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This week on Bill Moyers, an interview with Dr. Benjamin Barber, senior fellow at Demos, and author of books such as Jihad vs. McWorld and more recently, Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. Touched on various points we have discussed here. (Maybe he reads iTulip?)
Good discussion. Here are some excerpts (my highlighting):
Good discussion. Here are some excerpts (my highlighting):
BILL MOYERS: Here we are, at the height of the holiday season. The malls and the shops are packed. Stuff is flying off the shelves. And like Grinch or Scrooge you stand up and say, "Capitalism's in trouble." Why?
BENJAMIN BARBER: Because things are flying off the shelves that we don't want or need or even understand what they are, but we go on buying them. Because capitalism needs us to buy things way beyond the scope of our needs and wants to stay in business, Bill. That's the bottom line. Capitalism is no longer manufacturing goods to meet real needs and human wants. It's manufacturing needs to sell us all the goods it's got to produce.
BENJAMIN BARBER: Because things are flying off the shelves that we don't want or need or even understand what they are, but we go on buying them. Because capitalism needs us to buy things way beyond the scope of our needs and wants to stay in business, Bill. That's the bottom line. Capitalism is no longer manufacturing goods to meet real needs and human wants. It's manufacturing needs to sell us all the goods it's got to produce.
BENJAMIN BARBER: Here in the United States, we do -- the Cola companies, which couldn't sell enough Cola, figure out, why sell Cola when we can sell water from the tap that people can get for free, but we'll sell it in bottles from the tap. Twenty billion a year. Twenty billion dollars a year in bottled water.
BILL MOYERS: Right. Right. In bottled water.
BENJAMIN BARBER: In the third world there are literally billions without potable, without drinkable, without clean water. Now why shouldn't capitalism figure out how to clean the water out there and get people something they need and make a buck off it, because that's what capitalism does. It makes a profit off taking some chances and meeting real human needs. Instead of convincing Americans and Europeans that they shouldn't drink pure clean tap water but instead pay two bucks a bottle for it.
BILL MOYERS: Those people out there don't have the money to buy it. So that-- why would a company go into a place where people don't have money and try to sell them something?
BENJAMIN BARBER: In capitalism you don't expect a profit right away. You make an investment. You create jobs. You create products, you create productivity. That's the way it works. That's the way we created, in the west, our prosperity. But we don't have the patience any longer to do it in the third world. We don't want to bring them into the marketplace. We'd rather exploit a finished marketplace.
BILL MOYERS: Right. Right. In bottled water.
BENJAMIN BARBER: In the third world there are literally billions without potable, without drinkable, without clean water. Now why shouldn't capitalism figure out how to clean the water out there and get people something they need and make a buck off it, because that's what capitalism does. It makes a profit off taking some chances and meeting real human needs. Instead of convincing Americans and Europeans that they shouldn't drink pure clean tap water but instead pay two bucks a bottle for it.
BILL MOYERS: Those people out there don't have the money to buy it. So that-- why would a company go into a place where people don't have money and try to sell them something?
BENJAMIN BARBER: In capitalism you don't expect a profit right away. You make an investment. You create jobs. You create products, you create productivity. That's the way it works. That's the way we created, in the west, our prosperity. But we don't have the patience any longer to do it in the third world. We don't want to bring them into the marketplace. We'd rather exploit a finished marketplace.
BENJAMIN BARBER: "Tell us what's going on? What's wrong with American consumers?" Which is kind of what you and I have been talking about. But the trouble is we're looking the wrong way. It's not what's wrong with American consumers, it's what's wrong with American capitalism, American advertisers, American marketers? We're not asking for it. It's what I call push capitalism. It's supply side. They've got to sell all this stuff, and they have to figure out how to get us to want it. So they take adults and they infantilize them. They dumb them down. They get us to want things.
BENJAMIN BARBER: -- But part of the problem here is that the capitalist companies have figured out that the best way to do their job is to privatize profit, but socialize risk. ... ask the taxpayer to pay for it ... when things go down.
BENJAMIN BARBER: We have real needs here for alternative energy. And I would want to reward corporations that invest in alternative energy. Not just bio fuels and so on, but also that look at geo thermals, that look at wind, that look at tidal. Tidal is an amazing new field where you use the tides and the motions of the tides. It's expensive, difficult right now. But that's what you get the profits for, by investing in that. So there are lots of things we can do. Coastlines around this country with global warming are rising. We know hurricane damage. Housing that can withstand water. Big thing. You could make a lot of money figuring out how to build inexpensive housing that withstands hurricanes, withstands flooding. Very few people are doing it. That's the way capitalism ought to be working.
So number one then capitalism itself is in trouble. But, second of all, capitalism has put democracy in trouble. Because capitalism has tried to persuade us that being a private consumer is enough. That a citizen is nothing more than a consumer. That voting means spending your dollars spreading around your private prejudices, your private preferences. Not reaching public judgments. Not finding common ground. Not making decisions about the social consequences of private judgments, but just making the private judgments. And letting it fall where it will.
So number one then capitalism itself is in trouble. But, second of all, capitalism has put democracy in trouble. Because capitalism has tried to persuade us that being a private consumer is enough. That a citizen is nothing more than a consumer. That voting means spending your dollars spreading around your private prejudices, your private preferences. Not reaching public judgments. Not finding common ground. Not making decisions about the social consequences of private judgments, but just making the private judgments. And letting it fall where it will.
BENJAMIN BARBER: But, you know what? Democracy has a simple rule. The social conscience. The citizen trumps the consumer. We, Milton Friedman, with his help, we've inverted that. Now the consumer trumps the citizen. And we're getting a society that manifests the trumping by the consumer of civics. Which means a selfish privatized and, ultimately, corrupt society. And one no one wants their own children to grow up in.
BILL MOYERS: Here's a question. Maybe it comes from your book. When politics permeates everything we call it totalitarianism. When religion permeates everything we call it theocracy. But when commerce pervades everything, we call it liberty.
BENJAMIN BARBER: Well, that is the central paradox of our times. And, as Americans, I would think we understand that, above all, democracy means pluralism. If everything's religion, we rightly distrust it. If everything's politics, even in good politics, we rightly distrust it. But when everything's marketing, and everything's retail, and everything's shopping, we somehow think that enhances our freedom. Well, it doesn't. It has the same corrupting effect on the fundamental diversity and variety that are our lives that make us human, that make us happy. And, in that sense, focusing on shopping and the fulfillment of private consumer desires actually undermines our happiness.
BILL MOYERS: Help me understand that. Because so many people will say choice is joy.
BENJAMIN BARBER: And they are right. But the question is what kind of choice? You go to LA today, you can rent or buy 200 different kinds of automobile. And then, in those automobiles, you can sit, no matter which one you're in, for five hours not moving on the freeway system there. The one choice you don't have is genuine, efficient, cheap, accessible, public transportation. There's nothing as a consumer you can do to get it. Because the choice for public transportation is a social choice. A civic choice. ... So many of our choices today are trivial.
BILL MOYERS: Here's a question. Maybe it comes from your book. When politics permeates everything we call it totalitarianism. When religion permeates everything we call it theocracy. But when commerce pervades everything, we call it liberty.
BENJAMIN BARBER: Well, that is the central paradox of our times. And, as Americans, I would think we understand that, above all, democracy means pluralism. If everything's religion, we rightly distrust it. If everything's politics, even in good politics, we rightly distrust it. But when everything's marketing, and everything's retail, and everything's shopping, we somehow think that enhances our freedom. Well, it doesn't. It has the same corrupting effect on the fundamental diversity and variety that are our lives that make us human, that make us happy. And, in that sense, focusing on shopping and the fulfillment of private consumer desires actually undermines our happiness.
BILL MOYERS: Help me understand that. Because so many people will say choice is joy.
BENJAMIN BARBER: And they are right. But the question is what kind of choice? You go to LA today, you can rent or buy 200 different kinds of automobile. And then, in those automobiles, you can sit, no matter which one you're in, for five hours not moving on the freeway system there. The one choice you don't have is genuine, efficient, cheap, accessible, public transportation. There's nothing as a consumer you can do to get it. Because the choice for public transportation is a social choice. A civic choice. ... So many of our choices today are trivial.
BILL MOYERS: You know, we're at the mercy then, aren't we, of China and Dubai? I mean, just as we're sitting here talking, I have resonating in my head the report on the radio the other morning, that Citi Corp is receiving a $7 1/2 billion infusion from Abu Dhabi. What's going on?
BENJAMIN BARBER: People-- that have to go into their ancient history memories, banks, to remember, that just a couple years ago Dubai ports, you know, was the biggest-- "We can't let Dubai ports take over our ports in the United States. We have our sovereignty," and so on. And people screamed and, you know-- uproar about it. And Dubai ports was eliminated from the mix. But, meanwhile, Dubai is buying the United States wholesale, along with China and other countries. We make a fuss about our sovereignty and politics, and we have debates. But we sell our sovereignty down the river by becoming a debtor nation.
BENJAMIN BARBER: People-- that have to go into their ancient history memories, banks, to remember, that just a couple years ago Dubai ports, you know, was the biggest-- "We can't let Dubai ports take over our ports in the United States. We have our sovereignty," and so on. And people screamed and, you know-- uproar about it. And Dubai ports was eliminated from the mix. But, meanwhile, Dubai is buying the United States wholesale, along with China and other countries. We make a fuss about our sovereignty and politics, and we have debates. But we sell our sovereignty down the river by becoming a debtor nation.
BENJAMIN BARBER: I'll give you a couple of hopeful examples. There's a company in Denmark that's gotten very rich very fast making something called the Life Straw. It's a thing about this long. And in it are about nine filters that filter out all the contaminants and germs that you find in third world cesspool water. If you buy one of these for a couple bucks that's all it takes, a woman in the third world and her family can drink through that straw, and it doesn't matter what water they have available. It cleanses that water. A little firm in Denmark that makes that life straw is making out like a capitalist bandit we'd say. But properly so. They're being rewarded for taking a risk. Inventing something that is needed. Folks working in alternative energy, some of them are going to make real money. And that's a good thing. That's what they ought to be doing.
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