affluent society
noun
a society in which the material benefits of prosperity are widely available
Words nearby affluent society
affliction,
afflictive,
affluence,
affluency,
affluent,
affluent society,
affluential,
affluenza,
afflux,
affogato,
afford
Cultural definitions for affluent society
affluent society
A society in which scarcity of resources is not the predominant condition, and a general level of economic well-being has been achieved by most members of society. The term was made current by John Kenneth Galbraith in The Affluent Society, which described conditions in the United States after World War II.
notes for affluent society
Conventional economic
theory is based on the assumption that resources are scarce. Therefore, it makes increasing production in the
private sector and limiting interference and
regulation from the government a priority. In Galbraith's affluent society, this priority is misplaced because scarcity is not predominant. The continued pursuit of conventional economic objectives in an affluent society leads to the conditions Galbraith observed in postwar America: private-sector affluence and public-sector squalor. For example, affluence in the private sector led to the mass availability of automobiles. Because public-sector interference (in the form of regulation and
taxation) was discouraged, however, governments could not afford to build adequate roadways to accommodate those automobiles.