Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole

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Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole
by Benjamin R. Barber
from W. W. Norton

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0

• Great observations; Not so great solutions.
  Barber is adept at observing and brilliantly describing the symptoms that face our society. But unlike a gifted medical doctor, he is not so competent at finding the source of the symptoms, let alone providing an effective cure. Yes, our society is a runaway train headed for destruction, but what can we do about it?
  Having worked for years in the advertising industry, I can tell you that the manufacturing of envy, desire and wantonness is in full swing. Our culture cannot withstand much more of it. But... more info

• 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... more info

• 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... more info

• 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... more info

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