Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves

If the financial crisis has taught us anything, it is that Americans save too little, spend too much, and borrow excessively. What can we learn from East Asian and European countries that have fostered enduring cultures of thrift over the past two centuries?Beyond Our Means tells for the first time how other nations aggressively encouraged their citizens to save by means of special savings institutions and savings campaigns. The U.S. government, meanwhile, promoted mass consumption and reliance on credit, culminating in the global financial meltdown.

Many economists believe people save according to universally rational calculations, saving the most in their middle years as they plan for retirement, and saving the least in welfare states. In reality, Europeans save at high rates despite generous welfare programs and aging populations. Americans save little, despite weaker social safety nets and a younger population. Tracing the development of such behaviors across three continents from the nineteenth century to today, this book highlights the role of institutions and moral suasion in shaping habits of saving and spending. It shows how the encouragement of thrift was not a relic of indigenous traditions but a modern movement to confront rising consumption. Around the world, messages to save and spend wisely confronted citizens everywhere--in schools, magazines, and novels. At the same time, in America, businesses and government normalized practices of living beyond one's means.

Transnational history at its most compelling, Beyond Our Means reveals why some nations save so much and others so little.

"Sheldon Garon is the world's leading historian on household saving, and never has his work been more timely. InBeyond Our Means, he offers outstanding historical scholarship, remarkably engaging reading, and practical insights for addressing our current financial mess."--Michael Sherraden, Washington University in St. Louis

"Beyond Our Means shows that we need more than economics and psychology to determine how societies save and spend. Garon reveals the history of farsighted reformers, politicians, and bankers who actively shaped the norms, incentives, and institutions that turned rising earners into savers. He delivers strong lessons for those who worry about today's overspent America."--Jonathan Morduch, New York University

"Garon's insightful and provocative new book couldn't be more important, and couldn't be more timely. The prosperity of Americans, and America, now depends on creating a nation of savers and investors, and Garon shows us the way by bringing the experience and lessons of nations worldwide right into our hands."--Ray Boshara, senior advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

"This is an important and timely book. It effectively makes the case for viewing savings behavior neither as primarily a cultural trait nor one produced by market forces, but as something fundamentally shaped by policy, politics, and institutions.Beyond Our Means is an uncommon pleasure to read."--Andrew Gordon, author ofThe Wages of Affluence

"This will be a unique and important book for historians, for policymakers, and for the general public.Beyond Our Means issues an important challenge to cultural explanations that will resonate far beyond the topic of savings. I learned a tremendous amount."--Lawrence B. Glickman, author ofBuying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America