Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren Bobelbaum here. It's hard to say exactly when it started, but in recent years there seems to be an increasing tendency in the United States to use the term consumer interchangeably with citizen, even when the discussion isn't taking place strictly in an economic framework, and some political experts say that this choice of words may reveal a subtle but worrisome shift in how we see ourselves and our role in American society, away from the notion of working together with others toward the common good, and toward a nation of individuals primarily motivated by self interest before. The article of this episode is based on How Stuffworks. Spoke by email back in twenty seventeen with Jason Sadowski, a senior lecturer in the Department of Human Centered Computing at Monash University. He said that using consumer interchangeably with citizen and a quote has become part of our default discourse, the normal way we viewed society and people just look at the twenty sixteen presidential election. This consumer versus citizen language is often used when analysts and pundits talk about elections of voters are just consumers with preferences, and the election is a marketplace of products to choose from in the store. We vote with our dollar. We're told that elections are functionally the same thing. You just use a ballot instead of a buck to cast your vote. This understanding of democratic processes as a marketplace is just one more place where the citizen is overtaken by the consumer. Both words have been around for centuries. A citizen dates back to the thirteen hundreds, though it originally meant the inhabitant of a city and didn't take on its present meaning a person who has rights and responsibilities in the society until around sixteen ten. The word consumer arose in the fourteen hundreds, though back then it meant someone who squanders or wastes things. It took on a less pejorative economic meaning, that is, a person who purchases and uses goods and services around seventeen forty five. If you look at the appearances of each word in Google Books and gram Viewer, which isn't always accurate, but gives us a pretty decent idea of how often words were used in print in the English language from eighteen hundred onward. The word consumer seldom appeared in print until about nineteen hundred, but starting around then it steadily rose until it passed up citizen and frequency in the late nineteen twenties. The use of the word consumer peaked in the nineteen eighties, but it's still used more than one and a half times as often as citizen. How stuff Works also spoke via email with Michael Munger, director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at Duke University's Political Science Department. He theorizes that the shift in usage had to do with the rise in the twentieth century of progressive politics. He said the progressives primarily saw citizens as being helpless trapped by large forces, especially corporations, that citizens couldn't deal with. Starting in the nineteen sixties, politicians increasing use of sophisticated marketing techniques borrowed from sellers of products like breakfast, cereal, cars, and antiperspirants also may have played a role. Today, campaigns gather and analyze mountains of data to conduct micro targeting efforts, which look at individual voters attitudes and behaviors and what might be the best way to reach them. And the government itself is being judged as if it were consumer business. The American Customer Satisfaction Index rates twelve departments and agencies within the federal government on how people feel about the accessibility and efficiency of their services. In twenty twenty four, the federal government overall got a sixty nine point seven out of one hundred, a seven year high, up two point two percent over the previous year. And this isn't just semantics. The words we use can have an impact on how we live. A twenty twelve study published in the journal Psychological Science found that choice of words may exert a subtle influence on how we see ourselves. In one part of the study, people who answered a consumer response survey but tended to express more materialistic, self centered values than those who answered a citizen survey. In another part, the researchers presented subjects with the hypothetical situation in which people had to share water from a well and labeled them as either consumers or citizens. The subjects who got the consumer identity tended to distrust others more about sharing water, felt less in partnership with the other subjects, and felt less personally responsible compared with those who were labeled citizens. How stuff Works also spoke with Josh Pasek, a professor of communication in Media and Political science at the University of Michigan. He explained that this shift in terminology a quote seems to underscore a shift away from viewing Americans as having responsibility in our political system and toward a more individualist view of what it means to be American. Your job as an American citizen requires that you fulfill key democratic norms, such as being informed, deliberating about political issues, and participating in civic and political life. As an American consumer, your actions are relevant only to the extent that they respond to economic incentives. The responsibility to be engaged and participatory is not your own, but instead depends on a system that is oriented to bring you in. How Stuff Works also spoke via email with Frank Trentman, a professor of history at the University of London and author of the book Empire of Things, How he Became a World of Consumers from the fifteenth century to the twenty first. He thinks that the blurred distinction between consumer and citizen may make it tougher for people to come together to solve problems. He said, not all consumers see the world in the same way, and hence concerted action is difficult. All of this is why some people would like to see us go back to viewing ourselves as active citizens, not passive consumers. As political commentator Mark Shields wrote in twenty twelve, maybe it's time that Americans started insisting that leaders treat them not like consumers quote, but as citizens who recognize that we have, in addition to rights and privileges, real obligations and responsibilities. Today's episode is based on the article when and Why did America start calling its citizens consumers? On HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Patrick J. Khigh. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with ho stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren Bobelbaum here. It's hard to say exactly when it started, but in recent years there seems to be an increasing tendency in the United States to use the term consumer interchangeably with citizen, even when the discussion isn't taking place strictly in an economic framework, and some political experts say that this choice of words may reveal a subtle but worrisome shift in how we see ourselves and our role in American society, away from the notion of working together with others toward the common good, and toward a nation of individuals primarily motivated by self interest before. The article of this episode is based on How Stuffworks. Spoke by email back in twenty seventeen with Jason Sadowski, a senior lecturer in the Department of Human Centered Computing at Monash University. He said that using consumer interchangeably with citizen and a quote has become part of our default discourse, the normal way we viewed society and people just look at the twenty sixteen presidential election. This consumer versus citizen language is often used when analysts and pundits talk about elections of voters are just consumers with preferences, and the election is a marketplace of products to choose from in the store. We vote with our dollar. We're told that elections are functionally the same thing. You just use a ballot instead of a buck to cast your vote. This understanding of democratic processes as a marketplace is just one more place where the citizen is overtaken by the consumer. Both words have been around for centuries. A citizen dates back to the thirteen hundreds, though it originally meant the inhabitant of a city and didn't take on its present meaning a person who has rights and responsibilities in the society until around sixteen ten. The word consumer arose in the fourteen hundreds, though back then it meant someone who squanders or wastes things. It took on a less pejorative economic meaning, that is, a person who purchases and uses goods and services around seventeen forty five. If you look at the appearances of each word in Google Books and gram Viewer, which isn't always accurate, but gives us a pretty decent idea of how often words were used in print in the English language from eighteen hundred onward. The word consumer seldom appeared in print until about nineteen hundred, but starting around then it steadily rose until it passed up citizen and frequency in the late nineteen twenties. The use of the word consumer peaked in the nineteen eighties, but it's still used more than one and a half times as often as citizen. How stuff Works also spoke via email with Michael Munger, director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at Duke University's Political Science Department. He theorizes that the shift in usage had to do with the rise in the twentieth century of progressive politics. He said the progressives primarily saw citizens as being helpless trapped by large forces, especially corporations, that citizens couldn't deal with. Starting in the nineteen sixties, politicians increasing use of sophisticated marketing techniques borrowed from sellers of products like breakfast, cereal, cars, and antiperspirants also may have played a role. Today, campaigns gather and analyze mountains of data to conduct micro targeting efforts, which look at individual voters attitudes and behaviors and what might be the best way to reach them. And the government itself is being judged as if it were consumer business. The American Customer Satisfaction Index rates twelve departments and agencies within the federal government on how people feel about the accessibility and efficiency of their services. In twenty twenty four, the federal government overall got a sixty nine point seven out of one hundred, a seven year high, up two point two percent over the previous year. And this isn't just semantics. The words we use can have an impact on how we live. A twenty twelve study published in the journal Psychological Science found that choice of words may exert a subtle influence on how we see ourselves. In one part of the study, people who answered a consumer response survey but tended to express more materialistic, self centered values than those who answered a citizen survey. In another part, the researchers presented subjects with the hypothetical situation in which people had to share water from a well and labeled them as either consumers or citizens. The subjects who got the consumer identity tended to distrust others more about sharing water, felt less in partnership with the other subjects, and felt less personally responsible compared with those who were labeled citizens. How stuff Works also spoke with Josh Pasek, a professor of communication in Media and Political science at the University of Michigan. He explained that this shift in terminology a quote seems to underscore a shift away from viewing Americans as having responsibility in our political system and toward a more individualist view of what it means to be American. Your job as an American citizen requires that you fulfill key democratic norms, such as being informed, deliberating about political issues, and participating in civic and political life. As an American consumer, your actions are relevant only to the extent that they respond to economic incentives. The responsibility to be engaged and participatory is not your own, but instead depends on a system that is oriented to bring you in. How Stuff Works also spoke via email with Frank Trentman, a professor of history at the University of London and author of the book Empire of Things, How he Became a World of Consumers from the fifteenth century to the twenty first. He thinks that the blurred distinction between consumer and citizen may make it tougher for people to come together to solve problems. He said, not all consumers see the world in the same way, and hence concerted action is difficult. All of this is why some people would like to see us go back to viewing ourselves as active citizens, not passive consumers. As political commentator Mark Shields wrote in twenty twelve, maybe it's time that Americans started insisting that leaders treat them not like consumers quote, but as citizens who recognize that we have, in addition to rights and privileges, real obligations and responsibilities. Today's episode is based on the article when and Why did America start calling its citizens consumers? On HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Patrick J. Khigh. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with ho stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.