In an affluent society, such as exists in America today, one presumably need not go without anything one truly needs—or even thinks he needs. When there is not the cash there is always the credit, based on the premise that what one cannot pay for now he can always pay for later, even with the interest. If the present is so good, will not the future take care of itself? Cars, homes, dishwashers, colored TV sets, and vacations are among the many borrowed items. But such material things are not the limit of man's needs. Even life itself is ladled out to borrowers in the form of kidneys, livers, and hearts donated by those who have no further use for such leftover capital. American life pulses to the beat of "Fly Now, Pay Later."
In two experiments conducted recently in Great Britain, Evans and his associates1 have pointed out