Benjamin Barber 9/07 Interview

An interview with Benjamin Barber author of Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. Consumed offers a portrait of how adult consumers are infantilized in a global economy that overproduces goods and targets children as consumers in a market where there are never enough shoppers. Driven by a frantic imperative to sell, consumer capitalism specializes today in the manufacture not of goods but of needs. Barber discusses “The McDonald’s Experiment” and how it relates to the upcoming presidential campaign. Barber is the Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, and Director, CivWorld. Recorded September 4, 2007