When Capitalism Was Cool

When I look out of the kitchen window to over-filled refuse bins that are brimming with the often unnecessary packaging of our food and consumer products - it’s easy to forget that at one time capitalism and the consumer society was cool!

Consumerism was great fun in the 1950’s with snazzy kitchenware, pink Hoovers and cars for the average Jo. Industry in the UK was already starting its slow decline but the advertising sector was finding its feet. The 1950s was the age of the consumer. The post-war boom meant that in 1950, average household income was double or triple what it had been in 1935 and this brought massive changes in the home; it was out with the old and in with the new. Open-plan living was introduced, and the fitted kitchen with its brand new appliances was every housewife's ambition.

The ‘VIP’ world

Did you ever see the great 1961 blockbuster film comedy featuring Rock Hudson and Doris Day called ‘Lover Come Back’? Rock and Doris are rival advertising executives with different views on how to conduct business. Carol Templeton (Doris) thinks Jerry Webster (Rock) is unethical in his business practices and while trying to catch him at it is also trying to steal his next account. The plot gets more complicated and entwined until eventually a mistake is made and one of the agencies launches an advertising campaign to promote a product called ‘VIP’ that doesn’t even exist - so Jerry has to make it up.


The film is a parody of the late 1950’s style and consumerism. It was born of an age that industrialists believed that with good advertising and public relations you could pretty much sell anything – such was the desire for new commodities from a public trembling with anticipation for the next new kitchen gadget, cosmetics product, automobile or garden tool.

The 1950’s started in the UK with housewives queued on icey pavements with their ration books and neared the end with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's phrase 'never had it so good'. Pent-up demand for goods and services and the unexploited supply of new technologies combined to bring a nearly unprecedented wave of radical change that painted new colours over the drab walls of the 1940’s. This was where suburbia began, and rejuvenated the idea that we all needed to have one of everything to improve our social status. The brands of the moment were Marlboro (cigarettes), Colgate (toothpaste), Hoover (vacuum cleaners), Heinz (beans), Kodak (cameras), Wrangler (Jeans) and Electrolux (electricals).

The 1950’s was a period when the western world wanted to let its hair down and have some fun in a post-war world that was reinvigorated by the power of capitalism. It was a time for fun, design flair, advertising and must-have consumer products.

Demand appeared to be without bounds. This was hardly surprising. More women (around 34%) were now working in the labour force, introducing the two earner nuclear family model that is common today. Family sizes were in decline. More people owned their own home. Confidence in the banking system was high, appreciation of inflation was low and average household incomes in some places were 6 times what they were in 1901. No wonder people were spending their money.

50 Years On We See The Raw Deal of Capitalism

Today, new generations see the relationship between capitalism and society moving further out of balance and sliding ever closer to a fatal point of failure.

The expectations of society are evolving apace as new generations expect more and are less prepared to buy into the human consequences of capitalism. An ever growing shortage of skilled labour means that the educated population of the western world is beginning to demand a better deal; a more balanced way of life that blends work and play, work-life and home-life, to mirror their personal aspirations of what a good life should be like.

It’s true capitalism isn’t perfect. But that’s no reason to think it’s sour to the core and believe that we should throw it away like sour fruit. The way that markets work and the power balance between buyer and seller can change over time. These are the natural market forces that describe the true essence of capitalism. Capitalism isn’t owned by industry or by governments. The foundation of capitalism is the ability to maintain a free market that is influenced only by the market forces of supply and demand. The opportunity for capitalists today, and tomorrow, is to supply what people will pay for. Commerce and market forces can and do make a positive impact on the quality of life for millions of people.

Those of us born into a world where capitalism dominates find a way to live with the uncomfortable marriage. Sometimes we fall out of love - but we never leave. It’s a familiar friend; a nightlight that reliably burns and protects us from the scary ghosts of scarcity, communism, political interference and dictatorship.