Empire of Good

In America, people are comfortable. It’s a work hard, play hard ethos that drives people in their pursuit of The Great American Dream. We are constantly bombarded with ads to buy, to improve ourselves: to evaluate our current situation, to aspire for more, to ask: is it enough? is it good enough? Do I want more? Do I need more? Consumerism gone wild? This is evil? This is good.

It is good that “Democracy and order in America today are supported by a sophisticated system of ideological and consumer values, rather than by threats and punishments.”

It is good to be a consumer-industrial economy as opposed to military-industrial. What is needed is more consumer-industrial economic development and less military-industrial, in America and in the world.

Consumer-driven mentality is not bounded by non-renewable natural precincts, not limited to fighting for one’s share of scarce resources, and not regulated by the zero-sum mentality of success. Militaries fight for possession of limited goods – land, resources. Companies fight by producing goods that are only limited to what the market will bear, what the market perceives it needs and wants.

What does American want? User-friendly. Ready to wear. Microwavable, frozen foods. 24/7 HyperMarts. And they are willing to work for convenient and readily available goods. They are willing to work hard, but smart. User-friendly, automated laborsensitive (no smoking in bars) work environments.

But is all this super-sized consumerism good? Necessary? In terms of rewarding the worker-force — yes. Perhaps it may even encourage moving away from a military-driven economy to a consumer- driven economy. In terms of giving meaning to life, it has little to do with it. Americans, as in any society, have varying degrees of political and social awareness. But there is hope. There is time to consider these issues: we no longer spend most of our waking hours concerned with primordial issues, we have a userfriendly world which allow us time to play and rest, and to think. America has enjoyed years of stability, fractured only occasionally by flying emissaries of evil (Pearl Harbor, World Trade Center). In both cases we responded in a traditional fashion: militarily, fight might with might. Whereas in the forties we were just, now America the Great is evil. Perhaps it is just war that is evil and the world, traveling on the same road towards a consumer-driven nirvana, no longer wants threats and punishments to dictate our life but ideological and consumer values to drive us to work for all the unlimited possibilities that our market – the world market – can bear.