Through the analysis of congressional debates and hearings, presidential speeches, public opinion polls, and eighty-three interviews with administrators and teachers, Children, Not Widgets shows how policymakers willfully unraveled many public services, like education. The framing of government as the problem, rather than the solution, and citizens as consumers, rather than community members, justified allotting public resources to an unregulated private sector. Over time, the claim that markets would better achieve important social democratic ends—such as increased civic engagement and socio-economic integration—as economic growth trickled down in ways that would “lift all boats” created what some have referred to as a consumerocracy, where public services are evaluated based on how well they serve individual wants versus collective ends.