"More and more surveys in the US are indicating a change in values taking place among consumers, who become more concerned about quality of life, food, health and the environment"
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Korten’s line is doing activist judo: it borrows the language of market research to argue for moral and political change. “More and more surveys” isn’t just a claim of evidence; it’s a strategic appeal to legitimacy in a culture that treats data as a kind of civic scripture. He’s not asking you to take his ideals on faith. He’s implying that even the consumer - capitalism’s supposed true believer - is starting to defect.
The phrasing “change in values” matters because it shifts the story from preferences to principles. People aren’t merely buying different stuff; they’re quietly renegotiating what counts as a good life. Korten’s list (“quality of life, food, health and the environment”) is calibrated to feel personal before it feels political. It starts with the intimate and bodily, then expands outward to the ecological. That arc smuggles in a thesis: self-interest and planetary interest are converging, and the old split between “ethical” and “practical” choices is collapsing.
The subtext is also a subtle rebuke to the GDP-and-growth worldview. If consumers prioritize well-being over accumulation, then the economy’s scoreboard is wrong. Yet he chooses the word “consumers,” not “citizens,” hinting at the constraint we’re trapped in: our main sanctioned form of power is shopping. In the broader context of Korten’s critique of corporate globalization, the quote reads like a wedge argument - a sign that cultural conditions are ripening for reforms that markets alone won’t deliver, but that markets can no longer ignore.
The phrasing “change in values” matters because it shifts the story from preferences to principles. People aren’t merely buying different stuff; they’re quietly renegotiating what counts as a good life. Korten’s list (“quality of life, food, health and the environment”) is calibrated to feel personal before it feels political. It starts with the intimate and bodily, then expands outward to the ecological. That arc smuggles in a thesis: self-interest and planetary interest are converging, and the old split between “ethical” and “practical” choices is collapsing.
The subtext is also a subtle rebuke to the GDP-and-growth worldview. If consumers prioritize well-being over accumulation, then the economy’s scoreboard is wrong. Yet he chooses the word “consumers,” not “citizens,” hinting at the constraint we’re trapped in: our main sanctioned form of power is shopping. In the broader context of Korten’s critique of corporate globalization, the quote reads like a wedge argument - a sign that cultural conditions are ripening for reforms that markets alone won’t deliver, but that markets can no longer ignore.
Quote Details
| Topic | Change |
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