Product Description: "Powerful and disturbing. No one who cares about the future of our public life can afford to ignore this book."—Jackson Lears
A powerful sequel to Benjamin R. Barber's best-selling Jihad vs. McWorld, Consumed offers a vivid portrait of an overproducing global economy that targets children as consumers in a market where there are never enough shoppers and where the primary goal is no longer to manufacture goods but needs. To explain how and why this has come about, Barber brings together extensive empirical research with an original theoretical framework for understanding our contemporary predicament. He asserts that in place of the Protestant ethic once associated with capitalism—encouraging self-restraint, preparing for the future, protecting and self-sacrificing for children and community, and other characteristics of adulthood—we are constantly being seduced into an "infantilist" ethic of consumption.
So much for conservative values Barber is to be commended for understanding how capitalism thrives at the expense of certain traditional values. In the early part of last century, the US Commerce Commission issued a report to the effect that industrialization had become so productive that the real worry was to have enough buyers out there to lap up all the stuff. What was needed, accordingly, was an undermining of traditional values of thrift and sacrifice. If those values continued, capitalism would fail.
Barber's book notes this attack and its radical overturn of such religious (Christian/Protestant) values, including the need to save money. (Today the same fight is happening in China where Chinese, inveterate savers, are being urged not to.) I also think Barber is very good in describing how this mania for acquisition of ever more stuff is linked to an advertizing culture that infantilizes people and turns citizens into consumers who experience freedom not as a political virtue but as an exercize in the commercial activity of choosing a product. Thus democratic practice evaporates into the shopping experience where we "decide" what to buy. Thus candidates are "sold" and a marketing vocabulary permeates so much of what we say, think, and do.
Sources of Democratic Decay The title of my review would probably serve as a better title for the book. But alas...
Benjamin Barber's primary thesis in Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole is that marketing that reinforces adolescent behavior in adults and seeks to make children more usable consumers. This marketing is continually reinforced by a privatized capitalist system that undermines civil liberty and citizenship at the expense of consumer behaviors. It is, in the end, a system that causes people to become non-citizens of a commonwealth, but consumers who are at the whim of the corporate sector in society.
I share with many (who note errors that have clearly been corrected if they existed in the first printing) that Barber could have condensed his argument and made it more transparent this way. But that after a relatively quick read (it's not loaded with the scholarly aplomb and density that some reviewers have ruled in its disfavor) I was able to get the point and it remains a rather visceral and salient one. Starting with Weber's argument and then drawing lines to where the value foundations of capitalism have strayed is instructive and pragmatic.
What I like is that he finds common strands in much of the literature regarding consumerism and globalization that have been very popular, e.g. Friedman, Schor, Klein, Barry, Lasch, etc. But he does this by couching it in very important political terms in order to examine the effect of private capital on his notion of "strong democracy". to this degree, it reads almost like an updated "Culture of Narcissism".
He does have several errors he or at least his editor should have picked up before it went to paperback. He calls Terrell Owens a running back, Michael Stipe a producer, etc. But who cares about these points other than pedantic reviewers who would rather trivialize the argument. Moreover, the solution proposed at the end of a global society founded by global citizens does not seem plausible. He fails to account for the tribalistic tendencies that react against forces of globalization that authors such as Malcolm Waters have noted. So the end is as flat as Friedman's thesis of globalization which Barber largely argues against.
Much of the material is very well trodden in the literature. However, Barber's analytical skill is quite incisive and he is able to gather new syntheses of previous material to suggest that this is far more of an important issue for our social makeup than a diatribe against gluttony or material envy could muster. And to this end, I say well done and worth a read!
Be sure to check out Benjamin Barber's blog here. There you can find some of his thoughts in often nascent stages.
Overused Thesaurus If your wanting quality information regarding the effects of markets and globalization then you should pass over this book. It amazes me how this individual was able to get this book published as it presents no new arguments. If you want revelation, insight, and/or documented work, then search for Greg Palast or any other author.
I have a compulsive need to finish what I start and I've forced myself to read books before. However I was not able to finish this book for several reasons. The most annoying aspect is the authors choice of words. It's PAINFULLY obvious this book was pushed thru a thesaurus. It's also disappointing that a lack of proof or references of conclusions is presented. Honestly folx, save your hard earned dollars and buy something more useful than this book, like gas.
An undeveloped rant Sadly, Benjamin Barber had enough material for an essay or blog post, but chose to write a book instead (because only books are serious enough for him?). The subtitle, "How markets corrup children, infantilize adults, and swallow citizens whole" provides the entirety of his argument. He states and restates this thesis many times.
The book is repetetive at several all levels, in fact. Each of the eight chapters says much the same thing, only with a different set of examples; there is no progression, say from observations to conclusions. Barber will make a single point five or six times on a page, with a sameness that demonstrates not effective rhetorical emphasis, but simply lazy writing and editing. In breathless sentences, he tosses out economic terms and demonstrates a respectable vocabulary, but is unable to find synonyms for his main ideas: "infantilization," "asceticism," and "Protestant ethos" can appear a dozen times on a page--and on every page in a chapter. (Is this from a needless fear of losing his readers?)
The writing in Consumed thus makes it not just a bore but a waste of time. I found myself skimming quickly just to find something new--alas, it never presented itself. Some have accused the writing of being academic, but it does not even have the virtues of academese (precision, rigor).
How else is a five-minute rant padded to a 400-page book? Barber offers a slew of examples of things he hates--but generally does nothing more than identify them. It is one assertion of corrupting influence and emptiness after another: he presents no arguments or evidence against his targets, except anecdotes and other writers' equally harsh judgments. And while most of his assertions are banal (Shaquille O'Neil never grew up) the few biting ones are unreferenced (as when he mentions two prominent newspapers fabricating stories). He has in me a sympathetic reader but he does not make his case. His condemnations reek of stodginess and high-brow taste, not careful reasoning about the future of America.
In the end, Consumed has very little to say. If you agree with Barber's sentiments, your opinion may be reinforced but don't hope to gain ammunition to use against any free-capitalist friends. If you're skeptical, you will be disappointed at the absence of rigor: Barber has ignored his own advice and delivered a leight-weight diatribe that asks little of his readers. Perhaps he's right, and something needs to be done about rampant consumerism, but this book won't help.
Overstated meh. I got the point after the first tedious, depressing chapter. I skimmed the rest of the book and it's the pretty much the first chapter restated with more examples to support his argument, enough to make you want to head for the liquor cabinet. jeezis. It's a bleak one sided perspective on a much more complicated issue. I thought the thickness of the book was an indication of it being more well-rounded but like I said, it's jut one depressing fact after another. big deal. I wish the book would have spent more time looking for solutions to the problem or examining it from different angles, looking at other possible culprits for this "infantilization" the author speaks of. (I'm still not completely sure what that term even means by the way). I mean putting all the blame on manipulative ad campaigns and corporate America seems pretty whiney. Take some personal responsibility. Anyway it's worth checking out from the library and reading through a few pages I guess.
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