[p2p-research] More Communitarians on the Crisis

[Ryan Lanham]

The following article was published in the most recent issue of *The New
Republic.**

* *Spent: America after consumerism*
 by Amitai Etzioni
*The New Republic*
**Wednesday, June 17, 2009

"Much of the debate over how to address the economic crisis has focused on a
single word: regulation. And it's easy to understand why. Bad behavior by a
variety of businesses landed us in this mess--so it seems rather obvious
that the way to avoid future economic meltdowns is to create, and vigorously
enforce, new rules proscribing such behavior. But the truth is quite a bit
more complicated...The upshot is that regulation cannot be the linchpin of
attempts to reform our economy…What needs to be eradicated, or at least
greatly tempered, is consumerism: the obsession with acquisition that has
become the organizing principle of American life…

“The link to the economic crisis should be obvious. A culture in which the
urge to consume dominates the psychology of citizens is a culture in which
people will do most anything to acquire the means to consume…But it is not
enough to establish that which people ought not to do... Consumerism will
not just magically disappear from its central place in our culture. It needs
to be supplanted by *something*…”

To read the full article, go
here.<http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=80661c9c-9c63-4c9e-a293-6888fc845351>



Ryan
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