Best citizens & consumers Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“We had learned how to invent things, and the question of why we invent things receded in importance. The idea that if something could be done it should be done was born in the nineteenth century. And along with it, there developed a profound belief in all the principles through which invention succeeds: objectivity, efficiency, expertise, standardization, measurement, and progress. It also came to be believed that the engine of technological progress worked most efficiently when people are conceived of not as children of God or even as citizens but as consumers-that is to say, as markets.”

Source: Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

“Many companies are disappointing the citizens of this world by manipulating labor rates, putting horse meat instead of beef out there, or thinking it's totally acceptable to make a T-shirt from a collapsing factory. Increasingly, people don't want to work for these companies, and consumers don't want to buy from them.”

People Thinking World Want Company This World Citizens Labor Horse Rate Consumers Meat Shirts Factories Acceptable T Shirt Disappointing Beef

Author:Paul Polman

“I don't think our fiduciary duty is to put shareholders first. I say the opposite. What we firmly believe is that if we focus our company on improving the lives of the world's citizens and come up with genuine sustainable solutions, we are more in synch with consumers and society and ultimately this will result in good shareholder returns.”

Ifs Thinking World Firsts Believe Results Company Focus Duty Return Citizens Solutions Opposites Come Up Genuine Consumers Improving Shareholders Fiduciary

Author:Paul Polman

“Tax reduction has an almost irresistible appeal to the politician, and it is no doubt also gratifying to the citizen. It means more dollars in his pocket, dollars that he can spend if inflation doesn't consume them first. But dollars in his pocket won't buy him clean streets or an adequate police force or good schools or clean air and water. Handing money back to the private sector in tax cuts and starving the public sector is a formula for producing richer and richer consumers in filthier and filthier communities. If we stick to that formula we shall end up in affluent misery.”

Source: The Recovery of Confidence

“We must recognize that the goal of a cleaner environment will not be achieved by rhetoric or moral dedication alone. It will not be cheap or easy and the costs will have to be borne by each citizen, consumer and taxpayer. How clean is clean enough can only be answered in terms of how much we are willing to pay and how soon we seek success... It is simplistic to seek ecological perfection at the cost of bankrupting the very tax-paying enterprises which must pay for the social advances we seek.”

“To the extent that we consume, in our present circumstances, we are guilty. To the extent that we guilty consumers are conservationists, we are absurd. But what can we do? Must we go on writing letters to politicians and donating to conservation organizations until the majority of our fellow citizens agree with us? Or can we do something directly to solve our share of the problem? I am a conservationist. I believe wholeheartedly in putting pressure on the politicians and in maintaining the conservation organizations.”

“We're not citizens anymore. We're consumers. That's what we're called. It's just like being an alcoholic and being in denial that you're an alcoholic. We're in denial that each and every one of us is the problem. And until we face up to that, nothing's going to happen.”

Problem Happens Faces Citizens Consumers Denial Alcoholics

Author:Yvon Chouinard

“Being forcefully rattled out of our consumer mentality - our addiction to comfort and convenience can create an opportunity for us [people] to reconnect with what we really value and with the qualities of life that really can sustain us - which include reconnecting with our roles as citizens, community members, and human beings.”

People Humans Values Opportunity Community Human Beings Quality Roles Citizens Comfort Members Addiction Consumers Mentality Convenience Quality Of Life Reconnecting

Author:Tim DeChristopher

“There is no alternative. A Democrat is a Republican is a big businessman, and we're all consumers instead of citizens. It just manifests in the culture, in the music, in the art. I feel a little panicky about it.”

Feels Littles Art Bigs Culture Citizens Republican Democrat Alternatives Consumers Businessman Big Business

Author:Ani DiFranco

“Liberalism, the dominant ideology of our time, has been dangerously distorted by the impact of economism. It is that impact which has knocked the citizen off his pedestal and replaced him with the consumer.”

Has Beens Citizens Impact Ideology Consumers Our Time Liberalism Replaced Dominant Pedestal

Author:Larry Siedentop

“Giving people what they want reduces us to consumers instead of treating us like citizens, consumers who are on the prowl for the predictable and comfortable. What we want winds up being suspiciously like what we've already got, more of the same-the cultural equivalent of a warm bath.”

People Want Giving Wind Citizens Comfortable Warm Consumers Baths Predictable

Book:The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age

Source: The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age

“We have been very effectively pacified by the pernicious ideology of a consumer society that is centered on the cult of the self - an undiluted hedonism and narcissism. That has become a very effective way to divert our attention while the country is reconfigured into a kind of neofeudalism, with a rapacious oligarchic elite and an anemic government that no longer is able to intercede on behalf of citizens but cravenly serves the interests of the oligarchy itself.”

Way Kind Has Beens Self Country Government Able Interest Attention Citizens Ideology Consumers Elites Narcissism Cult Behalf Pernicious Oligarchy Hedonism

Author:Chris Hedges

“The press is supposed to equip people to act as citizens and not just consumers of programming that happens to be news.”

People Happens Citizens News Presses Consumers Programming

Author:David Folkenflik

“I think Americans have become a - much more a nation of consumers than citizens.”

Thinking Nations Citizens Consumers

Author:Norman Lear

“All of us as citizens have to be consumers and judges.”

Judging Citizens Consumers

Author:Susan Rice

“I abhor the word "consumer." Consumers, unlike citizens, have no implicit duties, obligations, or responsibilities to the common good. It's a degrading term. The use of it degrades the public discussion.”

Use Term Common Responsibility Duty Citizens Obligation Consumers Discussion Common Good Degrade Degrading Implicit

Author:James Howard Kunstler

“The same historical development that turned the citizen into a client transformed the worker from a producer into a consumer.”

Development Citizens Historical Workers Producers Consumers Transformed Clients

Book:The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

Source: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

“Corporations, consumers, and citizens must begin acting in concert to create a powerful third pillar of social transformation if we hope to meet the social challenges we currently face with equal force. This begins with corporations that choose to alter how they practice capitalism in two ways to serve the greater good.”

“Americans used to be 'citizens.' Now we are 'consumers.”

Used Citizens Used To Be Consumers

Author:Vicki Robin

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Citizens Quotes