Is Humanity Nature’s Customer?{consumer vs. citizen and values}

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/25-2



In September, the former party leader of the largest party in Sweden, the Social Democrats, made a proposition to the Swedish Parliament. He suggested that the concept of “customer” shouldn’t be applicable in tax-supported sectors, such as health care and education, in Sweden. He commented:

The change from citizen to customer is in my opinion the greatest political shift that has occurred over the past twenty years. … there is an existential difference between being a citizen in a society, and being reduced to a customer on a market. The customer has only one obligation – to pay. … Purchasing power is central. Citizens, however, have the same rights, regardless of how much they earn. The core of democracy is not in any way economical. On the contrary, it is based on values, not purchasing power. To regard citizens as customers creates further distance between the individual and society.
The core of democracy is based on values, and the shift from “citizen” to “customer” or consumer has, in itself, a large impact on our values. Consumer is what might be called a frame that unconsciously evokes certain values and references, and as cognitive linguist George Lakoff argues, frames we are repeatedly confronted with become our ‘common sense’ and difficult to reason beyond. The creeping dominance of particular frames – such as notion of “customer” – can shift the ideologies of entire populations.

The consumer frame is known to trigger values around wealth, achievement and social status. These so-called extrinsic values make us behave in a way not very beneficial in a society. When we think about ourselves as consumers rather than citizens, we tend to be more competitive and less trusting. Extrinsic values are also associated with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of prejudice and less environmental concern.

Studies show that economic frames thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy – when I am spoken to as an ego-centered, rational ”economic man”, I become more like him. Other values I also hold, for example community, unity with nature and justice for all, become less important to me. And it is only the latter, intrinsic values that are helpful if I am going to act for a sustainable and just world. As the parliamentary proposition suggests, research shows that people are increasingly labeled as consumers. Nowadays we are not just customers in the grocery store, but also at school and at the hospital.

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. Even truer today than when the shift started and the "fringe" started talking

about it. Even as recently as my grandparent's generation, they were "citizens". I doubt many U.S. citizens under 30 are even aware this happened.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Good article, but I'm having a hard time connecting your subject to the article.

In the United States, we've stopped being "citizens". We are now "taxpayers".

[2naSalit]

3. I certainly noticed

the shift from citizen to consumer. But I think that as a species we are parasitic more than anything else, especially at this point in time. We contribute nothing back to the bioshpere that is healthy for it.