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The technological landscape of the present day has enfranchised its own electorates — the inhabitants of the marketing zones in the consumer society, television audiences and news magazine readerships, who vote with money at the cash counter rather than with ballot paper at the polling boot. These huge and passive electorates are wide open to any opportunist using the psychological weaponry of fear and anxiety, elements that are carefully blanched out of the world of domestic products and consumer software.
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"The Consumer Consumed", originally published in Ink (1971)

 

J. G. Ballard

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African audiences cannot accept our passive consumer role in the presence of film.

 

Marshall McLuhan

 

In the early twentieth century the problem of production had been solved; after that it was the problem of consumption that plagued society. In the 1950s and '60s, consumer commodities and farm products began to pile up in vast towering mountains all over the Western World. As much as possible was given away - but that threatened to subvert the open market. By 1980, the pro tem solution was to heap up the products and burn them: billions of dollars of worth, week after week.

 

Philip Kindred - a.k.a. PKD Dick

 

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J. G. Ballard

 

At Live Earth on global warming "I think what you can do is vote...This problem will not be solved until we the electorates make it quite clear to candidates running for office that we will not vote for them unless they have a clear policy on the environment and global warming in particular. And also we will not vote for them if they have a track record like this current administration does."

 

Roger Waters

 

For me the intentions of background music are openly political, and an example of how political power is constantly shifting from the ballot box into areas where the voter has nowhere to mark his ballot paper. The most important political choices in the future will probably never be consciously exercised. I'm intrigued by the way some background music is surprisingly aggressive, especially that played on consumer complaint phone lines and banks, airplanes and phone companies themselves, with strident non-rhythmic and arms-length sequences that are definitely not user-friendly.

 

J. G. Ballard