Three

Abstract

This chapter evaluates what the Europeans call Americanization. For many, this was more or less equivalent to the end of times or, at least, the end of everything sacred. What America was exporting to Europe was not just its manufacturing prowess. It was a whole way of life, fundamentally antithetical to European civilization because the only goals it recognized were profit and efficiency. Taste would be sacrificed because everything must be produced for the greatest number according to the maxims of the assembly line. Leisure would disappear and be replaced by the divine cult of work and productivity. Tradition must be uprooted because tradition is full of wasteful or inefficient practices. There was the accusation of Puritanism as well, but even here no European would dream of blaming America of excessive spirituality: Puritan prohibitions concerning alcohol or sex were seen as pre-emptive measures to create the most efficient workers, and reduce human beings to machines. Indeed, in America, the rationalization of work and prohibition were undoubtedly connected. The chapter then looks at the American model of production, which was an engine of standardization, and the rising anti-Americanism.