[philwelch]

I've yet to see that many inappropriate uses of the word "consumer". For those of us versed in economics, it's a real word with a real meaning, and there's no evidence in this thread that the usage of "consumer" deviates very far from that meaning.

Changing language for political purposes is a dubious business to begin with. Everyone just learns what the new euphemisms mean and no one's actual thinking is changed.When the existing semantics are already pretty accurate, the process of euphemism just makes the language inelegant and confusing. "Citizen" has a distinct meaning--there's no need to turn it into a euphemism for "consumer", or to discourage frank and precise discussion of how things affect people in various economic roles.