Affluenza

Affluenza: the bloated, sluggish, unfulfilled feeling that results from the dogged pursuit of more. De Graaf, Wann, and Naylor diagnosed American consumer culture as a contagious social disease — its symptoms including debt, overwork, anxiety, environmental destruction, and the persistent sense that the next purchase will finally be enough. Originally a PBS documentary, expanded into a book that traces the epidemic from its postwar origins through the mall culture and credit card economy that normalized it. Not a self-help book — a cultural diagnosis that names the system producing the symptoms. The most accessible economics-punk book on the shelf for readers who haven't yet encountered Capitalist Realism or The Dawn of Everything and need an entry point that meets them in their daily life.