Friday, October 17, 2008

Consumer or Citizen?

In the perfect Capitalist world, Consumers make the decisions that matter to society. In the perfect Democratic world, Citizens make the decisions that matter to society. We are competing today as to which is the best way to make changes that will better our society. We are told that the Consumer's choice regulates the market and that we can pressure the big business to comply with our wishes. When Democracy was being introduced, we were taught that being a proper Citizen would enable the noblest of endeavors to be accomplished. Lets look at each to see which is better suited.

Consumers are faced with advertising which are not factual and as a result we have the saying of buyer beware. This warning gives us an illusion of choice between product A and B, once we scrutinize both, we will choose the better product. Here is an example how we, as consumers are sometimes not even given the choice between product A and B. Imagine you are a corner store owner, you have a small refrigerator that can only fit one product and you have to choose between both.

Product A is real juice, costs 40 cents to make and sells it to the store for 60 cents and asks the store to sell it for 1 dollar.... (the store owner makes a profit of 40 cents for each bottle sold).

Product B is flavored water that tastes like juice, costs 10 cents to make and sells it to the store for 30 cents and asks the store to sell it for 80 cents... (the store owner makes a profit of 50 cents for each bottle sold).

Now as a store owner, which bottle will you carry? You make more profit on the cheaper priced bottle, your competitor across the street will obviously carry the cheaper priced item and be able to afford snazzier advertising to attract the customer over to his store.... so you as a store owner will carry product B. Where is the Consumer's choice? All the corner stores in the neighborhood will carry the cheaper item and only the slightly bigger store may carry the alternate product.... Don't believe this example is credible? Why are dollar stores so successful then? The Consumer is thinking of his pocket book in the here and now, not in some unknowable future, so even if he buys a cheaper product that ruins his health or invests in the economy of another country at the expense of his own.... it doesn't matter, he has been making his decision as a Consumer.

The Citizen, as a contrast, must be educated and scrutinize decisions made or arguments that help to make decisions. To make Democracy work, the Citizen must not be lazy or exhausted. Our current consumer-oriented society offers the choice between easy spectacle (Hollywood Blockbuster with plenty of explosions) or out of the way film (Shakespearean type of literature). So the choice is between the "lets-allow-ourselves-to-take-a-ride-and-not-think" and the "this-literature-makes-me-think-about-issues-and-has-moved-me-deeply". The lazy in society will always choose the spectacle over the film, this makes for a lazy mind and makes propaganda that much more effective against the supposed responsible Citizen. The non-lazy Citizen will choose to see both, as someone who has a diet of meat and vegetables with the occasional sweet chocolate cake, of course this desire means more efforts must be made because the consumer society promotes the cheaper product as mentioned in the previous paragraph.

The exhausted Citizen is the one who is not given proper time to scrutinize the news, to engage in literature, to think. He comes home at night after working non-stop at some job (and trust me his own boss did not work as hard and was engaged in conversations with other bosses in society and within his own corporation to have a better view of the society in direct contrast to the worker who was not allowed to talk to anyone but to focus on the job in front of him). This individual which many call the working poor (because the salary doesn't place him above the poverty line) is too exhausted to scrutinize the news, to read literature, to think.... he can only recuperate with the spectacle, to take his mind off of his job temporarily.

Imagine how Democracy would be different if the Citizen was allowed to manifest himself. For approximately 8 hours in a day, this Citizen is not allowed to be a Citizen, he must follow orders and can not practice his duties as a proper Citizen. His immediate supervisor may also be exhausted but the decision makers of the corporation definitely take the time to concern themselves with what the society is doing. When the worker gets home exhausted, he spends whatever time he has to recuperate, to do chores around the house, to hear a very basic generality of what has happened in the world and then he sleeps to repeat the same pattern the next day. This Citizen is told that he is participating in Democracy because he takes some time off his recuperation time to go vote.... but year after year his immediate condition has not improved..... AND THE EXPERTS WONDER WHY THERE IS SUCH APATHY?

The solution offered to this exhausted Citizen is to become a Consumer, and we know where that will lead us.

We can afford to double our salary, cut the cost of living by half, reduce our daily work hours, reduce our weekly work days and increase our weekly vacation times in a year. The technology is there, the money is very well hidden but there. The political will is not there and the current rich won't abide or tolerate such a redistribution of wealth (even at the expense of their descendants as our society stagnates more and more each generation). I think that our Democracy can work if and only if we allow our Citizens the tools to make it work, even if we should have less luxury trinkets as the result.

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