Despite its popularity, this view of human nature is wrong. While human beings may have a basic desire to strive towards something, there is nothing inevitable about material goods. There are numerous examples of societies in which things have played a highly restricted role. In medieval Europe, the acquisition of goods was relatively unimportant. The common people, whose lives were surely poor by modern standards, showed strong preferences for leisure rather than money. In the nineteenth — and early twentieth-century United States, there is also considerable evidence that many working people also exhibited a restricted appetite for material goods. Materialism is not a basic trait of human nature, but a specific product of capitalism. With the development of the market system, materialism "spilled over", for the first time, beyond the circles of the rich. The growth of the middle class created a large group of potential buyers and the possibility that mass culture could be oriented around material goods. This process can be seen not only in historical experiences but is now going on in some parts of the developing world, where the growth of a large middle class has contributed to extensive materialism and the breakdown of traditional values.
In the United States, the turning point was the 1920s — the point at which the "psychology of shortage" gave way to the "psychology of abundance". This was a crucial period for the development of modern materialism. Economy and discipline were out; waste and excess were in. Materialism flourished — both as a social ideology and in terms of high rates of real spending. In the midst of all this buying, we can detect the origins of modern consumer discontent.This was the decade during which the American dream, or what was then called "the American standard of living", captured the nation's imagination. But it was always something of an illusion. Americans complained about items they could not afford — despite the fact that in the 1920s most families had telephones, virtually all had purchased life insurance, two-thirds owned their own homes and took vacations, and over half had motor cars.
The discontent expressed by many Americans was promoted — and to a certain extent even created — by manufacturers. The explosion of consumer credit made the task easier, as automobiles, radios, electric refrigerators, washing machines — even jewelry and foreign travel — could be paid for in installments. By the end of the 1920s, 60 percent of cars, radios, and furniture were being purchased this way. The ability to buy without actually having money helped encourage a climate of instant satisfaction, expanding expectations, and ultimately, materialism. 
The 1920s was also the decade of advertising. The advertising men went wild: everything from salt to household coal was being nationally advertised. Of course, ads had been around for a long time. But something new was happening, in terms of both scale and strategy. For the first time, business began to use advertising as a psychological weapon against consumers. Without their product, the consumer would be left unmarried, fall victim to a terrible disease, or be passed over for a promotion. Ads developed an association between the product and one's very identity. Eventually they came to promise everything and anything — from self-esteem to status, friendship, and love.
Business clearly understood the nature of the problem. According to one historian: "Business had learned as never before the importance of the final consumer. Unless he or she could be persuaded to buy, and buy extravagantly, the whole stream of new cars, cigarettes, women's make-up, and electric refrigerators would be dammed up at its outlets."
But would the consumer be equal to her task as the foundation of private enterprise? A top executive of one American car manufacturer stated the matter bluntly: business needs to create a dissatisfied consumer; its mission is "the organized creation of dissatisfaction". This executive led the way by introducing annual model changes for his company's cars, designed to make the consumer unhappy with what he or she already had. Other companies followed his lead. Economic success now depended on the promotion of qualities like waste and self-indulgence. The campaign to create new and unlimited wants did not go unchallenged. Trade unions and those working for social reform understood the long-term consequences of materialism for most Americans: it would keep them locked in capitalism's trap. The consumption of luxuries required long hours at work. Business was explicit in its resistance to increases in free time, preferring consumption as the alternative to taking economic progress in the form of leisure. In effect, business offered up the cycle of work-and-spend. In response, many trade union leaders rejected what they regarded as an evil bargain of time for money: "Workers have declared that their lives are not to be sacrificed at any price. The worker is not the slave of fifty years ago; he reads, goes to the theater and has established his own libraries, his own educational institutions. And he wants time, time, time, for all these things." (Words: 1,003)
