree-- even at the largest California public University, UCLA, that cost me less than $700 a year for all expenses.

Even the basic necessities of life are so costly today that an individual working full time at McDonald or similar service job barely earns $15,000 annually, and are barely above the official poverty level. Those who are considered within the middle class family status, if both husband and wife work will have a typical combined income of about $50,000, unless working for minimum pay as more that 15 million of us do. Compared to the lower class and middle class of the 1940's--1960's are the middle class better off economically, educationally, or any aspect of societal affordability including health care that was once affordable and provided by general practitioners who made house calls when required. The changes that we face today are largely of our making!

We tolerated the political and societal changes and road the wave of what many of us believed was ever-increasing prosperity, fueled by our unbridled desire to buy on credit and believe that a judgment day would never occur. We participated in a popular wave of greed and acquisition of things that have very little to do with the needs of life and societal peace and harmony. We have largely brought today on ourselves and we can restore balance and common sense if we decide to do so. The return to some form of normalcy will require many years of work, just as the decline that we now are part of of took over 50 years to implode on the middle class in our country. Decent jobs are certainly needed, but that alone will not correct the decay that we supported and are still indulging in. The quest for more and more stuff that most of us equate to progress has just the opposite effect, economic and moral decline. We must abandon this madness for possession of more things and become part of humanity that is willing to share the gifts of nature without obsessive desire for more and more. Only then do we have a chance to attain a satisfying life where we all become part of a grateful, not greedy world. Let us return to another reality for the moment that we must see as truth.

Most of the jobs today at GE in the USA are not in manufacturing, but rather related to financial and insurance service markets that are the GE corporation's main profit sources. Aircraft engines are still manufactured in the USA, but most of the 200,000 plus manufacturing jobs that were in the USA in 1955 are located in foreign countries where lower paid workers, many employed by Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Taiwanese, and other Asian corporations, making products that once were made by American workers in the USA at wages that are generally a small fraction of our county's minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Now virtually all household appliances, electronics, computers, clothing, virtually everything we buy in the USA are made elsewhere in the world, mainly by workers who have the jobs that were once all USA jobs, and for which the workers are typically paid less than the manufacturing workers were paid in the USA 1955.

The MBA wave that began in the late 1950's has achieved one its main goal. Lower cost of production by lowering labor costs, while improving productivity at the same time. More profits are realized and corporations and executives flourish. Politicians beholden to corporations for campaign funds cater to corporations that in turn expect "their" political hirelings to enact legislation that further increases corporate profits. Meanwhile, workers suffer, and unions that once were able to help their workers lose power since they are unable to pay off politicians as well, all legally of course in the name of free enterprise.

Small family owned businesses and companies have largely been replaced by multinational, publicly owned, corporations that sprouted from American workers efforts, ingenuity, and loyalty and the mutual loyalty of many such businesses owners to their employees, to present day indifference and dispensable treatment of most worker hired by internationalized corporations. McDonalds Corporation (MCD) is but one example. Since virtually everyone in our country has or will consume food at a McDonald restaurant we all relate to their presence as personal consumers. Is your moral responsibility to buy from one of the world's largest corporations and allow them to pay a barely sustainable wage to their workers who serve and prepare foods? What is your moral responsibility? Do you even care?

Why have prices for many basic necessities risen so much that the minimum wage workers can barely afford them? What has driven most of us to buy things that are not necessities, that are well beyond our ability to pay for without assumption of excessive debt? What has driven the price of public university education costs to levels that are not affordable for the majority of our young people? Why have we placed material goods above the value of almost all else? Are you an individual who is satisfied with the quest for more materialism? If so our present status is just fine. If not you must do what you can to change. Do not blame everyone else for our problems. We share in their making. Our appetite for more stuff and endless pleasure are the main causes of economic and societal problems we have today.

If you are upset about this nearly 80 year trend, what will you do to change it? Only when a large enough number of people decide that our present materialistic age must transform into a morality-based era can this begin to happen, person by person, community by community. We must reject the bait that the most powerful corporate and political interests offer, and instead direct ourselves to nourish and cultivate a foundation of morality and acceptance of human differences and likenesses. The instinctive precious human desire to mother their infants so that a meaningful life will emerge is a purpose that we all should and must share and protect. Basic necessities are grounded in this instinct that has permitted our human species' survival for millions of years. Will we reach back and mold this basic instinct to adapt our turbulent time for good will we be able to stop rampant materialism from consuming our society? Are we all up to this essential change or are we gong to allow ourselves to continue to be consumed by the Age of Materialism?