I’m on the road from here to there, and decided to stop at an Outlet Mall. Me: I don’t need anything. Also me: but consuming is AMERICAN.
And it hit me, watching all the fat people waddling in and out, with their soon to be or currently fat kids, that while it is true Americans consume a lot, we also WORK a lot, significantly more than most other nations.
On the one hand, the dilution of our money by parties unknown forces this work on us, if we are to keep up with the commercials (which is what the Joneses are also trying to do, a perpetual carrot on a perpetual stick). At the same time, this work prevents us from being fully decadent. The money dilution “tightens up the slack”, so to speak.
Who would we be if we only had to work 20 hours a week? How fucking fat and useless would we be THEN? Would we not be even more Late Stage Rome?