Consumerism will be understood as a ‘folk religion’, as a contemporary everyday way to make sense of and deal with transcendence. Contrary to longstanding critiques I will argue that consumerism also carries an ethical potential that comes into conflict with the results of the capitalist order of production.

The tendency for consumers to over-indulge in purchase activities has been analyzed and discussed since the time of Plato, yet consumerism in today’s marketplace has become increasingly more prominent and pernicious. In this conceptual paper, we examine consumerism and discuss the four ways in which consumerism can undermine individuals and society. We then apply the four cardinal virtues - moderation, courage, justice and prudence - and describe how these virtues can be implemented by consumers and producers so (...) as to result in more effective achievement of the common good. As a result of this application, both consumer decision-making and producer marketing action should work to promote human flourishing. (shrink)

Unlike the managerially oriented reforms that have brought auditing and accounting into such prominence in the UK National Health Service (NHS), and which seem alien to the culture of the caring professions, consumerist reforms may seem to complement moves towards the acceptance of wide definitions of health, and towards increasing patient autonomy. The empowerment favoured by those who support patient autonomy sounds like the sort of empowerment that is sometimes associated with the patient's charter. For this reason moral criticism of (...) recent NHS reforms may stop short of calling consumerism into question. This, however, would be a mistake: consumerism can be objectionable both within and beyond the health care market. (shrink)

Communitarians have offered a number of arguments against liberalism that connect liberalism to consumerism. In this paper, I examine an argument to this effect developed by Michael Sandel. I argue that Sandel’s argument fails to undenmne liberalism, but that it does demonstrate that many contemporary liberals have placed too great an emphasis on the principle of political neutrality. I argue that liberalism, properly understood, requires both limited neutrality and an emphasis on democratic deliberation. If this is the case, then (...) Sandel’s argument misses its target. However, it does point out how contemporary liberalism needs to be reformed. By emphasizing more local democratic control over the economy, liberalism would not only become more theoretically consistent, but it would distance itself from consumerism. (shrink)

The issue that I wish to address is, why protest and criticize the increasing hegemony of what has been called the “culture of consumerism”? This “why not?” objection encompasses three distinct sets of questions. First, is not resistance to it akin to playing the role of King Canute by the sea? Second, is not acceptance of it dictated by the current liberal philosophical consensus that acknowledges and endorses an inevitable diversity in different individuals’ conceptions of what is good, and (...) must not this consensus itself be taken as a given by all who are opposed to political and religious totalitarianisms? Third, does not cosmopolitanism, regarded as a value-orientation favorable to the dissolution or at least minimization of national boundaries and the practices of exclusivity associated therewith, make common cause in the present historical conjuncture with this same trend? I will argue for a “No” answer to all of these questions. (shrink)

The ethical guidelines for prenatal diagnosis proposed by the World Health Organisation , as well as by national regulations, only refer to paternity and gender of the fetus as unacceptable, disease-unrelated criteria for prenatal selection, as no other such parameters are at hand so far. This perspective is too narrow because research on complex genetic systems such as cognition and ageing is about to provide clinically applicable tests for genetic constituents of potentially desirable properties such as intelligence or longevity which (...) could be misused as parameters for prenatal diagnosis. Moreover, there is an increasing number of prenatally testable genetic traits, such as heritable deafness, which are generally regarded as pathological but desired by some prospective parents and taken into account as parameters for pro-disability selection. To protect prenatal diagnosis from ethically unacceptable genetic consumerism, guidelines must be clarified as soon as possible and updated towards a worldwide restriction of prenatal genetic testing to immediately disease-determining traits. (shrink)

Critics of mass culture often identify 1950s-style status competition as one of the central forces driving consumerism. Thomas Frank has challenged this view, arguing that countercultural rebellion now provides the primary source of consumerism in our society, and that ‘cool’ has become its central ideological expression. This paper provides a rearticulation and defense of Frank's thesis, first identifying consumerism as a type of collective action problem, then showing how the ‘hip consumer’ is one who adopts a free-rider (...) strategy in this context. (shrink)

In this review essay, Claudia Ruitenberg discusses Trevor Norris's Consuming Schools, René Arcilla's Mediumism, and Martha Nussbaum's Not for Profit. While the primary focus of each book is different — with Norris concentrating on the pressures of consumerism and commercialism on K–12 schooling, Arcilla analyzing modernist art and existentialist education, and Nussbaum emphasizing the role of the humanities in educating for democratic citizenship — each of the books in some way addresses the question of how people can be educated (...) to resist consumerism and how education itself can resist being absorbed by consumerism. Here, Ruitenberg considers this common theme as well as the more specific question of what special role — if any — the arts might play in anticonsumerist education. (shrink)

Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox is about Mr. Fox's attempt to flourish as both a wild animal and a consumer. As such, this film raises some interesting and difficult questions about what it means to be a member of a certain kind, what is required to flourish as a member of that kind, and how consumerism either promotes or inhibits such flourishing. In this paper I use Fantastic Mr. Fox as an entry point into an examination of the relationship (...) between consumerism and human flourishing. More specifically, I use this film as a way to engage with a worry that many philosophers have expressed: namely, the worry that consumerism threatens the identity of individual consumers. I begin by bringing certain of Mr. Fox's worries into contact with an Aristotelian account of flourishing. I then press Aristotle's account further by arguing that consumerism threatens one's ability to flourish as a human being because it tends to discourage one from engaging in distinctly human activities. I then conclude by looking to Aristotle and Mr. Fox for some ways to respond to this threat. My ultimate goals are, first, to shed light on certain dangers that are associated with consumerism, and second, to indicate how people living in consumerist societies might nonetheless overcome those dangers. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 3, Page 875-887, July 2022.

This Note will address the salience of a simple analogy: will privacy law be for the information age what consumer protection law was for the industrial age? At the height of industrialization, the United States market for consumer products faced instability caused by a lack of consumer competence, lack of disclosure about product defects, and advancements in technology that exacerbated the market's flaws. As this Note will show, these same causes of market failure are stirring in today's economy as well. (...) The modern economy is not one of goods but of information, and although consumers have long been aware that their personal information may have marketing value, the Internet has fundamentally changed the scope and depth of information collection, exposing more consumers than ever to injuries requiring not just a comprehensive remedy but a wholesale change in the level of care of the information industry. Just as the mass-production economy precipitated a wave of reforms in consumer protection (in part thanks to a kick-start by author Upton Sinclair), so too must the mass-information economy adapt. After demonstrating the parallels between the problems of today with those of yesterday, this Note will propose parallel solutions, particularly a consolidation of regulatory power and a new tort for breach of information privacy, which draws its inspiration from general products liability. These proposals show that rather than reinvent the wheel, modern lawmakers can (and should) answer today's problems with lessons from the last century. (shrink)

The growing consumerism has its opponents. Among these are environmental activists within the freegan subculture. The goal of the study is to describe how freegans construct and practice non-consumerism. The qualitative research on the freegan subculture was conducted in Brno, the Czech Republic. Two main categories were identified. Each category is conceptualized as a “picture of non-consumerism”, showing how freegans construct and practice non-consumerism. “Individual modesty” is an inward non-consumerist strategy, aimed at the individual life careers (...) of the subculture members, while “agents of social change” is an outward strategy, aimed at the general public and endeavouring to reduce consumerism in society. (shrink)

Ethical consumerism theory aims to describe, explain, and evaluate the ways in which producers and consumers use the market to support social and environmental values. The literature draws insights from empirical studies of sectors that largely take place on the legal market, such as textiles and agri-food. This paper takes a first step toward theorizing ethical consumerism in semi-legal sectors where market activities occur legally and illegally. How does extant theory extend to sectors such as sex work, cigarettes, (...) and recreational drugs? This study draws on the case of recreational cannabis (marijuana) in Portland, OR (USA). Data from 33 interviews, structured fieldwork at 64 dispensaries, and the US Census Bureau American Community Survey are analyzed using qualitative, quantitative, and spatial methods. The findings are compared to 12 suggestions that emerge from the literature on fair trade, organics, alternative agriculture, and political consumerism. I argue that not all ethical consumerism theory extends to semi-legal sectors. Cannabis closely resembles theoretical expectations in terms of supply/demand, prioritization of ethical issues, and pervasiveness of false claims, but differs in terms of who organizes, which types of strategies are pursued, and how ethical products are framed. The differences stem from several pervasive stigmas about cannabis. I also argue that the stigmas that set cannabis apart from other (more legal sectors) and present challenges to ethical consumerism in cannabis are directly related to the War on Drugs. These insights suggest that prohibition (and its lingering effects) can inhibit the emergence of ethical consumerism. (shrink)

Consumer concern for “ethical products”, or ethical aspects of the goods which they purchase, is a subject of increasing interest and research,which is here illustrated by an examination of the Fair Trade movement, with special reference to coffee as an indicative commodity. Kate Bird, is currently Lecturer in the Development Administration Group, School of Public Policy, Birmingham University, Birmingham B15 2TT, England, having previously worked abroad and written her MSc dissertation at Wye College on fair trade in coffee products. Dr (...) Hughest holds the Sainsbury Chair in Agribusiness and Food Marketing at Wye College, University of London, Wye, Ashford, Kent TN25 5AH, England (email: [email protected]), where he is also Director of the Food Industry Management Group. He has wide international experience of food management issues. (shrink)

An active ethically conscious consumer has been acclaimed as the new hero and hope for an ethically improved capitalism. Through consumers’ “voting” at the checkout, corporations are supposed to be held accountable for their conduct. In the literature on political consumerism, this has mainly been approached as political participation and governance. In this article, we do a critical review of this literature. We do so by questioning the existence of what we call a “generic active consumer model.” At the (...) core of this position, there is a belief that the active consumer is a universal entity, available across nations and time. Instead we call for an approach that takes accord of the ways consumers and consumer roles are framed in interactive processes in markets, governance structures, and everyday life. Consumers in different countries assess their responsibilities and their powers as consumers differently due to different institutionalizations within distinctive contexts. We also must take into account how the inertia of ordinary consumption and the moral complexities of everyday life restrict the adoption of an active consumerist role. Hence, the debate on political consumerism should make for a more realistic notion of ethical consumer-sovereignty and its role in improving the workings of capitalism. In our view, these findings have severe implications for understanding both theories of political consumption and the dynamics of political consumption per se. (shrink)

This paper intends to closely examine Michel Foucault’s take on power, resistance, and critical thought in the modern state, using the market-driven consumer economy and the paranoia-induced post-9/11 national security rhetoric as background. It will argue that on both domains, knowledge as similitude comes to be represented as part of the repressive configuration in the order of things. In retracing the technology of discipline where the individual unknowingly participates in his latent subjugation, the author thinks that critical thought—one that diverts (...) power away from the center to the peripheries is the only effective way of resistance against forms of social control and domination. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

Epicurus was a Greek philosopher interested in pleasure or pursuit of it more than other ideals. He said, "No pleasure in itself is a bad thing, but the things that produce certain pleasures involve disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves." Epicurus tells us that the knowledge of which pleasures are good for us is wisdom. While this sometimes led to a negative view of his philosophy, in many regions of the world today the reality is that his thinking (...) has been very advanced and developed, leading to his ideas becoming highly influential in modern thought. His simple philosophies of avoiding pain, living a simple life, and learning has made much of his philosophy appealing and influential. An important Indian philosophy called "Charvaka" is that this world is the only reality. Out of the four human values — Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha — they advocate the pursuit of karma only, and Artha merely as a means of facilitating the purpose. For Charvaka, the goal of human life is to achieve the maximum amount of pleasure in this life and to avoid as much pain as possible. Good life is the most enjoyable life. Good action is one that leads to a balance of pleasure, and bad action is one that causes more pain than pleasure. Today, consumerism is pervasive, the real spirit for any developing economy is to develop consumerism-driven products and marketing practices, and it is inevitable that the interests of consumers in general will be safeguarded. Consumerism believes that personal well-being and happiness depends to a very large extent on the level of personal consumption, in particular on the purchase of material goods. The idea is not simply that well-being depends on a standard of living above a certain threshold, but that consumption and material possessions are at the center of happiness. It is an attempt of this paper to see the relationship between these philosophies and to try to find common characteristics that lead man to live a happy and satisfying life. (shrink)

In this paper, I raise some doubts about Nicole Hassoun's account of the obligations of states, pharmaceutical firms, and consumers with regard to global health, presented in Global Health Impact. I argue that it is not necessarily the case, as Hassoun claims, that if states are just, and therefore satisfy all of their obligations, then consumers will not have strong moral reasons, and perhaps obligations, to make consumption choices that are informed by principles and requirements of justice. This is because (...) there may be justice-based limits on what states can permissibly and feasibly do both to promote access to existing drugs for all of those who need them, and to promote research and development for new drugs that could treat diseases that primarily affect the global poor. One important upshot of my argument is that there can be reasons for organizations like the Global Health Impact Organization to exist, and to do the kind of work that Hassoun argues is potentially valuable in our deeply unjust world, even in much less unjust worlds in which states and firms largely, or even entirely, comply with their obligations. (shrink)

ArgumentThe history of ballooning has received considerable attention from historians examining the technological innovations behind it as well as from scholars interested in aeronautical anecdotes concerning launches and disasters. The cultural importance of this new machine, however, remains less fully analyzed. This essay explores one facet of that history through a discussion of the commodification of launches in France and Great Britain. These two countries, which have larger middling classes as well as a higher degree of commercialization in general, provided (...) a fertile environment for aeronauts seeking to instruct and entertain an audience willing to fund ballooning. Balloonists had to invent ways to market this scientific discovery and determine how best to attract paying customers. The audience was entertained while simultaneously empowered to act as witnesses to what balloonists presented as a scientific experiment. (shrink)

The definition of consumerism is multifaceted, extending from the consumption of goods and services to its more negative connotations: the obsessive consumption of goods, exploitation of the people who create them and greed. In a society heavily influenced by consumerism, we find ourselves manipulated by social media and targeted advertising to buy goods or to cultivate a certain lifestyle, raising important ethical questions about responsibility and our autonomy to make decisions. How has the nature of how we create (...) and consume goods evolved and how is this linked to moral responsibility and autonomy? Can it also be argued that there is aesthetic appreciation to be gained from some of the items that we create and consume? (shrink)

The trajectory from Rousseau through romanticism to twentieth-century efforts to preserve natural settings for their aesthetic values is a familiar one. What may be less familiar and more fruitful to explore at the present time is Rousseau’s stoic recognition of the need for limitation and balance in the ways that human beings interact with their surroundings. Rousseau’s discussion of the dynamics of natural need, artificial desires, and human powers or faculties appears in its most elaborated form in Emile, within the (...) context of the pedagogue’s role in fostering authentic happiness. Given our present preoccupation with competition, consumerism, and growth, Rousseau’s ethic of self-limitation and retrenchment is unlikely to be embraced by policy makers any time soon, but his alternative vision nevertheless merits contemporary recognition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 23-42 [Access article in PDF] Overcoming the Grip of Consumerism Stephanie KazaUniversity of VermontFor fifteen years the Worldwatch Institute of Washington, D. C. has been publishing a review of the declining condition of the global environment (Brown et al. 1998). For the most part, the picture is not good. Much of the deterioration can be traced directly to human activities--urban expansion equates to species (...) loss, industrial manufacturing to air pollution, factory farming to water pollution, chemical agriculture to poisoned soil. Accelerating these environmental impacts are rapidly rising population numbers, increasingly efficient technologies, and consumption rates beyond the planet's capacity. These three have been linked by the equation I=PAT, or environmental impact=population size multiplied by affluence (or degree of consumption) multiplied by technology. Reduce any one of these and the impact drops; increase one or all three, and the impact rises, in some cases dramatically.Much of the conversation among scientists and technologists has focused on the P (population) and T (technology) parts of the equation, with grave concerns that rising population numbers are swamping earth systems, yet often with buoyant optimism that technological breakthroughs will solve everything. These two perspectives dominated political discussion for much of the 1960s and 1970s (Ehrlich et al. 1977 and Lovins 1977, among others). But by the 1980s the facts were incontrovertible: high rates of consumption were driving environmental destruction just as fast if not faster than rising population. At the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil, representatives of southern countries demanded that high-consuming northern countries examine their own contribution to the environmental crisis rather than placing blame elsewhere. It is our obligation in the North to respond to these serious requests.How much do people in northern industrialized countries consume? Here are some indicator figures: Americans consume their average body weight (120 pounds) every day in materials extracted and processed from farms, mines, range lands, and forests (Ryan and Durning 1997, 5). In the United States, the number of shopping malls (close to 35,000) eclipsed the number of high schools in 1987 (Dunning 1992, 130). Since 1950 the per capita consumption of energy, meat, and lumber has doubled, use of plastic has increased five times, use of aluminum seven times, and average airplane miles per person has soared 33-fold (Durning 1992, 29). As products have proliferated, we see the swelling ecological footprint behind each new thing: clear-cut forests replacing paper plantations in Thailand, toxic oil polluting native lands of Ecuador, women earning poverty wages assembling computer chips in [End Page 23] Malaysia--the stories are not as pretty as the products. Materials extraction, production, distribution, use, and waste disposal--all of these have ecological costs, many of which are life threatening.Why should Buddhists and Christians address consumption? For starters, it is a nonsectarian issue; responsibility cuts across denominations and religious belief systems. Collaboration of all kinds is needed to take apart this juggernaut of complex causes and conditions. I believe the Buddhist tradition has powerful analytical tools and spiritual practices which may be helpful in this undertaking. These may aid or inspire similar efforts explored through the Christian heritage. A survey of the landscape and the literature shows it is shockingly clear: the challenge here is enormous. It will require all the spiritual insight, dedication, and sheer stamina we can bring to it. This work cannot be done alone; we need each other's help to keep going through the many obstacles.To date, Buddhist initiatives in this conversation have been modest. Several popular books have brought Buddhist perspectives to bear on consumption issues, most notably E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful (1975) and Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild (1990). Both works popularize practices of simplicity and restraint, flavored by the exotic Western fascination with Eastern thought. Several Buddhist teachers in the U.S. have taken up particular sub-themes addressing over-consumption. Philip Kapleau has sounded an ethical call for vegetarianism based on the first precept, "no killing" (1982). Robert Aitken has taken a stand for reducing wants and needs to simplify... (shrink)

This paper discusses the dynamic interplay in the post-revolution era between external phenomena in organizations’ wider socio-cultural environment includingmaterialism, consumerism and ethics along with organizational practices (i.e. corporate social responsibility and cause-related marketing).

It is widely believed that just societies would be characterized by some combination of democratic political institutions and market-based economic institutions. Underlying the commitment to the combination of democracy and markets is the view that certain normatively significant outcomes in a society ought to be determined by democratic processes, while others ought to be determined by market processes. On this view, we have reason to object when market processes are employed in ways that circumvent democratic processes and affect outcomes that (...) ought to be determined democratically. In this paper, I argue that Waheed Hussain’s recent account of the conditions that must be met in order for the use of market power in pursuit of social change to avoid conflict with democratic values is objectionably narrow, and offer an alternative account that avoids the problems that undermine his account without abandoning the requirement that democratic values be properly respected. The central feature of my account that makes this possible is a broader conception of democratic processes that includes public deliberation and debate aimed at shaping informal social norms and practices. (shrink)

Individualism leading to more consumerism seems to be a bit of truism nowadays in the media. The USA is particularly indicted for being too individualistic and consumerist. Past research has mostly indicated a positive relationship between the two. However, past research has not suggested a negative association between individualism and consumerism. This paper offers support for such a negative relationship by showing that an individual’s ethical values can temper the consumerist nature of individualists. Data were collected in the (...) USA and Taiwan. Structural equation models demonstrate that our hypothesized model fits our data well. A key result over the global sample is the stability of the linear path from individualism to work ethic to consumer ethic to consumerism. The two-nation comparison also supports differences in how Taiwanese and Americans differ in their belief that consumption benefits society. (shrink)

Communitarians have argued that liberalism somehow causes or leads to a consumer society. Moreover, they have argued that consumer society is somehow morally suspect. Given the connection between liberalism and consumerism, they have argued that the moral problems they have found in consumer society give reason to oppose liberalism. In this paper, after defining “consumerism” and “liberalism,” I examine the various communitarian arguments against consumerism, and the various arguments that seek to connect liberalism to consumerism. I (...) argue that only one of these arguments has any hope of establishing this connection. (shrink)

Environmental racism concerns the ways in which environmental protections are unfairly distributed along racial lines. One outcome of environmental racism is that environmental degradation does not harm us all equally, with oppressed racial groups facing greater burdens. Consequently, members of privileged groups can more comfortably engage in environmentally destructive consumerism because they will neither initially nor primarily face the worst impact from environmental destruction. I will argue that the ability to feel comfortable while engaging in environmentally destructive consumerism (...) is a form of racism, and that this racism strengthens the blameworthiness of such privileged consumerism. (shrink)

Modern Myths and Medical Consumerism is concerned with the loss of a sense of limit in technological medicine today, and the way in which the denial of death leads to an uncontrollable, consumeristic multiplication of needs. Taking its starting point from C. G. Jung¿s analytical psychology, the book gives a symbolic interpretation based on archetypal, philosophical and socio-psychoanalytic ideas developed through the author¿s personal experience, moving from the medical to the psychoanalytical paradigm. Lanfranchi depicts ideal sources of medicine, based (...) on archetypal material drawn from Greek myth, and discusses the progressive steps of the doctor¿s consciousness¿ evolution up to contemporary times. Critiquing current medicine and its ¿modern myths¿, the book suggests the prevailing model of economic development is unsustainable, and provides prospects of a more contained ecological medicine and an ethical approach that will allow readers to reflect and move towards a more qualified attitude to mortality. The book meets the need to transform medicine into a critical domain of human experience, capable of providing essential services consistent with the naturalness of death and environmental sustainability. As such, it will be vital reading to academics in the fields of psychotherapy, analytical psychology, psychiatry and medicine, and those with a philosophical or sociological background. (shrink)

In this paper, I advance Odera Oruka's insights on the ethics of consumerism in order to draw relevant implications of his thoughts on rethinking the problem of obesity. I argue that Oruka's ethics of consumerism and his right to human minimum theory entail some salient ideas that might serve as a better ethical model for reducing the global obesity prevalence. Though Oruka's African moral philosophy is yet to receive universal attention it arguably deserves, the interests of the international (...) and ‘globesity’ community would be better served learning from the contributions of an African moral theory to contemporary bioethical discourse on obesity. Oruka's moral thoughts are by constitution, a deontological and cosmopolitan call for reducing hunger in globalized world, while also indirectly, addressing obesity of the poor. I show the limitations of his ethics of consumerism, and the shortcomings of such ethics in the context of obesity of the poor. Consequently, I develop a neo-Orukan virtue based ethics that is worthy of attention in efforts towards addressing the obesity tide. No such perspective currently exists in the context of obesity; yet the exigent need for one is necessitated by the defects of the libertarian and harm principle approaches in Western bioethical discourse. (shrink)

This article focuses on the ethical quandary of Zygmunt Bauman’s interpretation of modernity as a double logic that heralds both emancipation and domination. After outlining his liberation sociology and the liquid moral ontologies he discerns, it argues Bauman’s solution to the consumption of ethics by consumerism demands too much, too late. Firstly, Bauman misappropriates Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction. The actual outcome is the dissipation of the Levinasian centrifugal self, whom Bauman wants to uphold as a cure for (...) the Nietzschean centripetal self. Secondly, as Daniel Miller shows, totalizing critiques of consumerism – such as Bauman’s – blind us to forms of moral self-constitution within consumption. And, thirdly, Bauman’s concept of the autonomous agent overlooks the power relations that are inherent to the constitution of subjectivity. Notwithstanding, Bauman highlights the need to articulate an ethics of freedom, and the article concludes with Foucault’s aesthetics of existence to meet this challenge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 31-46 [Access article in PDF] Remedying Globalization and Consumerism: Joining the Inner and Outer Journeys in "Perfect Balance" Judith Simmer-Brown Naropa University One hundred forty years ago, Abraham Lincoln wrote in a prophetic voice: I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.... Corporations have been enthroned and an era (...) of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. 1As the global economy has grown and the economic gap between the poor nations and the rich nations has become enormous, we are realizing Lincoln's nightmare.Globalization has effects more devastating than Lincoln could have imagined. What do we mean by globalization? The president of Nabisco once defined it as "a world of homogeneous consumption." 2 It is a world in which everyone, no matter what latitude or longitude, eats the same food, wears the same clothing, and derives pleasure from the same entertainment. It is the world of McDonald's, Holiday Inn, James Bond movies, Nike shoes, and Coca-Cola. Noam Chomsky, in a lecture at Boston College, described globalization as the "new face of capitalism." 3 It is a network of power centered in corporate interests and financial institutions that controls the flow of capital in order to promote the financial interests of those in power to the detriment of all others. The strategies of globalization have to do with centralizing all power in financial interest, reducing all value to money, and subsuming governments to the interests of the corporations. According to Chomsky, the strategies employed by the transnational network are designed to consolidate this control:Buy the executive branch of the states involved;Own the legislative branch through lobbyists, campaign contributions, and term extensions, or whatever else may work; [End Page 31]Set the conditions in which policy is determined, asserting the power of global capital;Control the doctrine and information systems, especially to invent new needs in order to bolster a culture of fashionable consumption. 4The players in this transnational network reside in the wealthy countries of the world, especially the governments of the G8, and most especially the United States. The global dominance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization is funded by U.S. dollars funneled to them by the network. Yet this capital is not really exchange of cash; instead, it is speculation. Chomsky commented: In the last twenty-five years, there has been a huge explosion of financial institutions and financial capital, most of it speculative, with little actual capital in the economy. The flow of capital is $1.5 trillion per day, very little of it productive. Ninety-five percent of it is destructive and speculative. The return time on investments is very rapid; eighty percent has a return time of a week, and often it is less than a day. This daily flow of capital in international markets is twice the total foreign exchange of all states together. This concentrated power is interlinked, determining states' decisions. 5States are no longer autonomous agents; transnational economic interests have taken precedence over national sovereignty, regional power, and military concerns.The impact on developing countries and rural economies is devastating. The global monoculture is eradicating cultural diversity, replacing locally adapted forms of production with industrial systems divorced from natural cycles. Agriculture has become centrally managed and chemically dependent, delivering a narrower range of transportable foods to the international market. This, of course, robs the vitality of local communities and moves a greater proportion of villagers into urban life, creating megalopolises. Because everyone becomes dependent upon the same resources, "globalization creates efficiency for corporations, but it also creates artificial scarcity for consumers, thus heightening competitive pressures.... Globalization means the undermining of the livelihoods and cultural identities of the majority of the world's peoples." 6... (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This article analyzes the contribution Christian ethics might be able to make to the ethical debate on policy and caregiving in health and social care in the United Kingdom. The article deals particularly with the concepts of solidarity and subsidiarity which are essential in Christian social ethics and health care ethics, and which may be relevant for the ethical debate on health and social caregiving in the United Kingdom. An important argument in the article is that utilitarian and market-driven policies (...) in the National Health Service (NHS) and the social care system have marginalized the position of the elderly and have seriously impoverished the quality of care for the elderly. The neglect of the elderly and other vulnerable groups is also the result of widespread consumerist attitudes among patients and of libertarian models of noninterference which are affirmed by a public ethos of self-sufficiency and counter-dependency. Those who need care dare not make their need known to others and ask for help, while simultaneously those who could help are so intimidated by the public affirmation of privacy and negative rights that they do not dare to offer help except if this is explicitly demanded. This distant and standoffish attitude is in an important way responsible for the fact that the voice of those in need is altogether lost to the public forum. Christian ethics puts much emphasis on responsibility and solidarity with the needy other but is not able to have much impact on the delivery of care in a secularized society and health care system like the NHS. Nonetheless, Christianity still has a powerful and respected voice, by speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves, such as the elderly and the handicapped. Christians can find allies in the ethics of care and other relational approaches in health care ethics in order to combat libertarianism, consumerism, and utilitarianism. (shrink)