What would happen if consumers decided to simplify their lives and spend less on material goods and services This question is taking on a certain urgency as rates of economic growth continue to decelerate through the industrialized world, and as millions of consumers appear to be opting for more frugal lifestyles. The Stanford Research Institute, which has done some of the most extensive work on the frugality phenomenon, estimates that nearly five million American adults are pursuing lives of "voluntary simplicity", and double that number "adhere to and act on some but not all" of its basic tenets.
The frugality phenomenon first achieved prominence as a middle-class rejection of high consumption lifestyle in the industrialized world during the 1950s and 1960s. In The Silent Revolution, Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan’s Institute of Social Research examined this experience in the United States and 10 Western European nations. He concluded that a change has taken place "from an overwhelming emphasis on material well-being and physical security toward greater emphasis on the quality of life," that is, "a shift from materialism to post-materialism. "
Inglehart calls the 1960s the "fat years". Among their more visible trappings were the ragged blue jeans favored by the affluent young. Most of the retreat from materialism, however, was less visible. Comfortably fixed Americans were going without change, making things last longer, sharing things with others, learning to do things for themselves and so on. But while economically significant, it was hardly discernible in a US Gross National Product climbing vigorously toward the $ 2 thousand billion mark.
Yet as the frugality phenomenon matured—growing out of the soaring 1980s and into the sober 1990s—it seemed to undergo a fundamental transformation. American consumers continued to lose faith in materialism and were being joined by new converts who were embracing frugality because of the darkening economic skies they saw ahead. Resource scarcities, soaring energy prices, persistent inflation, high-level unemployment, balance-of-trade deficits, the declining value of the US dollar on foreign exchange markets forced consumers to look to their own resources. The one device which seemed most promising, the one over which they had the most control, was frugality—learning to live with less in a world where a penny saved was still a penny earned.
According to Inglehart, the frugality phenomenon ().
A. began to be noticed in the industrialized world during the 1950s and 1960s
B. was an old phenomenon in the disguise of a new cloak
C. indicated a turn of people’s attention to the quality of life
D. was more visible among the affluent young
