John de Graaf - Affluenza: How Overconsumption Is Killing Us--and How to Fight Back

More Praise for Affluenza

This witty yet hard-hitting book provides evidence of the social problems caused by the American obsession with acquiring stuff and proposes solutions for living more sustainably. Highly recommended.

Library Journal

Now here is a good reason to go shopping! The wonderful book that made consumerism the issue it should be, Affluenza, is here in a third, fully updated edition. The story of the Joneses, of keeping up with the Joneses fame, is itself worth the very modest price you will have to pay to enjoy this classic, now new and improved.

James Gustave Speth, author of America the Possible and former director, Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

If ever there was a right book at the right time, Affluenza is it. This country needs this book.

Lester R. Brown, President, Earth Policy Institute, author of Plan B 4.0 and Full Planet, Empty Plates

Affluenza makes us take a hard look at how the drive to excessive consumerism is personally, socially, and environmentally disastrous and then takes us on an exciting path to deeper happiness and satisfaction. It is a must-read for all who strive to create more healthy, just, and secure communities.

Anthony D. Cortese, former Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and founder, American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment

De Graaf, Wann, and Naylor have achieved something special with Affluenza. They take an unflinching look at the train wreck of Americas consumer culture and then extricate us from the wreckage by providing practical policies and achievable actions for building a healthier society. Affluenza is also a great read; it contains the hopeful ideas we need to reach a livable future.

Rob Dietz, coauthor of Enough Is Enough

The programs offered at the end of the book work on many levels, from making personal choices to changing the rules of the game to reward all actions moving us toward a thriving, just, and sustainable future. So enjoy! This is a great book about a tough-to-face set of problems.

Vicki Robin, coauthor of Your Money or Your Life and author of Blessing the Hands That Feed Us

Affluenza is an engagingly conversational, thought-provoking look at where we have perverted the American dream. Though the nature of books like these is to preach to the converted, Affluenza offers enough support to the arguments and enough depth to the solutions to have a good chance of reaching the unconvinced.

Detroit Free Press

AFFLUENZA

AFFLUENZA

HOW OVERCONSUMPTION IS KILLING USAND HOW WE CAN FIGHT BACK

THIRD EDITION

John de Graaf

David Wann

Thomas H. Naylor

Affluenza

Copyright 2014 by John de Graaf, David Wann, Thomas H. Naylor
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

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Ordering information for print editions
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Third Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-60994-927-3
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-60994-928-0
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-60994-929-7

2013-1

Interior design and composition: Seventeenth Street Studios

Cover design: Mark van Bronkhorst, MvB Design

Copyeditor: Karen Seriguchi

Proofreader: Laurie Dunne

Indexer: Richard Evans

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Photo, : The Surrender of the Joneses, Francine Strickwerda

In memory of Dr. Henry J. Frundt (19402010)

In loving memory of Marjorie Southworth Wann (19262012)

When Affluenza was first published in 2001, its diagnosis of the sickness in consumer society and its prescriptions for the cure stood in marked contrast to the nations prevailing optimism. The American economy was at a postwar peak. The stock market had tripled in the previous decade, topping the once-unimaginable 10,000 level. Soaring housing values were making ordinary homeowners rich (on paper, at least). The first dot-com boom was minting young millionaires and billionaires in the high-tech entrepreneurial class.

Then the World Trade Center attacks sent the stock market plunging, triggering a recession and exposing the hollowness of a system whose leaders advised us that the patriotic response to terrorism was to go shopping. In the years following, the dot-com boom went bust, and the near-collapse of corrupt financial institutions plunged millions of homeowners into debt and foreclosure. Today, even as the economists tell us the Great Recession has ended, the real unemployment ratethose without work, those who need more work, and those who have stopped lookingremains scandalously high. The Occupy movement has sharpened awareness of the inherent inequities of an economy in which the wealthiest get richer and richer while most of the rest of us work longer hours with less job security, health insurance, and retirement security just to keep our heads above water.

But if Affluenza was ahead of its time, more than ever its time is now.

From book groups to congregations to classrooms, Affluenza has become an enduring classicnot only for its insight into the emptiness and unsustainability of a system based on ever-expanding consumption but also for boldly pointing a way out. Its ultimately hopeful messagethat it is possible to build a society based on not more but better, not selfishness but sharing, not competition but communityhas inspired millions to rethink their lives and question the status quo. Its very title has become a part of the language, an indispensable tool for describing the ills of a society where, to paraphrase the personal-finance guru Dave Ramsey, we work too much to buy things we dont need with money we dont have to impress people we dont even know. It has played an immeasurable role in informing my own work on