So the question becomes why was the US so far ahead and why has it taken so long for other countries? Now this is all relative. Obviously Europe is much further ahead in many respects that Japan on this. And Japan and Europe are much further than most poor countries. But there, I went back to really the serious students of American history. Gordon Wood at Brown is one of the premiere students of colonial and revolutionary America. And Wood wrote this remarkable book, which I read at the time, called the Radicalism of the American Revolution. It came out in the early 90s I think. It's in my recommended readings list so if you want a reference to it it's there. What he showed was that at the time of the [American] revolution, consumerism exploded in the US. And it was associated with the fundamental notions of individual rights. That prior to that, at least in the feudal societies of Europe, consumption was viewed as a luxury to which only the land owning class was entitled. And everybody else was entitled to subsistence -- enough food and enough shelter to survive and that was it. And at the time of the revolution, because the revolution was so rooted in ideas of individual rights and equality of opportunity and equality of desire and equality of demand, everybody said, 'why not me?'
http://techcentralstation.com/061705A.html
[linked from instapundit]