Capitalism Triumphant and the Infantilist Ethos - Essay Example

Capitalism Triumphant and the Infantilist Ethos In his book, “Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole”, Barber seeks to define the effects of consumerism to the lives of the citizens of the United States of America. He argues that consumer capitalism has a way of encouraging adult regression with the aim of rekindling childhood habits and tastes in adults. The book argues many products are unprofitable to the society. These products struggle to get the very few willing consumers. The continuously expanding capitalism commercial culture spoils everything, marginalizing religious life, civic life and family life, and turning citizens to mere consumers whose personal market choice avails to them what they want but fails to avail of them what they want to vent. This paper aims at discussing and analyzing the argument contained in Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole by Benjamin R. Barber. The author of this book is a well known political theorist who has over the years been writing many materials about how the civil society is deteriorating. He also gives recommendations on how the initial state of the civil society can be reclaimed. He believes that there was a time in history when capitalism had virtues that had positive contributions to citizenship, responsibility, and democracy. Currently capitalism is tainted with the vices that encourage consumerism, while on the other hand undermining citizenship, responsibility, and democracy. He states that in the current world capitalism and democracy do not come together. Previously, capitalism worked under the protestant work ethic. Under this ethic, capitalism was dependable, restrained, responsible, hardworking, and forward thinking. This enabled distribution of resources and meeting of human needs. During later days, capitalism had all human needs met thus capitalism ended up consuming itself (Barber 67). Because capitalism had to keep growing, consumer market had to keep selling. Despite the fact that many citizens did not have their basic needs met, capitalism still chose to ignore them. Instead, they made consumers want the products that were already over supplied. There are two possible results of this. First consumers of the oversupplied products are targeted. Second non-consumers of the available products are manipulated into wanting the oversupplied products. For instance, game producers target children while at the same time preventing adults from growing up, so that they would continue consuming their products. This can be done by making adults believe that games were made for them too. This way, adults are manipulated into wanting to use these products. Barber’s argument holds some truth in it. Consumers always get themselves wanting to buy some products. This happens regardless of whether they need it, or if they can afford. When a producer introduces a new product, they make consumers believe that they need it, and that the price is affordable (Barber 112). For example, Apple announces the introduction of a new iPod. Consumers of the same find themselves wanting to purchase this particular product even if they might be having a product that serves the same purpose. Despite the possibility of the iPod not making any difference in the lives of the citizens, they still buy it believing that they need it just as the producers claim. The book also tends to depict the constant creation of supposed human needs that have led to the creation of an infantilists’ ethos that interferes with people’s ability to be good citizens. When people identify themselves as consumers or individuals instead of a constituent of a political organization, people tend to forget that they should be thinking of the collective benefit of the whole community. A common observation in America is that there is pressure mounting on children to mature at a fast rate in order to be consumers. On the other hand, producers are trying hard to convince adults to remain in a constant state of adolescence in order to encourage the youthful type of spending (Barber 119). This leads to a situation in which consumers purchase products that they do not need. They prefer products easily found as opposed to those hardly found. They prefer fast-acquired products to those that come slowly. This infantalist ethos can be blamed on the evolution of the market from a need based on a want based system. The initial stages of capitalism were supportive of the Protestant ethos, to an extent that the two worked well together. After a while, only the work aspect of protestant ethos remained while the ethical aspects of capitalism were undermined to enable the capitalists to make more money. Immediately the “every man for himself” mentality took root in the United States of America, the country immediately began witnessing a breakdown in cultural and social ties (Norris 99). The insatiable need for the market to have more consumers contributed to the creation of demand for a surplus of luxurious but useless products. Because the market is being forced to adapt to an imaginary demand, the economic system has become highly inflated. This situation might be both economically and politically dangerous to a country. The book finally recommends the transformation of capitalism back to its initial form. This is probably the state when its main aim was need satisfaction. This can be possible through transforming democracy in the state it was a guarantor of all domains including the market domain. Through this, consumers will be free from manipulation, and thus will be able to purchase products that they really need and not those that they are made to believe that they want. For there to be consumerism, there ought to be the infantilist ethos because it advocates for leisure and laxity at the expense of denial and discipline. This makes shopping omnipresent and ubiquitous, thus turning shopping to an addiction encouraged by easily accessible credit. This resultedin a situation where human get access to what they are made to believe is important at the expense of the real needs that they should always consider first. Under this argument, only the producers benefit from the capitalist system. They continue getting profits from the production of the less relevant product. They manage this by making the consumers believe that they really need these products. Through this, they continue accumulating financial wealth from the sales of their irrelevant products. Regardless of the economic worth of an individual, they are likely to believe that their lives and happiness is dependent on certain products, while this is very far from being true. A grown up would be heard saying that their lives would have been miserable if iPods were never invented. As much as this cannot be true, they still believe that these products are of importance to their lives. In the past, people used to abandon childish tendencies once they grew up. That in not the case in the current society, people grow up but continue doing the things that they used to do when they used to be young. Nowadays, it would not be a wonder meeting a grown up zipping to work on a push-scooter, listening to youthful music from their iPod, carrying office documents in bag. At the same time, the number of people between the age of 25 and 35 still living with their parents have highly increased in the United States of America. This trend is evident all over Europe. This reveals that the society is slowly changing, and accommodating the kind of behaviors that had no place in the past (Norris 132). This, in a way reduces the economic productivity of the adult population especially those from low-income societies. The book gives no clear recommendations on how to deal with consumerism. Despite this, he still insists that the society should return to civic calling and citizenship. The author suggests consumer boycotts and culture jamming, as the beginning steps towards reducing the effects of consumerism. However, he fails to give a complete recommendation on what should be done to completely curb consumerism in the modern society. This way, he still leaves the reader with many questions especially because he does not give a detailed way of dealing with the consumerism as a political and economic problem. There have been many responses to this book. While some agree with the argument, most critics claim that this argument is invalid. There are claims that Barber does not appear to have an understanding of how the market he is criticizing works. In this, he aims at asserting what might be referred to as a moralized overproduction thesis. This thesis would imply that Say’s is violated daily or is almost getting to that level (Bauman 146). The moralized overproduction thesis states that capitalism is producing. While consumers are paying for goods and services that ought not to be consumed or produced. Barber uses the overproduction thesis as the foundation to his claims that productivity capitalism at some point changed to consumerist capitalism, which aims at inducing and certifying non-existent needs. The greatest fear from the expansion of consumerism should be the increase in consolidated power that ends up in the hands of co-operations and companies. It would not require much effort to shift power from governments to corporations (Norris 79). Many sources of science fiction have depicted a future controlled my corporations, some might be less radical, but most are more feasible. It would not take a large stretch of the imagination to picture these corporations, who have the more financial capability than current governments, rise to be global powers. This is even supported by the fact that corporations are able to pull the strings of the government in order to make regulatory policies and taxation that are in their favor. In this book, Barber presents an impressive range of opinions and ideas some of which have been proved deceptive since the publication of this book. In the book, he over-emphasizes the influence marketers have on the choices of consumers. He claims that the marketing system is designed to turn children to consumers, and to make the preference of adult consumers childish. This argument has been considered invalid by many critics. As much as most consumers might get the temptation of buying a commodity because it is cool or fad, most of the purchases made by consumers are rarely influenced by such motives (Bauman 137). Most of the time, people make purchases to meet their real need as opposed to making themselves feel younger or older. The capitalist system produces commodities and services that are meant to meet the true needs and desires of consumers. As much as marketing can lead to the rise of illusive needs, they never last for long. Just as fashion usually creates a false sense of need, this illusion does not always take long. Daily purchasing of food, clothing, and other necessities in life are always determined by personal preference and not marketing systems. The claim that consumption is affected by modern marketing techniques can be highly deceptive. Researchers have found that consumption in the United States of America is mostly affected by the prices of goods and services. A good number of the indicators of human wellbeing have shown improvement since the 1970s. If in any case capitalism had been satisfying the legitimate human beings’ needs, then there would be no improvement in the indicators of human wellbeing especially in the capitalist nations (Bauman 101). This is a clear indication that there will be very little to be said about moralized overproduction theory in the absence of a theory of needs. Thus, there is no clear evidence to the claim that the current patterns of consumption do not meet human needs. The argument in the book depicts consumers as the biggest victims of consumerism and hyper-consumerism. Consumers can take advantage of the information given by the book and start being watchful on the goods and services that they pay for. They should be able to determine which of these products they really need, and which ones they do not need. Through this, they might be able to save thus increasing their own financial capability. Otherwise, they end up being consumption slaves who just spend on products that are surely not of value to their lives. Despite all the support and criticism given in this book, it is still not clear whether the argument in this book is completely valid. One thing that is a fact is that hyper-consumerism has led to the increase of unnecessary spending. Cutting down such spending can present savings for the future in buying other meaningful things. Hyper-consumerism also encourages the imbalance of economic resources. It makes sure that the capitalists are always in control of most of the economic resources. One argument that is highly disputed is the one claiming that the market has created illusion needs. As much as consumers might spend money on goods and services that are not really need, it is not always because they think they need it. This must definitely be the effect of having surplus financial resources. This receives a backing from the fact that there has been significant improvement in the indicators of human wellbeing over the last twenty years. Work Cited Barber, Bejamin. Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.: 3-37. Bauman, Zygmunt. Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007. Internet resource. Norris, Trevor.Consuming Schools: Commercialism and the End of Politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. Print. Read More