Citizens

Critics Review

• In Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us (Canbury Press, £20/$30, 320 pages), Alexander, writing with Ariane Conrad, focuses on one particular way of improving the world: by encouraging people to think as citizens, not consumers. A former advertising man, Alexander became deeply disillusioned with his trade. He believes that the consumer society encourages people to be simultaneously entitled and passive.
  Citizens, by contrast, are engaged and embrace the idea of the common good. His lively book – which has become something of an underground hit – highlights new forms of active citizenship, such as the rise of the Effective Altruism movement and the foundation of community self-help organisations in the slums of Africa.

  Financial Times

• What are we, as members of a global society? This book argues that we are merely consumers, simply because this is what we’re told we are. But what if we were to tell ourselves a different story? What is we were to consider ourselves global citizens, with all of the freedom and responsibility this might involve?
  Brian Eno, in his introduction, writes: “The two dominant narratives today are China – a Subject state with centralised power and deep surveillance – and Siliconia – a Consumer state and deep surveillance”.
  Never a truer word, eh?
  Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad suggest – or rather insist – that it’s high time the dominant narrative was one created by us, the ornery human beans, rather than by the few who chase only power and money.
  It’s an inspiring idea. This is an inspiring book. But it’s not a “woo” book. It’s a practical toolkit for improving not just our global society but all of the challenges we face, be it climate change, famine, war.
  And we can use the very media which has made consumers of us all to facilitate the change. Like most brilliant ideas, it’s simple. And profound.
  The text of this book should be taught in every second-level civics class everywhere.

  Sunday Independent (Ireland)

• When award-winning adman Jon Alexander was on his way to work one day, he started throwing up in the London Underground. He realized why: he was literally sick of his job in advertising, and more profoundly, the culture of consumerism that means each of us receives between 1,500 and 3,000 commercial messages a day. This narrative – or Consumer Story – dominates our lives so pervasively we barely notice it happening. Something had to change. The organization that Alexander went on to co-found – the New Citizenship Project – and this book, written with New York Times writer Ariane Conrad, are a consequence of that realization.
  Citizens tells how consumerism is collapsing in on itself and risks bringing us all down with it in a chaos of powerlessness and ecological collapse.
  But it’s mainly about how the transition ‘from consumer to citizen’ is not only essential but possible and, in some places, already happening. Five portraits of ’emblematic citizens’ – only one from the Global South, alas – show us how what starts as an individual citizen’s action can lead to far greater change to tackle shared problems that may seem insurmountable.
  Upbeat, ambitious and packed with ideas and examples, this book shows how, if we exercise our power as citizens (think of citizenship as a muscle that grows with use rather than a limited space or capacity), we can create an active, participatory, collaborative Citizen Story at every level – in communities, organizations, businesses and governance.

  New Internationalist