LONDON, 3 May 2006 — As the waves of avarice, incompetence and lust wash over the beached hulk of the S.S. Blatcher, its errors of navigation are coming into sharp relief. The death of JK Galbraith, author of The Affluent Society, has removed the sharpest cartographer of a quarter century of misguided navigation. Luckily for us, a new pilot has immediately appeared.

Avner Offer is professor of economic history at Oxford University, UK. His book The Challenge of Affluence (Oxford University Press) diligently and readably exposes the extent to which the past 25 years have forced people in the English-speaking world to believe that there is no alternative to dual-income workaholic consumerism, the “hedonic treadmill’’.

After a century of declining hours at work, the trend reversed in the US and Britain from the 1970s onward. Consumerism drove longer working hours, for, Offer writes, “in the affluent society, to be without them (consumer goods) was to be poor’’. It was “essential’’ to possess a telephone, washing machine and car, but increasingly the range of goods that were indispensable widened. Although their prices dropped, they were soon replaced with “better’’ models, initially expensive at the very stage when it was socially imperative. Most of all, in response to longer hours and rising incomes, the cost of housing shot up to swallow much of the rising wage.

As Offer puts it: “The goods in question, however dispensable in other cultures, were truly vital for social participation ... a presentable house in a secure neighborhood with access to good schools, was no luxury for parents. In the thinly settled expanses of suburbia, a car for every active adult (and often for teenagers too) was a necessity as well. In the US employment was insecure and access to health cover was attached to the workplace ... falling out of the race pushed these necessities out of reach, constituted a serious threat to life chances and health.’’ This did not happen in mainland European nations.

But in the English-speaking world, flat-out dual income earning became unavoidable. The balance was tilted further against either women or men investing in the home. Women continued to declare themselves as satisfied with the balance between work and domesticity, but adjusted to competitive consumption and status pressures by spending more time at work, and having fewer children. What was good enough for the remaining mothers was not good enough for society as a whole: The number of children fell below social replacement rates, foreshadowing a future of fewer workers and more dependants. Marital stress and family breakdown came out in the form of increasingly anxious behavior and troubled prospects for the children.

While mainland Europeans were converting affluence into more leisure time, English speakers felt time-starved. As women poured into the work force, they continued to be responsible for the lion’s share of domestic practicalities. Their work was increasingly demanding, yet they retained primary responsibility for their offspring. Motherhood became less appealing, divorce more so. All were left with the feeling that there was little alternative to confusing needs with wants, having with being.

In no way does Offer suggest women should go back to the kitchen sink. He has no quick-fix solutions, convinced that profound politico-economic forces are at work that will prove highly resistant to change. But some policy implications are implicit in his analysis.

So, I say, if your vessel is heading toward a black reef of consumption-crazed debt, gender rancor and mental illness, just turn the wheel and go in a different direction.

Offer does not say it, but I do: Men, devote less time to work, more to home; likewise women. Forget status consumption, create a new domestic economy of regard between yourselves which makes life worth living.