ABSTRACT
The squandering of resources only begins the problem. The consumption binge which television has done so much to push has been fouling air, water, roads, streets, fields, and forests—a trend people failed or declined to recognize until almost irreversible. American television is not only American, but multinational. Sending its programs, mythology, and salesmanship into more than a hundred countries, it offers its salvation-through-consumption message—welcomed by many groups and creating enclaves of high consumption even within wastelands of poverty. The symbiotic growth of American television and global enterprise has made them so interrelated that they cannot be thought of as separate. They are essentially the same phenomenon. Preceded far and wide by military advisers, lobbyists, equipment salesmen, advertising specialists, merchandising experts, and telefilm salesmen as advance agents, the enterprise penetrates much of the non-socialist world. Television is simply its most visible portion.
