We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.

The left dismisses talk about the collapse of family life and talks instead about the emergence of the growing new diversity of family types.

The model of ownership, in a society organized round mass consumption, is addiction.

The same historical development that turned the citizen into a client transformed the worker from a producer into a consumer.

Ideologies, however appealing, cannot shape the whole structure of perceptions and conduct unless they are embedded in daily experiences that confirm them.

Environmentalism opposes reckless innovation and makes conservation the central order of business.

Relentless improvement of the product and upgrading of consumer tastes are the heart of mass merchandising.