What is Post-Materialism?

Answer 1

The theory of Post-materialism assumes an ongoing transformation of individuals and society which liberates them gradually from the stress of basic acquisitive or materialistic needs. In first place, the term "post-materialism" and the related concept of "the silent revolution" was made rather notorious in political and social sciences by Ronald Inglehart since the beginning of the seventies.

One of Inglehart's main assumptions is that individuals pursue various goals in hierarchical order. First, material needs like hunger or thirst have to be satisfied. If this is done, the focus will be gradually shifting to nonmaterial goods. Hence, according to Inglehart's interpretation of Maslow's hierarchy of human goals, cohorts which often experienced economic scarcities would ceteris paribus place strong priorities on economic needs or economic growth and safety needs as a strong national defense, and "law and order" (materialism). On the other hand, cohorts who have experienced high material affluence start to give high priority to values such as individual improvement, personal freedom, citizen input in government decisions, the ideal of a society based on humanism, and maintaining a clean and healthy environment.

This hypothesis would imply that a growing part of society becomes more post-materialist given long periods of material affluence. The post-material orientations acquired during socialisation should also be rather steadfast, because they are claimed to be a rather stable value-system value in contrast to more volatile political and social attitudes.

There are several ways of measuring post-materialism in empirical science. A rather simple, but common way is creating an index from survey respondents' patterns of responses to a series of items which were designed to measure personal political priorities:

"If you had to choose among the following things, which are the two that seem the most desirable to you?

Maintaining order in the nation.
Giving people more say in important political decisions.
Fighting rising prices.
Protecting freedom of speech.
... On the basis of the choices made among these four items, it is possible to classify our respondents into value priority groups, ranging from a 'pure' acquisitive type to a 'pure' postbourgeois type, with several intermediate categories." (Inglehart 1971: 994 f.)

The theoretical assumptions and the empirical research connected with the concept of post-materialism have received very high attention and aroused much critical discussion in human sciences. Amongst others, the validity, the stability and the causation of post-materialism has been doubted.

The so-called "Inglehart-index" has been included in several surveys (e.g. General Social Survey, World Values Survey, Eurobarometer, ALLBUS). The time series in ALLBUS (German General Social Survey) is particularly comprehensive. From 1980 to 1990 the share of "pure post-materialists" increased from 13 to 31 percent in West Germany. After the economic and social stress caused by German reunification in 1990 it dropped to 23 percent in 1992 and stayed on that level afterwards (Terwey 2000: 155; ZA and ZUMA 2005). The ALLBUS-samples Sample (statistics) from the less affluent population in East Germany show much lower portions of post-materialists (1991: 15%, 1992: 10%, 1998: 12%). International data from World Values Survey 2000 show the highest percentage of post-materialists in Australia (20%) followed by Austria (30%), Canada (29%), Italy (28%), Argentina (25%), United States (25%), Sweden (22%), Netherlands (22%), Puerto Rico (22%) etc. (Inglehart et al. 2004: 384). In spite of some questions raised by these and other data, measurements of post-materialism have prima facie proven to be statistically important variables in many analyses.

As increasing post-materialism is based on the abundance of material possessions or resources, it should not be mixed indiscriminately with asceticism or general denial of consumption. In some way post-materialism may be critized as super-materialism. German data show that there is a tendency towards this orientation among young people, in the economically rather secure public service, and in the managerial middle class (Pappi and Terwey 1982).

atp

Answer 2

Post-materialism is a variant of post-scarcity economics.

In a materialist society, status is measured largely (if not solely) by material possessions. What and how much you own is the measure of how much you have achieved.

In a non (or post) materialist society, status is based on some other factors, such as education level, or personal skill. What you own has nothing to do with how "wealthy" you are.

Non-materialistic societies work well in post-scarcity economic models because the abundance of materials and unlimited production eliminates any supply-demand bottleneck, which allows non-material standards to apply.

Answer 3

Unlike atp that paste from wiki, I will give you a real answer.

In political science there seems to be a consensus about the declining role of traditional socioeconomic
cleavages in explaining political behavior, but there is much less agreement about what
interests or values have replaced the old cleavages. Postmodern theorists and also many empirical
sociologists see no new order arising. They speak rather about general de-alignment, particularization,
de-massification, and fragmentation of political behavior (for empirical evidence see Franklin et al.
1992). As opposed to this view, the theorists of postmaterialism see a new cleavage taking over the
role of the traditional divisions. According to this school, growing affluence, the absence of wars and
the high level of education turns an ever increasing number of people towards post-materialist values
(Inglehart, 1971, 1977, 1990). The growing governmental involvement in social and economic
matters, the expanded educational opportunities, and the expansion of informational resources led to
secular growth of political skills and resources, appearance of new issues, and non-conventional
modes of participation. All these phenomena are usually labeled together as “new politics” (cf.
Dalton, 1988). In the new politics those citizens and political forces who give priority to selfactualization,
aesthetic needs, global responsibility and full scale democratization challenge those who
keep on emphasizing economic growth and physical security. While the classic issues related to
redistribution of wealth may still dominate official party politics, the electorate is more and more
polarized along this new dimension...

Answer 4

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Once all of our basic human needs are met (food, shelter, etc.), we are comfortable enough to start caring about the "extras" in life. This is observable in 1st world countries. Rather than having to worry about where you're going to sleep tonight, you probably think about how to preserve the environment, how to create and sustain a more ideal form of government, or how to stop the slaughter of animals. These are all post-materialist values. In short, they're values we only care about because we have so much. You wouldn't see a PETA lobby group in Zimbabwe...

Answer 5

RE:
What is Post-Materialism?

Answer 6

Sociology is one of the most pointless fields I can possibly think of. What the hell is post-materialism to begin with? Furthermore, who cares?

Answer 7

It's a state in a society where people don't care so much about stuff/possessions but more about the society around them which has an effect on their well-being.

Answer 8

Postmaterialism