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Overselling Capitalism with Consumerism
The crisis in subprime mortgages betrays a deeper predicament facing consumer capitalism triumphant: The "Protestant ethos" of hard work and deferred gratification has been replaced by an infantilist ethos of easy credit and impulsive consumption that puts democracy and the market system at risk.Capitalism's core virtue is that it marries altruism and self-interest. In producing goods and services that answer real consumer needs, it secures a profit for producers. Doing good for others turns out to entail doing well for yourself.
Capitalism's success, however, has meant that core wants in the developed world are now mostly met and that too many goods are chasing too few needs. Yet capitalism requires us to "need" all that it produces in order to survive. So it busies itself manufacturing needs for the wealthy while ignoring the wants of the truly needy. Global inequality means that while the wealthy have too few needs, the needy have too little wealth.
Capitalism is stymied, courting long-term disaster. We still work hard, but only so that we can pay and play. In order to turn reluctant consumers with few unsatisfied core needs into permanent shoppers, producers must dumb down consumers, shape their wants, take over their life worlds, encourage impulse buying, cultivate shopoholism and invent new needs.
At the same time, they empower kids as shoppers by legitimizing their unformed tastes and mercurial wants and detaching them from their gatekeeper mothers and fathers and teachers and pastors. The kids include toddlers who recognize brand logos before they can talk and commodity-minded baby Einsteins who learn to shop before they can walk.
Consumerism needs this infantilist ethos because it favors laxity and leisure over discipline and denial, values childish impetuosity and juvenile narcissism over adult order and enlightened self-interest, and prefers consumption-directed play to spontaneous recreation. The ethos feeds a private-market logic and combats the public logic fashioned by democracy.
This is capitalism's all-too-logical way of solving the problem of too many goods chasing too few needs. It makes consuming ubiquitous and omnipresent, turning shopping into an addiction facilitated by easy credit.
Compare a traditional town square with a modern suburban mall. In the square, you'll likely find a school, town hall, library, general store, park, movie house, church, art gallery and homes - a true neighborhood exhibiting our human diversity as beings who do more than simply consume. But our new town malls are all shopping, all the time.
When we see politics permeate every sector of life, we call it totalitarianism. When religion rules all, we call it theocracy. But when commerce dominates everything, we call it liberty. Can we redirect capitalism to its proper end: the satisfaction of real human needs? Well, why not?
The world teems with elemental wants and is peopled by billions who are needy. They do not need iPods, but they do need potable water, not colas but inexpensive medicines, not MTV but their ABCs. They need mortgages they can afford, not funny-money easy credit.
To serve such needs, however, capitalism must once again learn to defer profits and empower the needy as customers. With microcredit, villagers can construct hand pumps and water filters from the clay under their feet. Pharmaceutical companies ought to be thinking about how to sell inexpensive retrovirals to Africans with HIV instead of pushing Botox to the "forever young" customers they are trying to manufacture here. And parents can refuse to relinquish their gatekeeping roles and let marketers know they won't allow their kids to be targeted anymore.
To do this, we will require the assistance of democratic institutions and an adult ethos. Public citizens must be restored to their proper place as masters of their private choices.
To sustain itself, capitalism once again will have to respond to real needs instead of trying to fabricate synthetic ones - or risk consuming itself.
Benjamin R. Barber is a professor at the University of Maryland and the author of "Jihad vs. McWorld" and "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole." This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun
116 Comments so far
Show AllPublic citizens are already masters of their private choices. Handing control to someone else does not increase control over one's private choices.
its all very interesting and put into new language, were such possible, i agree and applaud. as it is, to understand this article one must be a logo loving, savvy shopper - the language of protest must be other than the language of conquest - how, if we are to empower adults to wear their true autonomy and not be milked or slaughtered or shorn, might we do this if we insist that a 2 year old who is trained to respond acquisitively to the golden arches is also "empowered" - the modern slang-y jargon that is the language of econmics and demographics is not value-less, anymore than the language of fascism is. the language reduces our estimation of what a live autonomous thng is, and raises our estimation of the power and draw of the flimsiest of abstractions - to describe what capitalism "wants" or "must do" is misleading - it is the capitalists who "want" - capitalism is their tool of avarice - it isnt a theory or organizing principle that harms people - its the rat bastards running a pipeline through vegetable gardens and leaving the desire for gold lame running suits in their wake
US capitalism is built on the impoverisment of the rest of the planet -- particularly the less developed world. It was never the purpose of capitalism to improve the lot of the many. What improvements we as worker have gained has come as a result of our own struggle against the interests of capital . The are the results of hard-won victories, not market altruism.
The crisis in subprime mortgages is only one part of the crisis facing US capitalism. We are a debtor nation overextended in every way. This system is running on borrowed time and that time is running out.
there is no expectation of altruism in markets. capitalism does nothing it's customers do not vet. the reigns are in your hands with every purchase you make. do not take a subprime loan. do not buy that coffee or get on that airplane. they cannot force you to do any of these things, yet so many seem obsessed with ignoring their own role in these things..which they completely control via their own actions.
mtngoat - before i quit smoking tobacco i gave it such serious and ponderous thought - considered the nature of the problem as both a personal issue as well as a class issue, as well as an environmental issue - i compared myself to others who had led the way in smoking (keith richards, cary grant, myrna loy oh the list is long) and in the end, as you, and everybody, already know - to quit smoking i needed to do one thing only which required no thought - i needed to not smoke.
precisely. it really is, just that simple.
the consquences may be very complex...but the fact that to stop, you need to stop, is a singularly simple, irrefutable, and direct conclusion.
every plane ride while someone waits for someone else to stop them, warms the globe a tiny bit more, and worsens the situation. every purchase of mexican vegetables, while they wait for someone else to stop the, worsens the situation. every car ridge, every trip for pleasure, every watt of non renewable energy, every choice for own's own convenience instead of halting carbon, worsens the situation as they push off responsibility and wait for someone else to make them stop.
makes no sense at all...but is clearly the selfish choice of one's own wants over what is stated is harming the earth
Benjamin R. Barber languishes in the white tower of corporate academia. He's a difficult read, a touch of Machiavelli here, a sprinkle of thesaurus there, a trademark or two, a New York office, etc.
I agree with previous comments, it's hard to grab something from his elaborate chickenscratch. It's a rambling construct. "..core wants in the developed world are now mostly met.." What is he talking about? TVs? Health Insurance?
Agreed Jaded Prole, I tire of this "capitalism benefits all through self-interest and consumer choice" argument. The purpose of capitalism is to accumulate wealth through ever more intensive exploitation (i.e lower wages) of global labor and ever increasing exploitation of natural resources.
To the extent that workers in the capitalist west enjoy a good standard of living, it is ONLY because of vigorous action by governments through regulation, social benefits, and support of workers right to organize unions. Of course, the whole propose of the "McWorld" of "globalization" that this author supports, is to roll back these public protections and re-institute capitalism in it's more natural robber-baron form. In the US, we are living on the residual effects and remnants the 1930's New Deal. When that is gone, it will be the 1890's once again. If you want to see Capitalism in it's wonderful pure form just take a trip to (post Sandinista) Nicaragua or El-Salvador.
The author's suggestion that Capitalism can voluntarily become gentler is absolutely ludicrous. The first CEO to try this would see his firms stockholders flee and the company would quickly fold - in fact the CEO is legally obligated to maximizing profits through all legal means. So, only vigorous, democratically instituted LAWS imposed on all capitalist firm's and individuals can reign in Capitalism's excesses.
Profit for the time being is a great motivator for those who would otherwise be 'unproductive'....
What we must look forward to and begin to create is the movement away from 'profit' as the motive of capitalism to 'service' as the motive for economic capitalism...
Personally I have already experienced this 'medinoia'..
I am motivated to 'serve' my clients using the skills I have aquired.. I don't look at money as the bottom line in working with my clients.. Yet the money is there.. and life is GOOD.. amazing how it works out when we put others in place of ourselves..
and by the way.. my clients understand that WE, our company is about relationships.. We have loyal customers because we care about their 'needs' and give them practical advice on fulfilling those needs. We don't 'sell' them services for the sake of increasing our bottom line.. we service their needs and give them options on ways to fulfill those needs...
good cheer
If this article seems familiar, it previously appeared on Common Dreams on 04/04/2007
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/04/298/
I liked it then too.
MtGoat: Public citizens are already masters of their private choices.
Humans may be masters of their private choices, but they are largely unconscious of the outside influences that produce those choices and ignorant of the environmental impact of those choices.
The NOISE in this society that influences "private" choices is overwhelmingly pro consumption. It is the paradigm. The opposing voices, except occasionally, are a mere whimper in comparison.
All calls for a radical reordering of our economy/culture are unnecessarily alarmist unless you are somehow troubled by the current ecological trends.
jon
Connecting the dots: from human behaviors to ecosystem decline
http://StudentsForTheEarth.org
This babble is nothing but capitalist propaganda. The crisis of human survival cannot even be considered without the ending of U.S. and global capitalism.
Human life and progress is possible only in a world that is ecologically sustainable and in which the global economy is democratically based to provide for universal human needs.
For centuries capitalist greed has been the motivating force behind slavery, racism, colonialism, and world wars. Today, with global warming, the U.S. corporate ruling elite threatens to destroy the entire planet to maximize greed and profit for itself. The natural and economic resources essential to the vast majority of peoples for survival are being exploited and privatized for the greed and profit of a few.
The 500 year reign of barbaric capitalism must end now if humanity is to survive this century.
hear hear!!
odd, it seems to me those danged capitalists can't make a penny without someone buying the stuff they make. how is it only those mean capitalists profit without the people buying their stuff getting anything in return?
we're not your tools, jeremy. i'll take my chances trading with those willing to trade with me, and you can go ahead and spend your life deciding who else needs what according to you without my interference. of course, we know no one will be short of your interference...since you know so much better.
Ordinary people get the things we need to survive only by means of transactions conceived to further enrich the rich. We are all slaves to this system. The waste is beyond comprehension. Consumerism drives the economy. The mall has replaced the factory as the engine of economic growth. Only growth sustains the activity allowing a trickle-down of resources to the poor. Without growth, the investor class will sit on its gains and let the rest of us starve. This civilization will not survive without huge changes. The first essential change is to disallow the profit from destructive transactions. Oil, transportation, agribusiness, defense, media...
who do you suggest be tasked to provide you with food and shelter, so you don't have to trade for it, Sam ?
I don't believe Mr. Barber approves of McWorld. He has just written a book describing it.
Wish I could remember the name of the 1950s / 1960s book that described how corporations used advertising to create phony "needs" in our minds. The process was to decide what to manufacture and how much and then to create the proper level and intensity of "need."
It is tremendously freeing to become completely skeptical of advertising/marketing. Buy used clothing and books and cars to save your money for travel or charitable giving or education or retirement or whatever.
now there's a healthy point of view. couldn't agree more
yes, actually the point of this article is that capitalism is unsustainable in its present form ... and that there are other models that produce a better quality of life, better environment, etc.
I think this is along the lines of Paul Hawkins' "Natural Capitalism" which suggested a radically different, socially responsible, "sustainable" capitalism in which, for example, there is cradle-to-grave/recycling/responsible disposal shepherding of "raw materials" ... which results in creation of many more jobs ... and which extends quickly into care for employees. Very much old-fashioned investment in employees, community, world at large of the "think globally/act locally" variety.
Barber seems to be studiously avoiding all those hot-button "lefty" words and that may be necessary. Knee-jerk responses outnumber thoughtful replies many times over. At my age (52), I am reminded every day that there are two generations that have come after me that have a very different world view and very different world history ... but, most notably, no awareness that there is anything besides capitalism, "free trade" and most-noble-goals founded in materialism. Our stunning incompetence in both Iraq and Katrina I suspect just compounds the cynicism that government can accomplish much, ever. For today's "libertarian" types, suggesting even that "change is possible" requires a degree of "faith" or confidence in others that I don't see that they possess.
The popular anti-materialist "simple living" ethos that I came of age with and have carried on seems pointless and holds no attraction. As far as I can tell, most people believe "communism is dead" and that socialism results in a "welfare state" that looks like American inner city ghettos ... Americans are very insulated ... on purpose.
Another future is possible.
But, something has gotta give ... eventually people will realize that their lack of "success" (particularly in the face of crushing consumer debt, mortage scams, and new-improved finance industry protections making bankruptcy all but unavailable) isn't ENTIRELY their fault... that it relates to those good paying jobs they spent years preparing for that vanished, with nothing apparently available to "re-train" for ...
"When we see politics permeate every sector of life, we call it totalitarianism. When religion rules all, we call it theocracy. But when commerce dominates everything, we call it liberty."
Really? Is that the difference between you and us? Out here, we always called it Capitalism, knowing, also, democracy was a facade. I understand better now, our differences.
Heaven help you when the sky falls.
Bernice, I think you may be thining of "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard. He also wrote a book called "The Status Seekers," a sort of updated (for the 1960s) Thorsten Veblen.
I am getting a slight case of indiegestion trying to swallow the notions of altruism" and "capitalism" in one sentence. Sorry, Benjamin, I just can't quite see how a system predicated on greed as the fundamental motivator of human action, profit, no matter what it takes, as the only recognized good, and endless and mindless growth to keep the whole thing going can solve the problems we are facing today. Indeed, I would argue that most of these problems are the result of global capitalism.
The problem is not capitalism. It's Obsessive Wealth Disorder, also known as GREED, and it's an epidemic.
Those of us unafflicted have trouble understanding those who must have more for more's sake at all costs. It's like trying to understand an alcoholic who watches himself drink his life away yet cannot stop, or a gambling addict who keeps betting after all is lost. And, of course, like all addicts, OWDers deny they have a problem as they add a fifth yacht to the collection.
Capitalism works only when Obsessive Wealth Disorder is out of the equation. If only the shrinks of the world would declare it an "official" mental disease so we could get to curing it.
The problem with all of you is that you all are enslaved from cradle to the grave, by money created out of NOTHING, hence cannot see the woods for the trees.Unless you address the rampanrt creation of money, you are whistling in the dark
With regard to money, I answered Ted Turner's call and whipped up a visionary futuristic novel back in l990. Instead of money, I had a huge transition come over mankind where title owners became title givers, and money was eradicated. Thanks to sophisticated computer technology, all those who could work, would work in THEIR CHOSEN venues, and/or where they had natural skills and talents. In this model HOURS of service were logged into a universal TIME BANK, where everyone's HOUR is innately equal, so long as they do what they can to contribute to society. The society was modeled after dolphin pods, where communities of like-minded citizens, or those sharing a common inventive pursuit, lived together... shades of a Manhattan Project serving a peace initiative, rather than war/violence and destruction. A certain portion of HOURS logged were then donated to community acquisitions, as each individual clearly does not need 5 televisions in one household. Recycle places become chic, I call them "recyclotoriums," and this novel also had changes to farming, education, the money system, how prison inmates are "reformed," and even "pods of birth and transition," where people are, via hypnotic technique "counted out" of their bodies, a gentle "Kevorkian" rather than waste away, or watch the medical paradigm sweat 25% of its limited assets on giving the very elderly and fast fading the delusion that life can be suspended indefinitely. I self-published this work 3 years ago...no agent was interested.
Jeremy Wells April 15th, 2007 3:04 pm
"This babble is nothing but capitalist propaganda. The crisis of human survival cannot even be considered without the ending of U.S. and global capitalism.
Human life and progress is possible only in a world that is ecologically sustainable and in which the global economy is democratically based to provide for universal human needs."
Right on, Jeremy! The greed MUST stop if the inhabitants of this planet wish to survive. Here's an excerpt from an article I read yesterday about globalization and capitalism:
"Amid a new wave of corporate attacks on the wages and jobs of American workers, the Democrats and the Bush administration alike are using China's "unfair" trade as a diversion from the real roots of rising social inequality—which lie in the capitalist profit system.
The US trade conflicts with China are an aspect of the deepening economic contradictions of world capitalism. On the one hand, the US corporate elite needs cheap labor in China and elsewhere to offset the crisis of declining profitability and force American workers to accept lower wages and conditions. On the other hand, the same process has stimulated China's rapid economic growth, creating a new economic competitor." By John Chan, 4/12/07
The one point I would argue with, is that the U.S. corporate elite doesn't "need" cheap labor, they "want" and are "demanding" cheap labor to maintain the greed they've become accustomed to, especially since they've been encouraged to offshore production by U.S. government policy and tax breaks.
If corporations can't maintain a profit margin of 25-40 percent per year, it becomes a crisis in their greed-driven, demented minds.
Do you remember back in the late 40's and 50's when people were earning 1 or 2 percent interest on their money that they put in a bank? Those were the days when most families could own a home on one meager income; have a Zenith television with a remote control; have a high-fidelity record player; give their kids birthday and Christmas gifts; feed and clothe them, and not worry about credit card or mortgage debt. In short, we were able to keep up with and purchase the most recent technologies and not get into debt to do it.....on one income!
And why can't two incomes today accomplish what one could do 40 or 50 years ago? PURE GREED!
If incomes over the last 40 years kept up with cost of living increases and soaring profits, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in right now. Take a good look at all the "legal" loopholes Congress created for the wealthy and super-wealthy over the past 50 years while the middle class loopholes remained stagnant, and you no longer have to wonder why you can't buy the kids an I-pod without going into debt.
The whole system is rigged in favor of the greedy rich who dole out millions in campaign contributions to subjugate the middle class, which is "quickly" vanishing. The feudal lords are making a come-back!
One should remember the 'adverary' of old.. the pagan concept of 'ownership'.. that a thing can be a possession of a personality.. This takes the relationship between the two to Buber's I and Thou..... The arch rival of the hebrews were the pagan Baal's .. a culture that 'bought and sold' land as if there was a reality in 'ownership'.... the forefathers of our present real-estate agents and their ilk... Many a Baal worship altar had to be destroyed for the ancient Hebrew's to keep the pagan superstition of 'ownership' alive..... Many of the Torah teachings were in contrast to the prevailing Baal worship influence.. One that draws many a Barbarian into its web......
good cheer
why the heck should everyone's time be innately equal, when the services provided cannot be?
and why the heck should anyone else get to decide that their valuation of the worth of someones work should apply to someone elses decisions?
what i'm seeing here is a whole bunch of folks who are perfectly capable of simply choosing to value other things..complaining about the result of not doing so.
Wish I could remember the name of the 1950s / 1960s book that described how corporations used advertising to create phony "needs" in our minds. The process was to decide what to manufacture and how much and then to create the proper level and intensity of "need."
Walter Lippman?
The Hidden Persuaders,
by Vance Packard, perhaps
Wealthy countries got rich in no small part beause of colonial exploitation. In other words they robbed the poor to pay the rich. If this were history we might not pay any attention to it. But it is still happening, and worse than ever.Because capitalists have so much capital and no shame, they can still operate the global economy to thtir personal advantage. This is one reason the rich countries get richer every year as the Global South starves. I mean dying of hunger. The other reason is the World Bank and IMF insisting the poorest countries owe them money. Billions more than they could ever pay. This money is owed, say the banks, by people who have nothing to eat, to fabulously rich people whose needs are a bigger boat, a third house, a $4,000 dress and loads of diamonds stolen from South Africa.
This is capitalism. It is manifestly not social justice.
Mtn Goat,
The problem of your whole analysis is that we can only consume what is offered for sale. And the powerful corporations carefully engineer what is offered for sale in a specific direction, per the principles of "manufacturing consent" by Bernays and Lippman. You may say "then open your own shop an make it and sell it yourself!" But between the powerful media and the big-box dominated suburban infrastructure, where a small shop owner doesn't have a chance, the is no hope for a small inventor with a big idea. Even the Wright Brothers wouldn't have gotten anywhere in today's business environment.
When I decided to minimize my carbon footprint, yet my job also moved to suburbia. I realized that a battery-electric, vespa-style motor scooter would be just the thing - which I only learned existed through a lot of internet research. Then, through great effort and expense, I mail-ordered one, only to find that although the "technology" was perfectly sound, the workmanship was very poor due to an unscrupulous Chinese manufacturer. The importer was consequently financially ruined, and I and ended up having to self-educate myself in electrical technology so I could keep them running. But any average consumer would have been screwed.
Take the Toyota Prius - which most consumers think of the cutting edge in fuel efficiency technology. Well, do you know that 25 years ago, several regular, cheap, conventional IC engine cars, like the Honda Civic CRV, got even better gas mileage, and cost far less?
Of course, the best consumer decision is to not use a car at all - use public transit, but how available is that in most US communities?
There is no way for the consumer to make the decisions you expect them to make as both information and buying options are tightly controlled by the corporations.
I find it difficult to believe that Benjamin Barber has nothing better to do with his time than to write apologetic literature for a mode of making a living that is unsustainable and that poses the most formidable threat to the continuation of life on earth after the nuclear weapons stockpiles and the present President of the United States.
While species are disappearing at an alarming rate, glaciers and the polar ice caps are melting, forests are being leveled, water tables are drying up, billions of people live below the poverty level, thousands of children are dying every day, Mr. Barber, from his university office, not only issues worn out falsehoods about capitalism's altruism and other alleged benefits, but also attempts to find correctives for a mode of making a living that is essentially doomed and has proven itself to be as unreformable and recidivist as a hardened criminal.
The heart of modernity lies in the threefold feed-back structure made of science, technology, and (the unlimited growth) economy (the triad, for short).
The three are inseparable: there is no modern science without technology, for modern science only believes what it can make, replicate, reproduce in experimental set-ups, which become ever more complex with the growth of science; and techno-science in turn teases and needs the growth economy (without technology and a certain economic organization, no giant telescopes or accelerators of particles, no satellites, no magnetic resonance imaging, etc.).
But the triad needs energy to perform its endless and measureless machinations (which, as we now know, include constant war making) and to exploit the earth and its creatures, which it treats as if they were stockpiles of stuffs that merely lie at its disposal and that it may use at its leisure.
In the first decades of the industrial era, coal quickly became the primary source of energy. It was replaced by petroleum and its derivatives at the beginning of the last century.
From the inception of the industrial era (late 1700s to 1800) to 1999, the world population has grown sixfold, increasing from one billion to six billion inhabitants. The bulk of this hypergrowth took place from 1927 onward, at which point the world population stood at two billion. In other words, as James Kunstler put it, "population hypergrowth was simply a side effect of the oil age" ("The Long Emergency" (2005), p. 8). To quote Kunstler again, "[f]ossil fuels had the effect of temporarily raising the carrying capacity of the earth" (12).
The modern economy or mode of production, whether of the capitalist or socialist variety, is a growth economy. It rests on the assumption that the planet is limitlessly endowed with the stuffs (organic or inorganic) needed by the triad and its ever expanding greedy hordes of consumers. Since the earth is clearly a finite body, the assumption of limitless growth is a piece of sheer ideology, a drug on which modern mankind has been leading its frenzied, novelty and entertainment seeking, distracted, murderous, and intoxicated existence.
For about a century now, we in the western world have been living in an artificial world of plenty, wherein we could wastefully produce and consume, as if there were no tomorrow to be worried about.
The Achilles' heel of the triad is plainly its inexhaustible thirst for energy. Once the oil wells dry up, the triad will mercilessly collapse, and the carrying capacity of the earth will ruthlessly return to being a solar carrying capacity only.
If we do not deal with our present predicament, our predicament will deal with us.
Marketing is the problem here. The corporations take some of the money that necessarily flows through them and uses it to influence the public. The solution may be as simple as taking away the corporate right of free speech. No more advertising. No more influence on politics.
"There is no way for the consumer to make the decisions you expect them to make as both information and buying options are tightly controlled by the corporations."
Of course there is a way. There is no law against refusing to buy. You seem to think that choosing not to buy is not an option. It is this omission that is the problem here. Producers can of course choose what to offer. But there is not one thing they can do to control your choice not to buy if it doesn't meet your standards.
This is the option. You completely control their purse strings by your right to control your own purchases...but only if you want to make the choice to do so.
To the extent corporation can control what is offered via law, the problem there is allowing the state to use law to direct these choices in the first place. It get's used to direct what is offered..always to the benefit of the sellers and to the exclusion of other sellers who would offer different things..but are not permitted to.
One example is that transportation options in most cities are tightly limited by the collusion of taxi monopolies who use the city govt to limit competition for their own benefit..leaving only the bus or rail as competitors, and outlawing competing point to point competition. These taxi outfits work to limit competition and keep prices static for their own benefit, and use the city to outlaw competition.
"The solution may be as simple as taking away the corporate right of free speech. No more advertising. No more influence on politics."
Good luck with that. You will then have to limit freedom of speech for persons, or else I will just make a lot of money hiring out my freedom of speech to speak for those danged corporations.
I think mtnGoat may be onto something with buying boycotts and better regulation of advertising. But there is more to add as well.
I know someone who was able to feed themself largely off of the family farm many years ago. This person was definately not a consumer like today. I was in admiration that this person could live so well off of the land. Unfortunately, after all those years on the farm, this person has leukemia from farm chemical runoff. This person controlled what they could but the problem of rejecting consumerism was fought with naivety of the pervasiveness of the control the farm chemical companies had on this life.
So consumer advertising protection takes on more than just a more being a reasonable philosophy. It must be actively fought for on a large scale, relentlessly, passionately, and with long term tenacity. It must include more than buying boycotts. Here is where taking back our government could help. It is necessary. It is a long war. I'm material. so are you.
people got leukemia long before farms used chemicals..they just died from it without knowing why.
MtnGoat
You're right, people can refrain from buying other than necessities. However, considering that something like two-thirds of the US economy is driven by consumer spending even a relatively small contraction in consumer spending would tank our economy.
We have a classic Catch Twenty-two here. Capitalism requires unending growth, without growth the system collapses. We live on a finite planet. Something has to give.
Combine that with my first observation and then add the comment by EveningLand about oil "wells drying up". Technically the wells don't need to dry up, oil merely needs to become expensive for things to collapse. Our civilization wasn't simply built on energy, it was build on cheap energy. When energy gets really expensive we will have massive inflation and declining productivity, aka stagflation.
How is it we're not toast?
I believe there is a viable solution to the rampant greed and distress caused by today's vastly unjust markets:
Nations need to learn to share the world's abundant resources, in the sense of a more equitable re-distribution of food, raw materials, energy, water, technology, etc...
We can all still profit, but not at the expense of others. There is a better way to live than the current mode.
A new global economic system, characterized by a sophisticated form of barter and trade, would eliminate the vast dicrepencies between rich and poor. Imagine what could happen if all nations were equally part of a global system where each nation's specialized goods were put into a giant pool, and then these goods were intelligently re-distributed in a more equal manner? It may sound like a pipe dream to some, but as I understand it there are already blueprints drawn up and ready to be implemented.
The Centre for Global Negotiations project was formed to carry on the original work of the Brandt Commission - begun by former German Chancellor Willy Brandt - which addresses a viable way to completely end all hunger and extreme poverty while at the same time establishing a truly sustainable global market and providing a means of greater environmental protection - http://www.global-negotiations.org/
capitalism does not require unending growth, that is not in the construction. it's an add on by people attacking the choices other people make..which capitalism merely permits. capitalisms ideals are continually attacked on a basis of ideas which capitalism itself does not actually contain.
all capitalism does is maintain that each person owns themselves, their labor, choice, and minds. thus the right to enter contracts, build capital, and trade. that's about it. there is *nothing* about 'permanent growth' except in the minds and statements of it's attackers.
all the other behavior is merely how people use or abuse these rights. look at this thread. it's a continual litany of attack of...how those darned other people choose what the complainers don't want them to choose. that they can even make choices the complainers don't like is the very basis of the complaints. it's clear they are not comfortable with the choices because they want to direct them for their own reasons..hence the complaints about lack of 'control'.
but they won't even control their own choices in service of ideas they maintain they believe in, instead griping that no one will 'lead' by imposing their own ideas on them fast enough for them.
not getting that mexican lettuce is going to happen anyway since that is what is pushed for, why not stop using it today, without handing the power to someone else to do it for you and complaining about the delay? ditto for lacking cars, ditto for no imports, ditto for slashing travel and forcing trade localization.
people here are complaining about spending and consumerism and *want* to end it. this will necessarily collapse the economy because all those jobs will go away. there is simply no need for everyone to be making items not related to subsistence because farming and mining is already very efficient.
the posters here want to end 'overconsumption' and 'overproduction' and this means ending many if not most jobs. it will mean providing placeholding make work consuming more than necessary to get back less ON PURPOSE.
my point is that since the consumer holds the whip hand with their spending, they can collapse the pyramid at any time by simply not spending. but they don't actually want to....they want someone else to make it easier for them to do so, so those darned other people they are sure are 'wasting' are hurt, but not them so much.
great comments, though, thanks! fun to chat
Of course this is basically a failure of values. We don't want what's needed. There's plenty of work to be done and plenty of things that people need. One of the things we need for the world to work is for everyone to have a place in it and for everyone to have an opportunity to develop the full potential. If we want a world that works we should want to develop those institutions and services which will give all people an opportunity to participate and grow. There are plenty of people who would like and be willing to learn something new and then give something back. There are plenty of sick people who need healing, misinformed people who need to be informed, hungry people who need to be fed. If we wanted what we need, capitalism would work just fine. But that requires a bit of enlightenment. It would be great if we wanted that as well.
"Imagine what could happen if all nations were equally part of a global system where each nation's specialized goods were put into a giant pool, and then these goods were intelligently re-distributed in a more equal manner?"
what characterizes this 'more equal manner'?
How will the nations with the expertise and industry to create highly complex goods using intense effort at high capital cost be 'equally' rewarded when their output is fundamentally different?
Tell you what. Let's agree to end income taxation so no one is forced to submit to third parties skimming off the top. Let's further agree to return to a gold standard so neither nations nor banks can fake everyone out by using non backed paper at a declared value.
At this point, you can enter this giant barter system with your labor and products all on your own, with the zillions who agree, and we'll see how it works. If it looks fair and just, I'll toss my hat and my production in the ring too. If it doesn't, i'll just trade my work for gold and trade the gold for the work of others, just as I prefer to do in the first place.
this way, we can operate side by side and pick and choose the best of both worlds. Are you game for the actual freedom to allow choice...or just hoping for the power to compel everyone to play by your values?
"Of course this is basically a failure of values. We don't want what's needed. There's plenty of work to be done and plenty of things that people need."
thank heavens someone sees the fundamental problem. unless people *choose* to change what they want, no shuffling of the deck chairs does anything meaningful. people only pursue what they want, regardless of what it is.
Not Lippman or Packard. Ayres Advertising: "We create your wants, we create your needs."
yea, it worked great for new coke and every other failed product out there. consumers are the final say. if your mind is not geared towards critical analysis..the correct response is to change this. not to limit everyone else because some can't. this way you wind up with more people in direct control of their own minds, not more people being treated as children
mtn goat - i agree with your principles, but i believe that you ignore the huge effort that them with capital put out to influence the very type of people in the society - so much so that corporations are functionally in charge of education. and also the great effort that is employed by those corporations hired police force to crush by whatever means necessary any resistance it meets to its agenda. the fact that some, many in fact can speak with relatively no consequences in this country is exactly that - no consequences - meanwhile in nigeria ken saro-wiwa is executed by Shell for trying to organize the Ogoni people into a group that will demand their human rights - which capitalism, according to your definition, is the only idea to recognize these rights - but Shell owns them - i think also that your defense of capitalism fails to recognize slavery - if slavery not be capitalism meeting its responsibilities to its shareholders, then we better revisit the idea of what sort of capitalism we are discussing and where it may be found -
that's probably a good idea. first postulate i will make is that no pure form of any ideology will be found, but this does not make pursuit of same a bad idea. every ideology has it's criminals. i don't argue that socialism details the abuses it has been used for, i argue against socialism on the details as described by it's proponents while not holding it's criminals against them. after all, acting outside it's bounds is not a valid criticism for where the stated bounds lie. if Stalin committed crimes even socialists say are crimes, I'm not arguing honestly to attribute those crimes to those who will not back them.
likewise for capitalism. I approach it for the basis I apply..not backing the criminals who use other means, such as your example of Shell's abuses, which by all means are atrocious and should be punished.
i am not familiar with ken's case to any great degree, but he was also involved in efforts beyond the 'people's rights', extending to attacks and crimes, was he not? if so, his killing may have been justified. If it turns out he was using peaceful means I am perfectly willing to agree his death was a crime, it's just that i have my doubts on these things in many issues..especially when the 'human rights' desired are totally at odds with the negative rights capitalism is based on.
For now, let us fairly limit our discussion to only the ideals pursued, and not the criminal acts blamed on either side which that side already admits are criminal acts. without this, not even an honest discussion is possible because it becomes a battle of the strawmen.
well i agree with the notion that we shouldnt oughta hold thugs against good ideas - i am not a capitalist nor am i a socialist, - i basically am trying to figure out how to get as many people into a lifeboat as i can and in a way that meaning and dignity and autonomy are preserved - no point surviving in a death camp, unless you live to see its liberation. mostly i've had it with the relatively new idea of the city, the state, and the churches of various orientation that spring up with such. i doubt they have much time left to plead their case either. though i do like emily dickinson quite a bit
Fiat currency is actually the root of the problem wherein real wealth in terms of goods and services are subordinated to schemes which are mere phantoms. Unfortunately, at the end of this cycle of greed there will be many people in what they, themselves, consider to be comfortable positions who will be left holding the bag, so to speak. It could be that the end is coming rather quickly although only in cosmic time. Our greatest problem at the moment is our specio-centricity, a pathology which is most acute in the supposedly wealthy west. With global warming set on an inexorable path, the only members of the human family who have any real chance of survival are those who are practically invisible to us at the moment due to their non-participation in the global economy. I am not a traditionally religious person, but I do believe that THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH
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MtnGoat April 15th, 2007 9:39 pm
"The solution may be as simple as taking away the corporate right of free speech. No more advertising. No more influence on politics."
Good luck with that. You will then have to limit freedom of speech for persons, or else I will just make a lot of money hiring out my freedom of speech to speak for those danged corporations.
And just how would you have to limit the right of Free Speech for persons?
There is nothing in the Constitution which grants the right of free speech to corporations. It is an individual right as are all the other rights in the Bill of Rights.
If a corporation is to be considered a person then all of the other rights would have to apply as well. The Constitution does not give anyone the right to pick and choose which articles and amendments they will acknowledge and which they will ignore.
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Case in point; If the Bill of Rights applies to corporations then corporations would have the right to own and bear arms under the second amendment. GM for example as a corporation cannot own and bear arms because it isn't a person.
Or how about;
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
You'll notice that it doesn't say people and corporations, just people.
Or;
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Again no mention of Corporations, only the states and the people.
Lobo Gris