Benjamin Barber
"The Decline of Capitalism and the Infantilist Ethos"

Thursday September 21st 4:30 pm
McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University Center

Sponsored by the The Humanities Center, and the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Philosophy

Abstract:

"On the way to selling the surfeit of goods necessarily produced by the modern marketplace, capitalism has had to engage in the manufacture not of commodities but of needs. To sell all it has to sell in a world where the "haves" are without significant needs and the "have-nots" are without the wherewithal to be players in the global marketplace, capitalism has helped invent and nurture an "infantilist ethos" which dumbs down adults into impetuous consumers and empowers children as consumerist decision-makers. Consumerism of this type runs the risk of substituting consumers for citizens.

Understanding this requires that we see a crucial distinction between citizens (public, deliberative judgment in common) and consumers (private expression of personal desires). We moderns are torn between these two species of being, these two forms of judgment or deliberation."

Profile:

Benjamin R. Barber is the Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and Director of CivWorld: Citizens Campaign for Democracy. An internationally renowned political theorist, Dr. Barber brings an abiding concern for democracy and citizenship to issues of politics, culture and education in America and abroad.

Benjamin Barber's 17 books include the classic Strong Democracy (1984) reissued in 2004 in a twentieth anniversary edition; Jihad Vs. Mcworld (1995 with a Post 9/11 Edition in 2001) and Fear's Empire: War, Terrorism And Democracy (2003). He latest work is Consumed: The Fate Of Citizens Under Capitalism Triumphant (to be published next year). Barber's honors include a knighthood (Palmes Academiques/Chevalier) from the French Government (2001), the Berlin Prize of the American Academy of Berlin (2001) and the John Dewey Award (2003). He has also been awarded Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Social Science Research Fellowships, and has held the chair of American Civilization at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris in 1991-92. He writes frequently for Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, Le Nouvel Observateur, Die Zeit, La Repubblica, El Pais and many other scholarly and popular publications in America and Europe. He was a founding editor and for ten years editor-in-chief of the distinguished international quarterly Political Theory. Dr. Barber holds a certificate from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an M.A. and Doctorate from Harvard University.