In an economy 70% dependent on consumption, should recession ravaged Americans rescue the holidays and shop 'til they drop?
Dr. Benjamin R. Barber is Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos ( http://www.demos.org/ ) and President CivWorld @ Demos and Walt Whitman Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University. Barber is the author of Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. Consumer artists/activists The Reverend Billy and director Savitri D of the Church of Life After Shopping believe that consumerism is overwhelming our lives as our neighborhood parks, streets and libraries are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. Warning of the "Shopocalypse", the Church preaches against the sins of branding while praying for local economies and real experiences, not those mediated through products. (Run Time: 1 hour, 43 min.)
"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.
