Is it in the interest of the consumer to pay taxes? Transatlantic differences in postwar approaches to public consumption

Abstract

This article is a comparative analysis of American and West German consumer policy and its underlying definition of the consumer interest during the decades following the Second World War. It traces diverging government responses to a transatlantic debate among economists, policy makers and a wider public over the proper balance between private and public consumption. Whereas postwar America put an emphasis on unrestrained private purchasing power and limited public spending, West German policy makers were more likely to include the provision of publicly supported and tax-funded goods and services as part of their definition of the consumer's interest. This contributed, the article proposes, to a fundamentally different perspective on government spending and taxation by middle-class consumers in both countries. Drawing on media sources, contemporary scholarly literature and government documents, I want to elaborate on our understanding of what counted as ‘consumption’ and ‘consumer goods’ and thereby encourage scholars in the growing field of consumption studies to look beyond the usual array of private goods. I furthermore question the influential notion of an ‘imperial’ reach of the American consumption model in the postwar era. Approaches to consumption and balancing private/public spending were markedly different in Western Europe, and the German case provides a prominent example of this.