Civilization: The West and the Rest

This chapter examines the complex development of consumerism in the West and its spread throughout the world. One of the main ways in which this spread occurred is through Western clothing as basic as blue jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. The author calls this “one of the greatest paradoxes of modern history”: the homogenization of style and the availability of “infinite choice” (198).

Ferguson also wonders what the adaptation of Western clothing—through popular culture—says about the West itself, whether it is about wanting to be like the West or simply adapting its forms to one’s own environment. Clothing plays a major role in this context because it was the textile industry that was first transformed by the Industrial Revolution in Europe. In general, the Industrial Revolution led to a “quantum leap in material standards of living for a rising share of humanity” (198). Ferguson even suggests calling it the “Industrial Evolution” in the Darwinian vein instead—to accurately portray the “seemingly random mutation, occasional speciation, and differential survival” (205).

One significant overlooked feature of industrialization is the fact that “the worker was at one and the same time a consumer” (198). The newfound ability to produce large quantities of cheap cloth and other items meant that it had to be sold, hence the “rapid development and spread of a consumer society that actually wanted more of these things” (201).