History is always amazingly similar
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Young Windfall Development Association” (ID: xrich666), author Azhe.
For every Chinese social animal today, the American history of the 1920s is a great epic worth reading.
The literary master Fitzgerald once said that the United States in the 1920s built an unprecedented pioneering social structure. Since then, the city has become a landscape, consumerism has erupted rapidly, people no longer follow the Puritan tradition of restraining desires, and a new group of social animals, the first time on the stage of history, and this social structure will continue Nowadays.
Let’s take a look at it. One hundred years ago, we were the story of the social animal predecessors on the other side of the ocean.
01 The birth of social animals
The United States in the First World War took advantage of the gap between European countries in the midst of the war. With the sale of arms and products dumped, it made a war money and quickly realized capital accumulation. The then-president, Coolidge, pursued market liberalism, and the US economy developed rapidly in a relatively free environment, with industrial output ranking first in the world. This period was also known as “Kolizhi’s prosperity.”
At the same time, the wealthy of all walks of life began to form a monopoly, and the eight consortiums led by Rockefeller and Morgan controlled the lifeblood of the US economy. They are entrenched in the northeastern cities of the United States and are building skyscrapers for managers and technicians.
△The top of the KleflerThe building is an iconic building in New York in the 1920s
The increase in a large number of office jobs has attracted a large number of American youth to live in big cities. Today’s Chinese youth are deeply affectionate in the North, and the American youth are deeply in love with New York, Chicago and Washington. By 1920, the urban population of the United States had surpassed the rural population by 51%, and the population that grew every four years in New York was exaggerated enough to build another Boston.
New York’s real estate developers are crazy, they are building a lot of homes in the suburbs, busy, but with increased housing The quantity is still not enough to speed up the population growth.
It was also at this time that the first “social animals” in the United States appeared. These young people, like the social animals in Beishang today, are living together in the apartment buildings on the outskirts of the city. They take a crowded bus every day to go to work in the office building in the city center. Even if they can only do a small screw in a skyscraper in reality, the myth of New York still makes them rush.
The bustling life of big cities has shaken these young people from small places: high-rise buildings in the city center, billboards full of colors, full Street fashion girls, jazz and a wide range of goods… No one is not obsessed with the convenience that the city brings to people – only the city is energized here, the night is no longer the end of the day, but the beginning of free time.
People say that there is an opportunity everywhere, gold is everywhere, and everyone works as hard as a chicken. They called themselves “the roaring twenty generations.”
02 Consumer carnival of the first generation of social animals
It’s so bad, why do young Americans still yearn for big cities to be social animals?
Guy Debo said in “Landscape Society” that the essence of the city is a dream-making landscape. They use tall buildings, colorful lights and billboards, rich entertainment and services to turn the city into an attractive landscape, and you will be attracted to it, willingly spending it for consumption, and then for consumption. Willingly making money, can no longer leave.
This is the magic of consumerism.
The first step in stimulating consumption is to advertise.
One of the most classic cases is Coca-Cola. The earliest delicious advertisements are the originator of false advertisements:
The big poster is printed with the “ideal brain tonic! It can treat headaches, relieve fatigue!” On bragging, even the brain platinum has to call it a grandfather.
and later advertising planning uses psychology to make this guidance more subtle. For example, the ad below:
The poster is printed with beautiful women enjoying the sun and the beach, and the signal of “high-end white and delicious Coca-Cola” is issued in a dark poke. The social animals who worked hard to work overtime, “I just need to consume, I can get the same enjoyment as Bai Fumei, so I seem to be also high.” This marketing idea, with today’s luxury goods to create a high-end impression to attract middle-class purchases. The tactics are the same.
The essence of advertising is to define what is fashionable, what is noble, what is high, first to throw a seductive concept, then Tell you that you can get my product. Today, the tradition of car advertising selling “family happiness” begins at this time: if a family can buy a car, you can get “the highest standard of living in the world”.
When it comes to cars, you have to mention the second move to stimulate the consumption of social animals, installment loans. The xxx 呗 and xx white strips that today’s social animals can’t help but have been played by the profiteers as early as a hundred years ago.
The earliest stage is the sewing machine industry. In the era when the garment industry is underdeveloped, such a hand-operated sewing machine as shown in the following figure is what every housewife dreams of.
However, the husbands of the social animals have a headache: buying a sewing machine at that time is equivalent to spending a year’s income. In order to increase sales, Singer’s salesman came up with a way to let the housewives rent the sewing machine first and then pay in installments. With this gameplay, Singer sewing machines sell more than 2 per year.60,000 units, becoming the industry leader.
It’s the car that really makes the installment a success. With the marketing idea of installment payment, General Motors eliminated the car boss Ford at that time and successfully promoted the “automobile consumer loan” to the whole of the United States. By the mid-1920s, three-quarters of all cars in the United States could be paid in installments. Most American social animals were able to drive a car with less than one year’s salary. This made the United States quickly set off a car craze. By 1925, one out of every six Americans had a car.
Phones, refrigerators, radios, cigarettes, and cosmetics… Every commodity says to the animals: “You deserve it.” The social animals are spending so much, as if they have forgotten how hard it is to make money. Take cosmetics as an example. At that time, an adult woman used up to one pound of flour per year and no less than 8 boxes of rouge. I also knew that they could not use it at all.
△This reminds me of the girl who is now a hundred lipsticks on a small x-book
The tradition has been broken. The former Americans pursued the Puritan tradition, earning money to squat, first suffer, and then enjoy. But all this is too vulnerable in the face of installment payments. Can you slowly repay while enjoying, who will have to bitterly save money.
Young social animals have long ceased to believe in the thrift lifestyle of the previous generation. Work requires them to suppress themselves and maintain efficiency to maintain production; while products need to be consumed, they are encouraged to learn to enjoy and be guided by various means to spend their money. The First World War destroyed the fairy tale that the previous generation gave them. The ideal of this young man is only to make money, and use money for more material enjoyment.
Just as these social animals continued to work arrogantly and buy and buy, some young people who wanted to open turned and ran to write. Hemingway, Malcolm, Fitzgerald… These writers, like Nick in The Great Gatsby, have long seen the body of this youth, except for the material desires, but still can’t find life. The meaning, so they chose to write and ask these questions. They are called “the lost generation.”
In the 1930s, many American social animals who had experienced this decade said they saw themselves in the story of Gatsby. Every “roaring generation” is also the “confused generation.”
03 Speculative fanaticism and broken foam
For Americans in the 1920s, the United States has never been so keen to make money. All kinds of rich plans are on the list: don’t hesitate! Invest in your cash!
Everyone is eager to succeed, they all dream of getting rich overnight, and the more people who are daydreaming, the better they are cheating. Let’s not say that they are carrying their home mortgage loans, they don’t have much disposable income. What’s more, most of the social animals don’t know anything about finance. They can’t tell what is fraud, but they still can’t stop them from investing crazy. .
The result is naturally only pitted. The most famous of these is the “Ponzi scheme.”
An Italian named Charles Ponzi told investors that he found a way to make a fortune, using Spanish currency Weak, buy a Spanish postal voucher and exchange it for a US stamp. However, in fact, he only used the money of the investor to dismantle the east wall to make up the Western Wall and did not invest in any tangible assets.
△Italian fraudster, founder of Ponzi scheme – Charles Ponzi himself
This scam captured about 40,000 investors and brought together $15 million. Even if the old swindler Ponzi was arrested in prison, many of his investors were still stupid, refusing to believe that he had been deceived and continued to hold his long-lost stocks.
And a bigger scam is spreading throughout the United States: in 1927, the stock market ushered in an unprecedented high, and here In the next two years, the stock price confirmed people’s judgment time and time again, and all the short-term declines were just a prelude to the rise.
The high stock market has deceived everyone, even those professional stockbrokers.
Lewis reviewed the fanaticism of the time in the book: “The public are buying stocks. The myth of getting rich overnight is hanging on everyone’s Mouth: A young man working in a bank spends every dollar of his meager assets on the stock of the Nars Pool Machine Company. He has spent all his life without money; a widow In the stocks of the Kennycott Copper Company she bought, she could afford a large rural home. Thousands of Americans were speculating and making money, even if he didn’t understand those What is the nature of the company that is rich in dreams…”
This bull market lasts for two years, long for everyone to think that their future is bright. The social animals dreamed of selling their stocks at a high price some day in the future, and they would have a rich set of coastal villas at that time, and they would never have to work anymore. When they just lie on the palm beach and enjoy the sun, the United States will truly have freedom – there will be no more wars andCrime, hunger and poverty.
When the stock in September 1929 fell again, Finance Minister Andrew Mellon assured the public: “Now no worry The reason, the climax of this boom will continue. “People take big purchases of course. No one realizes that the bubble is about to burst, and when everyone holds the highest position at the highest point, the market will fall free.
On October 24, 1929, the history was called “Black Thursday.” On this day, the US financial community collapsed, stocks fell into the abyss overnight, and the price fell so fast that even the market monitor could not keep up.
On October 29, 1929, all the people on the New York Stock Exchange began to sell wildly, with the stock index from the highest point before. 363 suddenly fell by 40%, and thousands of Americans watched their life savings disappear in a few days. In the short two weeks from October 29, 1929 to November 13, 1929, the $30 billion in wealth evaporated instantly, which is equivalent to the total expenditure of the United States in the First World War.
The terrible chain reaction is happening soon: the bank closed down under a crazy run, the factories closed, and a large number of social animals were unemployed, many people Being unable to afford a mortgage and being driven out of the house turned into a tramp, and there are even many successful businessmen and bankers. The richness of the night became a violent night, and the dreams of the social animals were shattered. It was almost like a kind of punishment: they had to face themselves nakedly in spirit and materiality.
The social unemployed in the Great Depression is still wearing a fashionable suit, but there is no longer a fashionable dream
Baz Luhmann, the director of The Great Gatsby, once said a very interesting opinion. He believes that today’s China is full of high-rise buildings, the economy is booming and prosperity, everyone dreams of success, the same as the United States in the film in the 1920s.
Everyone in the boom era is Gatsby. Everyone had stared at the green light on the other side in the middle of the night—not only love, but also our inflated material desires and anxious desire for success.
At that time, we will not be able to tell whether we are pursuing happiness or being locked in a cage of desire.
This is the “roaring generation”, the tragic epic of American social animals in the 1920s.
This epic will not stop, it will continue to happen around us.