A powerful sequel to Benjamin R. Barber's best-selling Jihad vs. McWorld, Consumed offers a vivid portrait of
an overproducing global economy that targets children as consumers in a market where there are never enough shoppers
and where the primary goal is no longer to manufacture goods but needs. To explain how and why this has come about,
Barber brings together extensive empirical research with an original theoretical framework for understanding our
contemporary predicament. He asserts that in place of the Protestant ethic once associated with capitalism�encouraging
self-restraint, preparing for the future, protecting and self-sacrificing for children and community, and other
characteristics of adulthood�we are constantly being seduced into an "infantilist" ethic of consumption.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments The Birth of Consumers
Capitalism Triumphant and the Infantilist Ethos
From Protestantism to Puerility
The Eclipse of Citizens
Infantilizing Consumers: The Coming of Kidults
Privatizing Citizens: The Making of Civic Schizophrenia
Branding Identities: The Loss of Meaning
Totalizing Society: The End of Diversity
The Fate of Citizens
Resisting Consumerism: Can Capitalism Cure Itself?
Overcoming Civic Schizophrenia: Restoring Citizenship in a World of Interdependence
