Benjamin Barber: Hyper-consumerism got us here, faith in democracy can get us out.

Published December 02, 2008 @ 07:48AM PT

Consumed book cover Is the current economic meltdown ultimately a problem with democracy itself? According to Benjamin Barber, who I just heard in a thought-provoking conversation with WNYC-New York Public Radio's master interviewer, Brian Lehrer, the answer is yes.

Barber is a senior fellow at the New York think tank Demos, blogger at The Huffington Post, and author of Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (Norton, 2007). Today's radio segment is called "The Dark Side of Black Friday." His ideas encompass not just the intersections of capitalism with civic engagement, but also how we remake the global economy, and economic behavior, in the face of the globe's very real finite material resources.

Here are the notes I managed to type during the fast-paced conversation. Keep an eye on WNYC, which usually gets an audio archive of each day's show up on the web site within 24 hours. More than worth the listen.

BB=Benjamin Barber
BL=Brian Lehrer

BB: Obama cabinet picks: No hint of innovative thinking. For policy and economic picks reproduced Washington consensus. They'll understand the mess we're in b/c they helped make it. But maybe not how to get us out of it.

BL: What defines fresh thinking in this situation?

BB: The prob is not that all of these people shouldn't be in the new admin. Some should. But some others with different and fresh viewponts:

Jamie Galbraith -- has thought a lot about relationships btw economy, consumption and environment.

Jeff Sacks -- today is an advisor to SecGen of UN, deeply involved in emerg democracies in Africa, working on ways to jumpstart economy that improve justice.

Robert Kutner -- DEMOS fellow -- economist who's thot about ways to reign in downsides of free trade while encouraging globalization.

[mentioned one more person, but I missed it.]

BL: Foreign policy -- Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, James Jones all advocates of "line is blurred btw war and nation building." Understand that national security of US is linked to building good governments from bottom up, not just us vs. them. Isn't this good thing?

BB: They're not thinking in the wrong direction; they're all ppl who have learned from experience. Reality is, however, Afghanistan getting worse, not better -- more casualties than Iraq, bigger place, fewer troops there. India-Pak problems continue to grow. China: human rights + trade quandry. How will we deal?

New team will be more open to cooperation and partnership. I'd also hope for recognition of deep interdependencies of our world. US can no longer begin to control global affairs w/o cooperation of friends, and sometimes of adversaries. Americans not willing to accept how deep this goes -- how much national soverignty is itself really in question. We need some thinking in White House from people who are willing to examine the notion of nat'l soverignty in world of interdependence.

I don't want to end nation-state, but we can't think nations can act in 21st century the way they acted in 19th. That's where Bush went wrong -- looking for a defined entity to fight. The reality is tha Al Qaeda is a malevolent non-governmental organization, not a state. Can only be gotten out thru Interpol, intelligence and law enforcement cooperation across borders.

Mumbai: India and Pakistan are thinking like 19th century nations, understandably. India thinking it's Pakistan's fault, b/c it may be the geographi venue where an internat'l terrorist grup with eyes on Kashmir is operating.

The fact is, terrorists are spread around the world in countries that are ultimately not responsible for their actions. We're still thinking in nation-state terms when these groups operate in interstices betweeen the nation-state system.

BB: Capitalism is the only economic system left standing, and has proved itself system capable of promoting prosperity and opportunity. But, unregulated, works counter to needs of people and capitalism both.

Since 1990's, relationship between gov't and business has gone completely out of whack. Some of the team players in Obama's new team were key in the deregulation of the market [during the Clinton administration] that has led to the subprime mortgage crisis. Totally out of balance.

BL: You say that Adam Smith never intended for financial capital to become divorced from social capital.

BB: Right. We keep talking about a fix. What we really see is a global freeze in trust and confidence, not just fiscal and financial. Banks don't trust one anothers, lenders don't trust lendees, gov't doesn't trust banks, and no one trusts the government.

Capitalism works parasitically off of social capital and trust, which comes out of strong democratic engagement. We're not addressing the real problem -- what's missing is fundamental social trust in our institutions. It's not a technical fix to the economy that we need; trust won't rebound.

Question from web: shift back into a production society? Instead of a consumer society?

BB: Today, 72% of American GNP is devoted to consumption. That's crazy figure. Germany, w/better standard of living, more social happiness: 50%.

All steps in US to solve economic crisis are driven at restoring demand. I expect from Pres. Obama someone who said we need to reinstill values, what we owe our country, service. Not happy that there's been backing off of criticism of hyperconsumerism, using this crisis to change habits, put shopping back into its place. We could shift back consumption to 50-60% GNP, rather than 72%.

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Comments (10)

Emily, if it's worth writing, it's worth writing well.

Posted by Carol Bellows on 12/03/2008 @ 08:03AM PT
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Everyone's a critic.

Posted by Emily Gertz on 12/03/2008 @ 08:51AM PT
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People are massive consumers and we need to be more aware of it and try to cut it down. For how much crap is on tv I think we should be advertising how to save our freaking planet! Save the Polar Bears!

Posted by sarah ryen on 12/04/2008 @ 09:04AM PT
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America is not a capitalist country. It hasn't been completely capitalist in many years. We have a blend of capitalist/socialist with a sprinkling of fascism. Although I consider myself a capitalist, this is not a complaint. We got to where we are by way of a constant give and take of various factions. As a nation we are always fine tuning the machine usually (but not always) to the wishes of the majority. This ability to morph is one of our greatest strengths and occassionally our greatest weakness. It can make hard to invoke rapid change.

Posted by Charlie Reed on 12/04/2008 @ 09:54AM PT
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I agree, Charlie.
In the past, only a massive present danger could induce the nation to turn on a dime; consider how fast wartime production revved up once the US entered World War II, or the explosion of science and engineering education after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik.
I believe that the disaster of Hurricane Katrina -- its aftermath, actually, when the levees failed, and then the government failed its citizens -- will eventually be recognized as a huge factor in propelling the GOP out of its Congressional majority and out of the White House. So far, however, it doesn't seem to have been convincing enough as a present danger to crystallize us around curbing global warming. A lot -- too much, maybe -- depends on whether Barack Obama picks up the ball and runs with it next year.

Posted by Emily Gertz on 12/04/2008 @ 05:30PM PT
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I would hope rather for a total transformation of the republican party. The party has done much good for this country, eradicated slavery, fought the KKK and Jim Crowe laws, and passed the civil rights act and the voter rights act so democrat presidents could pass them. These were solely republican causes fought tooth and nail by the democrats. I know the democrats have evolved but let's not give total control to any one party just yet. The democrats are anything but democratic, the country overwhelmingly wants "all of the above" and the democrat leaders steadfastly say to us "We know best just shut up and let us run your lives. We need a balance of both parties.

Posted by Charlie Reed on 12/05/2008 @ 04:07AM PT
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Another way to say that is that lawmakers on both sides the aisle were crucial to the social progress we achieved in the 20th century.
Blinkered partisanship: boring.
Nostalgists in both parties, and their adherents, would do well to stop looking back to what they once were, and forward to what needs doing in the 21st century.

Posted by Emily Gertz on 12/05/2008 @ 07:10AM PT
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And also, Charlie, our policy at Change.org is that comments are for constructive discussion of the topics covered in the posts. I appreciate your participation on this blog, and hope you will move beyond comments that rehearse party politics instead of engaging on the topics I'm actually covering.

Posted by Emily Gertz on 12/05/2008 @ 07:15AM PT
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Consumed was such a great book! After I read this I went out and got No Logo as well.

Posted by Jason Gooljar on 12/05/2008 @ 10:54AM PT
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Sorry Emily, I had noticed the straying. I am constantly trying to open peoples eyes that the members neither party are neccessarily "evil", but wow! did I go off course!

Posted by Charlie Reed on 12/05/2008 @ 11:53AM PT
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