Mad Men and consumption

Thanks to my illustrious coauthor, I’ve become completely hooked on Mad Men this past week. If you aren’t watching, you’re missing one of the greatest shows on television right now. It’s set at a fictional Madison Avenue advertising firm in the early 1960s. Aside from being a great drama, it meticulously recreates that halcyon era of American life.

While watching it, I couldn’t help thinking about the economic angle as well. In a lot of ways, it’s also a show about being rich in the early 60s. What did that mean? For Don Draper, the main character, it’s a huge house in the suburbs, a fancy car, and a high degree of leisure consumption in the swankiest parts of Manhattan. But what makes the show truly great, in my opinion, is how it faithfully captures the social mores of the period, which informed people’s behavior. What I found truly striking on the show is how everyone consumes like nothing is ever going to run out. There seems to be an undercurrent that things can only get better, which dovetails nicely with the economic realities of the time (postwar expansion, yet to be interrupted by the oil shocks of the 70s). Contrast that with today, where we have a massive climate change problem and economic uncertainty, and (right or wrong) Malthusian predictions about humanity’s ability to feed itself are common.

A simpler era? (Putting aside that whole mutually assured destruction thing, of course...)

Leisure vs. consumption

French President Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured right with his supermodel wife) has been quite busy of late, whether it's modernizing France's military (insert requisite joke here), or, perhaps even more drastically, dismantling the mandatory 35-hour work week. This was actually a central campaign promise of M. Sarkozy's: travailler plus pour gagner plus (work more to earn more.) Under the new legislation, it will be easier for employers to set longer working hours, which should allow workers to make more money.

I don't imagine many étrangers, particularly North Americans, will have much sympathy for the fact that the French may have to work more. Americans in particular tend to put in long hours and if we do it, the reasoning goes, why shouldn't they? But then an equally valid question becomes: why do Americans work so much?

I think the answer to both questions speaks to general differences in cultural preferences/norms. Americans value higher consumption. The French, as well as most of Western Europe, value leisure highly. As a result, welfare-maximizing individuals in both countries pursue these goals: in the US we put in more hours at the office and earn more money, so we get to come home to our nice McMansions and flat-screen TVs, while in France you've got less fric ($$$) but you can duck out at 3 and go meet your buddies in a cafe to discuss how meaningless life is.

Jokes aside, I do think my main point holds: Western Europeans tend not to be as rich as Americans, but a large part of this is because they place a higher premium on leisure time. So if you want to laugh at how ridiculous the idea of a mandatory 35-hour French work week is, it's probably worth keeping in mind that the French find our 55+ hour weeks equally absurd. Which lifestyle do you think is better?

 

N.B. for simplicity I left out some important caveats about the French work week, like the fact that most French people work more than 35 hours and use it to build up vacation time or that French workers are the fifth-most productive per capita in the world.