...Donna Loftus This essay seeks to understand the “moral confusion” (to use David Graeber’s term in Debt ) that surrounds thrift. It argues that thrift emerged as a moral imperative in the mid-nineteenth century as urban economies centered on mass consumption expanded, provoking fears of national...

... form of political economy that focused on individualized restraint in spending—thrift—put forth an influential argument that the resultant saved capital might stoke a project of national regeneration through investment in new enterprises. Others held a view that this trend toward mass consumption...