Stuart Chase Quote

People above the line of bare subsistence in this age, and in all earlier ages, do not use the surplus which society has given them primarily for useful purposes. They do not seek to expand their lives, to live more wisely, intelligently, understandingly, but to impress other people with the fact that they have a surplus.

Stuart Chase

People above the line of bare subsistence in this age, and in all earlier ages, do not use the surplus which society has given them primarily for useful purposes. They do not seek to expand their lives, to live more wisely, intelligently, understandingly, but to impress other people with the fact that they have a surplus.

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About Stuart Chase

Stuart Chase (March 8, 1888 – November 16, 1985) was an American economist, social theorist, and writer. His writings covered topics as diverse as general semantics and physical economy. His thought was shaped by Henry George (1839-1897), by economic philosopher Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), by Fabian socialism, and briefly by the Communist social and educational experiments in the Soviet Union to around 1930, though Chase was broadly a modern American liberal.
Chase spent his early political career supporting "a wide range of reform causes: the single tax, women's suffrage, birth control and socialism." Chase's early books, The Tragedy of Waste (1925) and Your Money's Worth (1927), were notable for their criticism of corporate advertising and their advocacy of consumer protection.
In 1929 Chase co-founded Consumers' Research, a consumer protection advocacy organization.