What Is Meant by “post-Materialism" and What Is Its Relevance to Contemporary European Society?

What is meant by “post-materialism" and what is its relevance to contemporary European society?

Introduction

Post-materialism the sociological theory that assumes a continuous transformation of individuals and society which liberates them slowly from stressing the fundamental  acquisitive or materialistic values. This theory was first introduced by Ronald Inglehart in 1971. He indicates that rising prosperity was slowly liberating the public’s of post-industrial societies from the importance of basic acquisitive and materialistic requirements.  Post-materialism can be considered a useful tool for understanding the contemporary European culture. Because affluent European societies has “post-material” age in which traditional priorities of survival needs were satisfied and new concerns such as the ecology had become of greater political importance, specially for the young generation. However, there are many critiques on Inglehart’s theory. This essay will explain what is post-materialism and discuss some of its critiques. It will also analyse its role in contemporary European society in terms of political values.

Materialism Vs. Post-materialism

Materialist focuses on economic growth and security while Post-materialists are more concerned about autonomy, quality of life, the environment, and human rights. In more specific dimension, Post-materialist values has to do with self-actualisation; equality; participation; ecology; pacifism(CND); and solidarity with developing world. The idea of self-actualisation in Post-materialism value is about social liberalisation and individualism to some extent. The emphasis on civil and political participation is an important factor, which is not only a right, but also seen as a passage to self development.  It also implicates that people should be tolerant about others choices and opinions, which ties to equality. There is much greater emphasis on gender and race equality, as well as equality between different nations.  In the seventies, after intense survey research, Inglehart reported that there is a gap in value between the younger Europeans and their elders. Whereas the older Europeans tended to value economic and material security, younger generation were more likely to value autonomy and self-expression. The research was measured by asking survey respondents to rank the possible goals in order of priority of their nation: maintaining order in the nation; giving the people has more say in important government decisions; fighting rising prices; and protecting self-expression. Whichever one that seems desirable to the respondents determined whether they are materialist or post-materialist. Maintaining order in the nation and fighting rising prices are related to “acquisitive value preferences”, which are considered materialistic values. Based on this survey, Inglehart was able to conclude that there had been a increase in post-materialism in the post-war period with two hypothesis: people’s hierarchy of need; and socialisation.

1. Hierarchy of needs:

One of the conceptualisation of post-materialism is the Scarcity hypothesis, which assumes that people tend to value the things that are relatively scarce. Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Inglehart propose a linear progression in discrete steps upwards the top of the pyramid.  He assumed that individuals pursue different goals in a hierarchical order.  According to Maslow, “man is a perpetually wanting animal”, while people can universally aspire to autonomy and self-expression, the most basic survival needs like hunger, thirst and physiological security need to be satisfied first.  When the satisfaction of the survival needs can be taken for granted, people will then shift to “non-material” goals such as self-esteem, morality, and self-actualization. Thus, as long as scarcity exists, the materialistic goods will have priority over post-materialist goals.

2. Socialisation:

The socialisation hypothesis explains the basic values reflect early childhood experience. There are many evidences to show that people’s basic values are greatly fixed once they grownup, and only small changes thereafter.  Socialisation thesis examines the connection between material conditions and value priorities as not one of immediate adjustment. As a result of earlier childhood experience, people who has experienced economic crisis would rank higher on economic requirements and will prioritise economic growth above self-expression.

The people who rank higher value on survival needs are considered materialist, and will tend to support more authoritarian styles of leadership. This shows in many Eastern European countries today. These people present strong feelings of national pride, will be strongly interested in national defence, army and will be more willing to sacrifice citizen liberties for orders and law. In contrast, people who have did not experience war or economic crisis will more likely to give high priority to values such as individual development, self-expression, citizen contributes in government decisions, the optimal of a society based on humanism, and effort to maintain a clean environment. These people who have experience sustained high material affluence tend to be post-materialists.

From the scarcity and Socialisation hypothesis and supporting data, Inglehart brings the implication that given a long periods of material affluence, an increasing number of Europeans embraced post-materialist value systems. This happens internationally as well. The diagram below shows the materialist/ post-materialist values from different countries in the world by income. We can indicate that developed and affluent countries such as the United States, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are on the top of the scale, which means more post-materialism. Whereas countries that are less developed such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Iraq are and the very bottom of the scale. Also apply Inglehart’s theory, we can see that these countries are more often to have authoritarian leadership styles.  [pic 1]

Materialist/post-materialist values by GNP per capita – Inglehart (2008)

Critiques on Inglehart’s theory

After Inglehart and his colleagues released their research, they soon received many critiques. Some explained the reason for change in values should be explained by rising education and the severity of post-war effect, not necessarily formative affluence(Tilley, 2005). Others believe that Post-materialism is no different than materialism, they are just expressing peoples concerns and aims. The German Green party voters which emphasis on what Inglehart assumed “post-materialistic” values are often highly educated, but not financially secured, which contrast with what Inglehart said. So is post-materialism the real reason for change in value in the modern European society? First, we will need to look at the possible effects of this theory on European society.