In his book Consumed, Benjamin Barber draws attention to the capitalist markets
of today and how they are cultivating a society of children that purchase
trivial products, in essence “making kids consumers or consumers kids” (Barber
20). Although controversially portrayed, Barber’s thesis serves as an end in
itself by making audiences more aware of their own and others’ decisions as
consumers and their chilling impact on the economy; Barber attempts to defog a
rather cyclic system in which we feed the very institutions that corrupt us
into thinking we should feed them.
Central to his argument is the idea of
privatization, that our decisions in the marketplace our dominated by the
notion of what’s good for us personally rather that what’s good for the wider
world. In the airline industry, Barber asserts that privatization manifests
itself in the flawed reality that “taxpayers are assessed for training pilots, commercial
airlines reap the rewards” (Barber 149). As part of resolving the dilemma that
results from the ongoing shift between a consumer identity and a citizen
identity, Barber advises us to consider public interests over our own. While I
agree that this point could positively impact our global community in the long
run, I would exercise caution when practicing this weighing of private vs.
public costs, for the individual who is constantly engaged in placing public needs
over his own would undoubtedly end up as a bubble-wrapped child constantly
going out of his way not to expose himself to the dangers of society, yet on
the alternative, the consumer going out of his way not to expose society to his
harmful impacts.
In Italy a cultural phenomenon exists
known as ‘Ben Comune’. Essentially, the concept capitalizes on public good
vs. private good and of performing good works for the advantage of the
community. An American equivalent does not exist as we are the growing collective
of many cultures with varying senses of ‘doing good’ for the public. While this
notion of benefiting society at the expense of personal desires may be absent from
the modern American ethos, we should consider embracing this idea of doing
public good so as not to further compartmentalize society further into pockets
of “I want, I want,” as Barber posits.
Works Cited
Barber,
Benjamin R. Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and
Swallow Citizens Whole. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. Print.
