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 has lost the common touch.

Personal disintegration remains always an imminent danger.

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

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

The family wage has been eroded by the same developments that have promoted consumerism as a way of life.

A child's appetite for new toys appeal to the desire for ownership and appropriation: the appeal of toys comes to lie not in their use but in their status as possessions.