Dear Commons Community,
Joel Balkan, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, and the author of a new book Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children, has piece today in the op-ed section of the New York Times. He summarizes the main theme of his book that the United States has moved from a society that sought to protect children in the 19th and early 20th centuries to a society that has allowed corporations to exploit children in the latter part of the 20th century and the present. A review of his book by Benjamin R. Barber, author of Consumed: How Markets Infantilize Adults, Corrupt Children and Swallow Citizens Whole, summarizes Balkan’s position well.
“Our new century of unlimited private profits has put an end to the era of publicly protected childhood. Separated by corporate design from their parents, kids have become capitalism’s newest and most lucrative (and most vulnerable) consumers. In his Childhood Under Siege, Joel Bakan offers an angry but careful analysis of how the market flourishes today by selling our children everything from dangerous drugs, toxic plastics and unhealthy snack foods to violent and addictive video games and for-profit standardized tests. The villains here are not playground stalkers but supposedly “child-friendly” companies like Nickelodeon, Facebook, Pfizer and Edison Schools, along with a trillion dollar children’s marketing machine and a “government is the problem” ideology that has made public regulation of the interests of children all but impossible. If they read Bakan carefully, once they get over their rage, both parents and policy makers may be ready to lift the corporate siege that is threatening not just our children but childhood itself”.
Young mothers and fathers should heed Balkan’s concerns!
Tony
