Magazine Article

Every Nook and Cranny

Ruskin, Gary, Schor, Juliet

2005

Overview

\"The rise of commercialism is an artifact of the growth of corporate power. It began as part of a political and ideological response by corporations to wage pressures, rising social expenditures, and the successes of the environmental and consumer movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Corporations fostered the anti-tax movement and support for corporate welfare, which helped create funding crises in state and local governments and schools, and made them more willing to carry commercial advertising. They promoted 'free market' ideology, privatization and consumerism, while denigrating the public sphere. In the late 1970s, Mobil Oil began its decades-long advertising on the New York Times op-ed page, one example of a larger corporate effort to reverse a precipitous decline in public approval of corporations. They also became adept at manipulating the campaign finance system, and weaknesses in the federal bribery statute, to procure influence in governments at all levels.\" (Multinational Monitor) The authors comment on the spread of commercialized culture in the US and notes that as commercialism grows more intrusive, public distaste for it will likely increase, as will political support for restricting it, and this hopeful trend will gather strength, in the long run.

• Subject: Advertising / Advertising and children / Advertising in educational media / Advertising laws / Advertising, Schools / Commercialism / Corporate culture / Social responsibility of business / Television advertising