Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole

Barber, for one, is put off by much of what global capitalism has wrought. global inequality has left the planet with two kinds of potential customers: the poor of the undeveloped world, with vast and unserved needs but not the means to fulfill them, and the first-world rich, who have scads of disposable income but few real needs. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, when publishers scrambled to provide explanations for the attacks, Barber's 1995 book, "Jihad vs. McWorld," an examination of the tensions between consumer capitalism and religious fundamentalism, was dusted off, rushed back to press and propelled to best-sellerdom. But if "Jihad" provided an answer to the ubiquitous post-9/11 question "Why do they hate us?," the question behind "Consumed" seems to be "Who wouldn't?"