Commercialization

In the global consumer societies of our times, very few discussions of commercialization are able to be conducted without invoking a moral response. Indeed, it is rare that mention of the single word commercialization is not followed by the immediate arousal of human emotions that can be charted somewhere along on a broad spectrum of feelings, from a sense of quiet unease all the way through to that of outright hostility and moral condemnation, such are the powerful political and ethical anxieties that the term is capable of invoking.

It is possible to argue that these reactions are provoked by an increasing awareness of the uncomfortable fact that one of the most distinctive characteristics by which to define global consumer societies is the dominance that has ...