Friday's Random thoughts*:

"Given the nature of the game now played, the misery of those left out of it, once treated as collectively caused blight which needed to be dealt with by collective means, can only be redefined as an individual crime. The dangerous classes are redefined as classes of criminals....

The growing incidence of behavior classified as criminal is not an obstacle on the road to a fully fledged and all embracing consumerist society. On the contrary, it is its natural accomplishment and prerequisite.....

..those left out of the game- the unfulfilled consumers.. are the living incarnation of the inner demons specific to consumer life. Their ghettoization and criminalization, the severity of the sufferings administered to them and the overall cruelty of the fate visited upon them are- metaphorically speaking- the ways of exorcising such inner demons and burning them on an effigy"

Zygmunt Bauman Work, Consumerism and the New Poor

* Friday's random thoughts is a weekly attempt to use the words and thoughts of others to illuminate aspects of contemporary life here in Australia and Western Australia.