Consumed
Where free-market capitalism once bolstered our democracy, it is now in danger of destroying it.
Now the businesses with the biggest profits are those that manufacture a “relatively useless cornucopia of games, gadgets, and myriad consumer goods for which there is no discernable ‘need market’ other than the one created by capitalism’s own frantic need to sell.”
In order to sell, and sell some more, capitalism’s frantic marketers encourage children to grow up prematurely (with, for example, tv for six-month-olds and computers for preschoolers) and turn adults into overgrown kids who seek the instant gratification of unchallenging, endlessly replaceable consumer goods.
As the culture of consumer capitalism, spurred on by globalization and privatization, has grown, it has diminished public life.
Instead of the town square, we now have the mall, a semi-public space that excludes non-shoppers and other “undesirables” and turns citizens into consumers who practice an “identity antipolitics” in which everyone is too busy creating and maintaining an identity through shopping to worry about the public good.
The freedom to buy what we want is making us less free, and that is a problem for anyone who values democracy.