Citizenship - "From Self to Selfish"
By the 1990s the revolution to the “self” was almost completed, perhaps best symbolized by Edward Bernays’s television appearance on the David Lettermen show celebrating his 100th birthday and his role as the master of modern advertising. It was readily accepted that the acquisition of goods was the best route to modern emancipation. Reading the desires of consumers had become a major industry.For Britain, the U.S. and Canada, years of growing public debt and deficits threatened to cut into the economic advantages gleaned from this new materialistic age. Thatcher, Reagan and Mulroney, though winning significant majority governments, had left their respective cupboards bare, despite important accomplishments in other areas. Canada’s reputation as a nation in financial peril caused growing concern in the corporate community.Following years in the right-wing’s shadow, a new kind of progressive centrism believed that the time was right to propose a new delicate balance that would mix financial prudence with social responsibility - at least that’s what it was in theory. Bill Clinton, Jean Chretien and Tony Blair rode this new “Third Way” to power. Ironically, they also assisted in implementing the era of pervasive corporate culture. For Democrats, Liberals and Labour, it was a heady time. It had appeared to all those of the New Left that the individualism ushered in during the previous conservative era likely couldn’t be undone. To gain power, Clinton, Chretien and Blair introduced a new compact that in many ways was an illusion. With little room to maneuver between heavy deficits and social advancement, they nevertheless said it could be done. Their respective citizen populations bought into it because the New Left carried over the very conservative practice that had partially contributed to the deficits in the first place – the promise of extensive tax cuts. Where the funds would come from for social progress was never quite explained.It eventually resulted in a zero-sum game. Deficits were cut significantly by the infuriating practice of downloading costs to more junior levels of government. For the corporate community, the introduction of free trade legislation and the emerging market from the “.com” boom brought in significant revenue. The respective economies enlarged, to the delight of the consumer, the corporations and governments, but the deep social deficits resulting from downloading and lowering taxes were largely glossed over. Suddenly public spending was cut (with assistance from certain provinces) and voters were merely behaving like consumers. Politics had moved to the cravings of society rather than vice versa, neglecting to show the resolute leadership required to preserve the social compacts of the past.To be fair, there were dedicated attempts for some social action – Clinton on healthcare, Paul Martin on aboriginal equality, Blair on poverty reduction – but it either wasn’t enough or simply ran out of time.Politicians chasing consumers became the key to power, especially among swing voters who didn’t follow any particular political ideology. Consumers wanted it all without the commensurate responsibility of looking out for society. Bite-sized miniature initiatives were the name of the game and led to huge political successes. In the pursuit of power, parties abandoned the shaping of society into an empowered progressive force. Everything appeared to become economics and materialism. Politics was pandering to people just like corporations were. Citizenship was crippled while watching consumers become the new powerhouse.Or were they? The answers to poverty, climate change, unemployment, hunger and healthcare were eventually out of reach, leaving a citizenry satiated with stuff but little substance. There appeared to be no countervailing pressure as the political centre became overcrowded with pandering and tax breaks. Successors to the Third Way era - Bush, Harper, Cameron, even Obama - have carried on similar practices, offering spiced-up small incentives in place of those policies that could confront our greatest challenges.Edward Bernays had triumphed, though it had taken seven decades. His statement in 1937 that eventually consumers would become the true essence of society had come to pass, and we all took the journey. Yet we have entered a world where we are no longer free. We are held captive by private and public debt in significant proportions. The electorate is so mercurial in its voting patterns than it’s difficult to use political power to make the long-term decisions required to face this next challenging era. We are alienated from one another and thus don’t know how to muster the collective will to make important decisions.This is where the terrific BBC documentary The Century of the Self ends, but it’s where we must begin. Perhaps it is too late for our current era, but citizens must find those ways of coming together to tackle prevailing politics and develop more bottom-up solutions. The problem is that we like it where we are, as we just turn away from politics and public responsibility and continue spending. The time has come to tackle ourselves before we can summon the will to take on our greatest challenges.