A few weeks ago, standing in a mall before news cameras encouraging Americans to shop, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said'and I quote almost verbatim from CNN footage'\Someone told me they thought it's their patriotic duty to shop. I certainly think it is our patriotic duty to get back to our lives.""
As we approach Christmas, this notion that shopping is patriotic'perhaps never more urgently stated than since the Sept. 11 attacks'signals the triumph of capitalism in America and the corresponding failure of democracy.
Giuliani's pronouncement suggests that the very political stability of our nation now depends more on citizens' inclination to spend than to vote. This, however troubling, is more understandable given the gradual but profound shift in America over the last century, and especially since World War II, away from democracy and deep into consumer capitalism. This sea change has manifested itself substantially through the move of countless Americans away from participation in enduring civic and political associations, as political scientist Robert Putnam amply documents in his major study, ""Bowling Alone,"" and into what sociologist George Ritzer calls capitalism's ""cathedrals of consumption."" These include fast-food outlets, malls, casinos, cruise lines and theme parks, all of which are now familiar, but none of which existed in any significant form a century ago.
Given this change, it appeared less suspect when President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress Sept. 20, asserting that the terrorists were attacking our First Amendment freedoms of religion, speech and assembly, and later in the same speech that Americans should therefore cooperate with the FBI and show ""continued participation and confidence in the American economy."" But if our First Amendment freedoms are indeed under attack, why are we not urged to exercise them with renewed fervor? Why instead are we urged more than anything to shut up, comply and shop?
Perhaps the terrorists were not attacking our democratic freedoms, as Bush claims, but rather something else. But then what? Well, we do know the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The former is one of the most widely recognized symbols of global capitalism. The latter is one of the most widely recognized symbols of American military power. And it appears that if the terrorists had fully had their way, they would have crashed the fourth commercial jet they hijacked into the White House, one of the most widely recognized symbols of American political power.
Note that they did not fly a plane into Philadelphia's Independence Hall (where original prints of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence are stored), major town halls or the headquarters of prominent civic or political associations. The uncomfortable truth is that the planes and anthrax have not targeted these actual and symbolic centers of American democracy, but rather the centers of American power and coercion: the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, major news media firms and financial corporations.
The triumph of consumer capitalism and failure of democracy is evident not just in the fact that our political leaders urge us to shop rather than exercise our political freedoms. It is also evident in the way the vast majority of Americans assume that attacks on centers of capitalism and militarism constitute attacks on America. And it is most painfully evident in the ways we as Americans have become too preoccupied with consumerism to notice how our government's deeds abroad sow the seeds of terrorism at home.
