Nabiha Iqra

HST 202-14
Fall 2013
Extra Credit Assignment
December 11th, 2013

U.S. Consumerism During the Cold War

In 1958, during a thaw in the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union
agreed to exchange national exhibitions in order to allow citizens of each superpower to
become acquainted with life in the other (GML p. 914). While the U.S.S.R exhibition focused
on scientific advances, the U.S. exhibition portrayed American lifestyle that revolved around
consumer products. During the exhibitions, U.S. vice president Richard Nixon and Soviet
premier Nikita Khrushchev would engage in debates about the merits of capitalism and
communism. During the debates Nixon would focus on the consumer products that the U.S. has
to offer to its wage earning society. Even though Khrushchev criticized American consumerism
and claimed that most American consumer products served no useful purposes, he claimed that
the U.S.S.R. would surpass the U.S. in the production of consumer goods. Nixon cited the
amounts of consumer products such as houses, cars, TV sets and radios that average Americans
consumed to portray the message that the U.S. industrialized sooner than the U.S.S.R. Nixon
says that, Americans are happy to note that Mr. Khrushchev has set a goal for the Soviet
economy of catching up in the production of consumer goods (VF p. 245). He claims to be
happy about such competition because according to Nixon when both the countries will compete
to produce more and improved consumer goods, it will improve the standards of living of people

throughout the world. Nixon would also say the caricature of capitalism as a predatory,
monopolist dominated society, is as hopelessly out of date, as far as the United States is
concerned, as a wooden plow (VF 246). The United States, he declared, had achieved what
Soviets could only dream of prosperity for a classless society (GML p. 915). Nixon defined
American freedom as the ability to consume, to be able to buy what you want. During the cold
war, freedom to average Americans meant enjoying the lifestyles which only the wealthiest
could afford once, while working for wages. Consumptions of cars, televisions and radios
increased drastically during that era, since people would travel across the country for vacation
and watch TV during leisure. American consumerism is still pretty much the same today.
Americans want to be able to purchase whatever they feel like, thats why most houses and cars
are still bought on credit today. Luxurious goods became necessities for Americans. The
consumer industry today is aimed to push consumers into wanting to consume more and more.

Works Cited

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty. third ed. Vol. two. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
2012. Print.
Foner, Eric. Voices of Freedom. third ed. Vol. two. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
2011. Print.