Martin Kenney introduced the concept of the “new frugality” here first. Grant McCracken says in downturns consumption shifts to “dwelling” from “surging.”
Roughly speaking, consumers have two modalities: surging and dwelling. In the surging modality, consumers have momentum. We have a vivid sense of forward motion. Life is getting better. Each purchase is an improvement on the last one. Clothes change with fashion. The material world teems with new features, new things, new opportunities, new excitement. We look ahead constantly, keeping one foot in the present, putting one in the future. The good life in America is always a better life. That’s the fundamental promise of the consumer society. In the dwelling modality, the consumer is not forward looking, but concentrated on the here and now. Now most of life’s pleasure comes from counting one’s blessings. This is a dwelling modality, because the individual is no longer in transit, racing toward a better tomorrow. Now the consumer is focused on what is good about what one has. The consumer stops anticipating and starts savoring.
We have to move from a surging modality to a dwelling modality when the economy suddenly “softens” and “goes south.” And there is no gear box. There is no single or simple way of gearing down from “in motion” to “in place.” It’s one of those deals where the consumer must perform his own “interrupt” (to steal a term from Information Processing), see that the world has changed, see that something new is called, identify what is called for, embrace it fast, and hold it tight.
It’s weird that in our economy/culture we go through the surging-modality transition something like once a decade …