It is no surprise that the mood in the US has been muted this holiday season. In recent years, as plutocrats prospered and the rest of the country felt rich too, thanks to home equity loans and mushrooming personal debt, consumption became something of a secular religion. Today, neo-puritans are taking no small pleasure in castigating themselves and their countrymen for that now bygone era.

But it is worth remembering that it was not all bad. Even if you do not find retail therapeutic, there was something viscerally democratic about the idea that there should be not only a chicken in every pot but also an iPod in every pocket. In a recent book, the Columbia professor, Amar Bhidé, goes further, arguing that the US’s “venturesome consumption” is central to its innovative edge.