View previous stories
	As Marketing to Children intensifies, What can Society Do? by Diane Levin, Christina Asquith Solutions Journal   More than any segment of the population, children are susceptible to advertising, which has grown pervasive across U.S. cities and media.   A four-year-old arrives at school and starts crying when she realizes her lunch is packed in a generic plastic bag, not the usual Disney Princess lunchbox she so loves. A friend tells her she won’t be able to sit at the princess lunch table—it’s only for girls with princess lunchboxes.   A fourth grader arrives home from school all excited. He has a Book It certificate from Pizza Hut because his mother signed the form showing that he met the reading-at-home goal his teacher set for him. He pleads with his mother to take him to Pizza Hut for dinner that night.   Sixth graders are assigned the task of writing to their principal about something important that they would like to see happen at their school. They decide to ask for school vending machines that sell snack foods and drinks.   Marketing is a more powerful force in the lives of children growing up today than ever before, beginning from a very young age. The stories above provide but a few examples of how it can shape learning and behavior at home and in school.   Marketing affects what children want to eat, wear, and play, and with whom they play. It also shapes what they learn, what they want to learn, and why they want to learn. And it primes them to be drawn into, exploited, and influenced by marketing efforts in schools.   In order to fully understand the power of and problems created by marketing in schools, we have to look at the big picture. Only then can we craft the best solutions in response. First, children are more susceptible than adults to being influenced, even exploited and harmed, by marketing directed at them.   They do not have the logical cognitive skills needed to understand its nature or intent. They are more likely than adults to believe what they see and what they are told when they see or hear a commercial message. They are unlikely to understand the underlying logic of the message, for example, why it is there, who put it there, or what values it represents.   And because children are socialized from a young age into paying attention to and valuing logos, they are especially attuned to being lured into marketing messages both in and out of school.   And children are even more likely to believe what marketers teach in school because schools carry special authoritative weight and they are taught to trust what schools teach—which marketers know all too well!   * Access the complete article via the link below. Visit the related web page
	After the Thatcherite project - Britain is one of the most unequal countries in Western Europe by Owen Jones, Seumas Milne The Independent & agencies   April 2013   After the Thatcherite project - Britain is one of the most unequal countries in Western Europe, by Owen Jones.   In the war led by Margaret Thatcher’s governments – against the left, the trade unions, the post-war consensus – her side was humiliatingly victorious.   In the coming days, some on the right will attempt to snuff out criticism of her legacy, arguing that it is somehow disrespectful, spiteful or ghoulish. Absurd, of course: she was a politician – the most divisive in modern British history – and what she represented must of course be debated. They will use the moment of her passing to batter Thatcherism into the national psyche: that she somehow saved Britain from ruin, put the “great” back into “Great Britain”, and so forth. Those who grew up in the Britain that Thatcher built will be patronised: you were still learning how to walk at the height of her power. And that is why it is crucial to separate Thatcherism from the woman who spearheaded it.   Thatcherism was a national catastrophe, and we remain trapped by its consequences. As her former Chancellor Geoffrey Howe put it: “Her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible.”   We are in the midst of the third great economic collapse since the Second World War: all three have taken place since Thatcherism launched its great crusade. This current crisis has roots in the Thatcherite free market experiment, which wiped out much of the country’s industrial base in favour of a deregulated financial sector.   A poisoned “debate” about social security rages in Cameron’s Britain. It focuses on the idea that there are large numbers of people stuck on benefits. It is certainly true that there were more people languishing in long-term unemployment last year than there were in all forms of unemployment 40 years ago. In large part, this is a consequence of Thatcherism’s emptying communities of millions of secure, skilled industrial jobs. Large swathes of Britain – mining villages, steel towns and so on – were devastated, and never really recovered. Even when Britain was supposedly booming, the old industrial heartlands had high levels of what is rather clinically described as “economic inactivity”.   Five million people now languish on social housing waiting lists, while billions of pounds of housing benefit line the pockets of private landlords charging rip-off rents. The scarcity of housing turns communities against each other, as immigrants or anyone deemed less deserving are scapegoated. But the guilt really lies with the Thatcherite policy of right-to-buy and failure to replace the stock that was sold off.   Champions of Thatcherism hail the crippling of the trade unions, which were battered by anti-union laws, mass unemployment, and crushing defeats of strikes, not least after the rout of the iconic miners. This has not only left workers at the mercy of their bosses, but has made them poorer, too. Four years before the crisis began, the income of the bottom half was stagnating, while for the bottom third it actually began to decline – even as corporations were posting record profits. With no unions to stand their corner, workers’ living standards have long been squeezed – driving large numbers to cheap credit.   We could go on. Britain was one of the most equal Western European countries before the Thatcherite project began, and is now one of the most unequal. Thatcherism is not just alive and well: it courses through the veins of British political life. The current government goes where Thatcherism did not dare in its privatisation of the NHS and sledgehammering of the welfare state.   The challenge ahead is the same as it was yesterday: to tear down the whole edifice of Thatcherism, heal Britain of the damage done, and build a country run in the interests of working people. It’s a fight we must all fight.   April 2013   She didn"t save Britain, writes Seumas Milne, associate editor of The Guardian.   From the moment the former prime minister died there has been a determined drive by the Tories and their media allies to rewrite history and rehabilitate a deeply damaged brand. Simply raising her record reminds people of the price paid for unrelenting deregulation, privatisation and tax handouts to the rich; why she was so unpopular across Britain when she was in power; and the striking similarity with what"s being done by today"s Tory-led coalition.   So there"s been no polling bounce for David Cameron, even as he claimed that Thatcher "saved our country". And while people recognise her strength, polls show clear opposition to many of her flagship policies, including privatisation (only a quarter think it"s delivered a better service). Most don"t believe she "put the "Great" back into Great Britain" at all, her economic policies are seen to have done "more harm than good", and her legacy is regarded as one of division and inequality.   Which is what the facts show. Far from saving Britain, Thatcher"s government delivered rampant inequality, social breakdown, disastrous financial deregulation, pulverising deindustrialisation and mass unemployment. A North Sea oil bonanza was frittered away on tax cuts for the wealthy as public services were run down, child poverty escalated and social mobility ground to a halt.   Economic Growth during the 1980s, at 2.4%, was exactly the same as during the turbulent 1970s and lower again in the post-Thatcher 1990s, at 2.2% — while in the 1960s it averaged over 3%.   And despite claims of a Thatcher "productivity miracle", productivity growth was also higher in the 60s (and it"s gone into reverse under Cameron). What her government did do was redistribute growth from the poor to the rich, driving up profits and slashing employees share of national income through her assault on trade unions. That"s why it felt like a boom in better-off Britain, as the top rate of tax was more than halved, while real incomes fell by 40% for the poorest in her first decade in power.   You only have to rehearse what Thatcher"s government unleashed a generation ago to recognise the continuity with what"s been happening ever since: first under John Major, then under New Labour, and now under Cameron: privatisation, liberalisation, low taxes for the wealthy and rising inequality. Thatcher was Britain"s first woman prime minister, but her policies hit women hardest, just as Cameron"s are doing today, while Tony Blair says he saw his job as "to build on some of the things she had done rather than reverse them".   But Thatcherism was only an early variant (following her friend General Pinochet, the Chilean dictator) of what became the neoliberal capitalism adopted or imposed across the world for the next generation. And it"s that model which imploded in the crash of 2008. As even the free-market Economist conceded last week, while demanding "more Thatcherism, not less", her reforms could be said to have "sowed the seeds" of the current crisis.   Like other true believers, the magazine"s editors fret that the pendulum is now swinging away from the neoliberal model. So does Blair, who remains locked in the politics of the boom years and whose comfort zone remains attacking his own party. So he"s launched a coded assault on Labour"s leader, Ed Miliband, for supposedly thinking a crisis caused by under-regulated markets will lead to a shift to the left.   There"s certainly no automatic basis for such a shift. As history shows, the right can also take advantage of economic breakdowns – and often has. But more than 20 years after Thatcher was forced out of office, the evidence is that most British people remain stubbornly resistant to her individualistic small-state philosophy, believing for example that it"s the government"s job to redistribute income across the spectrum and guarantee a decent minimum income for all.   And crucially, the economic model that underpinned the policies of Thatcher and her successors is broken. As the Labour frontbencher Jon Trickett argued this week, we need a "rupture" with the "existing economic settlement" – the Thatcher settlement. That"s the challenge of the politics of our time, not only in Britain. As we remember blighted lives and communities today, it"s time to bury Thatcherism itself.
	View more stories