Generalized Commodification/Commercialization
The evolution from "citizen" to "consumer" was progressive. The Ancient Greeks thought that the individual is first and foremost a "political animal," but empires and kingdoms enslaved him. One had to wait for the Renaissance and, above all, the Age of Enlightenment, before the individual became a citizen. Capitalism, which was established at the same time as democracy, transformed the individual into a producer and then into a consumer. The article relates this story and explains its consequences with respect to time, the body, ways of thinking and love. Are we seeing a new psychic economy of the individual or are people still capable of resisting this transformation?