[gruseom]

I don't think it's subliminal. The issue isn't the technical meaning of "consumer" but the fact that it has replaced "citizen" as the default for referring to human beings in our society. Humans walk, but one would never hear "What does this mean for walkers?" in a news item, unless of course it were a news item about traffic or something.

The implication of this usage of "consumer" is that consumption isn't just something we do, it's what we are. That is deeply fucked. I couldn't care less about the political agenda of everybody-should-consume-less, but the idea that humans' primary role in society is not to be active members of a polity (the meaning of "citizen") but rather essentially to eat things, is a violation of our best traditions and intuitions. We are called to more than that.

The replacement of "citizen" with "consumer" is as significant as the replacement of "subject" with "citizen" was in the first place.

[michael_dorfman]

Where do you see "consumer" used with "citizen" would do better?

Besides the Consumer Protection Agency (where it is completely appropriate), I can't remember hearing it used by the government.

I only hear "What does this mean for consumers?" when it is in reference to prices, or purchasing, etc. "What does this mean for citizens?" only makes sense when discussing civic issues.

Could you provide a concrete example of the mis-use you claim is rife?

[gruseom]

Ok, this is me reporting back. Based on the few minutes I was willing to spend on this, and the data sources listed below, I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong about the word "consumer" being widely used where "citizen" should be. I looked at a few dozen usages of "consumer" and they were all appropriate, i.e. in sentences concerning some sort of economic consumption. I hardly saw any borderline cases, and even those were not misuses of the word so much as encroachments of the economic domain itself into areas it didn't use to dominate.

One can still argue about the status of the concept "consumer" in our society, but that becomes a much more subjective thing without tangible linguistic evidence to point to. I'd be interested if anyone has further ideas about how to test this.

Sources:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+consumer

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+citizen

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:npr.org+consumer

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:npr.org+citizen

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:obamaspeeches.com+consum...

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:obamaspeeches.com+citize...

Search "consumer" and "citizen" on http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com.

[gruseom]

Next time I see one I'll try to remember to come back and post it here. In the meantime, any suggestions for how we can measure this? One crude measure: Google comes up with 88M hits for "citizen" and 270M for "consumer".

[codingthewheel]

Searchable full-text databases of political speeches. I've done it. You'll find both words used all over the place, with roughly the same meaning.

[codingthewheel]

I see "consumer" used in place of "citizen" all over the place where it shouldn't be and frankly, I find it a little disingenuous that you're even arguing this point.

Obama: "And we created hospital report cards, so that every consumer could see things like the ratio of nurses to patients"

Americans/Westerners are widely seen, referred to, treated as, and labelled as "consumers" the world over. This is common parlance. This is accepted. "Citizen" is becoming synonymous with "consumer" and this is a Very Bad Thing. You're welcome to disagree, and if so, I'm welcome to tell you that I think our education system has failed you.

Do a search in any political speech database for these two words and you'll find they are interchangeable.

[philwelch]

Hospitals provide (or produce) services, and patients consume them. That's entirely apropos. That's a perfect example of "consumer" used in its correct economic context.

[codingthewheel]

I see your point, but by that logic: "Governments provide services, and consumers consume them."

But seriously, are you really saying that it's natural for hospitals to speak of their customers as "consumers"? Do you have kids? You provide services for them? Are they consumers?

[philwelch]

"Patients" would be a better word for a hospital to use, but in the economic context Obama was using, "consumer" is the general term.

Parenting and governance aren't purely economic interactions. The producer/consumer roles don't exist per se, which is why we have words like "parent", "child", "state", and "citizen." (I certainly don't want to become Microsoft's "citizen" just because I have an Xbox Live membership--I'm happy to be their "consumer"!)

[gruseom]

You're raising some interesting issues. I don't see medical care as a purely economic interaction either, although the non-economic aspects have largely fallen away. Perhaps the rise of "consumer" as the default term is concomitant with the view that everything is economics. In that case we are all Marxists after all.

Isn't it interesting, as well, that you almost never hear the term "producer", given that there is no consumption without production?

[SkyMarshal]

No it isn't. Obama isn't the hospital director doing a press release about some new service, he's the US President directly addressing the citizens who elected him to solve pressing social problems.

[philwelch]

That's a complete non-sequitur. "Consumer" denotes an economic role, and if the president is discussing a solution to a socio-economic problem that benefits people in that role, "consumer" is the correct term to use.

[SkyMarshal]

If I had time I'd dig up some links on this issue, but I don't. I can only repeat what I posted elsewhere on this thread - read up on the historical development of the use of language and linguistics to shape culture and society, both from the advertising industry and from the feminist movement.

The contemporary labeling of citizens as consumers is no accident, and not just an artifact of the mainstreaming of the economics field.