on capitalism needing infantilist consumerism (Barber):
Capitalism’s success, however, has meant that core wants in the developed world are now mostly met and that too many goods are chasing too few needs. Yet capitalism requires us to “need” all that it produces in order to survive. So it busies itself manufacturing needs for the wealthy while ignoring the wants of the truly needy. Global inequality means that while the wealthy have too few needs, the needy have too little wealth.
(...) In order to turn reluctant consumers with few unsatisfied core needs into permanent shoppers, producers must dumb down consumers, shape their wants, take over their life worlds, encourage impulse buying, cultivate shopoholism and invent new needs.
(...) Compare a traditional town square with a modern suburban mall. In the square, you’ll likely find a school, town hall, library, general store, park, movie house, church, art gallery and homes - a true neighborhood exhibiting our human diversity as beings who do more than simply consume. But our new town malls are all shopping, all the time.
(...) [revolutionary? depends on these 'institutions' to be democratized] To serve such needs, however, capitalism must once again learn to defer profits and empower the needy as customers. With microcredit, villagers can construct hand pumps and water filters from the clay under their feet. Pharmaceutical companies ought to be thinking about how to sell inexpensive retrovirals to Africans with HIV instead of pushing Botox to the “forever young” customers they are trying to manufacture here. And parents can refuse to relinquish their gatekeeping roles and let marketers know they won’t allow their kids to be targeted anymore. To do this, we will require the assistance of democratic institutions and an adult ethos. Public citizens must be restored to their proper place as masters of their private choices.