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'The Language of Capitalism Isn't Just Annoying, It's Dangerous' (theoutline.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: When General Motors laid off more than 6,000 workers days after Thanksgiving, John Patrick Leary, the author of the new book Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism, tweeted out part of GM CEO Mary Barra's statement. "The actions we are taking today continue our transformation to be highly agile, resilient, and profitable, while giving us the flexibility to invest in the future," she said. Leary added a line of commentary to of Barra's statement: "Language was pronounced dead at the scene." Why should we pay attention to the particular words used to describe, and justify, the regularly scheduled "disruptions" of late capitalism? Published this month by Haymarket Books, Leary's Keywords explores the regime of late-capitalist language: a set of ubiquitous modern terms, drawn from the corporate world and the business press, that he argues promulgate values friendly to corporations (hierarchy, competitiveness, the unquestioning embrace of new technologies) over those friendly to human beings (democracy, solidarity, and scrutiny of new technologies' impact on people and the planet).
These words narrow our conceptual horizons -- they "manacle our imagination," Leary writes -- making it more difficult to conceive alternative ways of organizing our economy and society. We are encouraged by powerful "thought leaders" and corporate executives to accept it as the language of common sense or "normal reality." When we understand and deploy such language to describe our own lives, we're seen as good workers; when we fail to do so, we're implicitly threatened with economic obsolescence. After all, if you're not conversant in "innovation" or "collaboration," how can you expect to thrive in this brave new economy? [...] Calling our current economic system "late capitalism" suggests that, despite our gleaming buzzwords and technologies, what we're living through is just the next iteration of an old system of global capitalism. In other words, he writes, "cheer up: things have always been terrible!" What is new, Leary says, quoting Marxist economic historian Ernest Mandel, is our "belief in the omnipotence of technology" and in experts. He also claims that capitalism is expanding at an unprecedented rate into previously uncommodified geographical, cultural, and spiritual realms.
These words narrow our conceptual horizons -- they "manacle our imagination," Leary writes -- making it more difficult to conceive alternative ways of organizing our economy and society. We are encouraged by powerful "thought leaders" and corporate executives to accept it as the language of common sense or "normal reality." When we understand and deploy such language to describe our own lives, we're seen as good workers; when we fail to do so, we're implicitly threatened with economic obsolescence. After all, if you're not conversant in "innovation" or "collaboration," how can you expect to thrive in this brave new economy? [...] Calling our current economic system "late capitalism" suggests that, despite our gleaming buzzwords and technologies, what we're living through is just the next iteration of an old system of global capitalism. In other words, he writes, "cheer up: things have always been terrible!" What is new, Leary says, quoting Marxist economic historian Ernest Mandel, is our "belief in the omnipotence of technology" and in experts. He also claims that capitalism is expanding at an unprecedented rate into previously uncommodified geographical, cultural, and spiritual realms.
This doesn't require a book, everyone knows about corporate speak. Write your thoughts on a blog. You will get a couple of thousand readers.
When companies have the power to disrupt societies, one manager thinking and taking bullshit can do a lot of damage. It always has been that way but these days or highly optimised society has become more fragile which makes bullshit more likely to cause damage.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Not the language of capitalism.
You know, after you run out of other people's money.
Like the millions fleeing Venezuela have discovered.
Funny, if the US is so damn bad, why don't "progressives" support building a wall around it to keep people out of the awfulness?
Belief in "experts" or "omnipotent technology" sounds to me like another lame excuse to give socialism a try. "It didn't work last time, or the time before that, but trust us, this computer that I built is so smart that it can defy the laws of supply and demand!"
You probably have a weak argument if you put it into the passive voice so you don't have to admit that it originates with you. I pronounce good writing dead at the scene of this shill's Twitter account.
it's a common propaganda technique. We all laughed when the Iraqi information minister tried to do it since he was completely doomed.But when you control the media the technique's the same every time.
Put another way: "If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.".
Works too. This is why we need to teach critical thinking via the humanities in school. Critical thinking _can_ be taught, but you need a subject that's simple enough for folks who don't do it naturally and where being 50% right has value. STEM doesn't work for that. You'll note the wealthy make it a point to give their kids a well rounded education. This is why.
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The wall will spend other people's money so I guess it's a wall built by socialism.
How about you build a personal responsibility wall around your own property?
"late capitalism" is better than "late socialism". You know, after you run out of other people's money. Like the millions fleeing Venezuela have discovered.
False dichotomy and false equivalence. Authoritarianism is what ruins economies, not socialism. Democracy is vital to keeping power in check.
Funny, if the US is so damn bad, why don't "progressives" support building a wall around it to keep people out of the awfulness?
Because the awfulness is disinformed people like you who do not want to learn but are easily manipulated, not refugees looking to stay alive. If we could build a physical barrier could keep your kind of willful ignorance out then I'd help build it myself.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
...the reality is the reason we have so many problems is because people who are irrational have equal power with the people who are rational.
For those who rail at these words, the reality is right now we live in a lawless oligarchy that's has been basically stealing everything that is nailed down and has been since the US's founding. To even suggest any modern capitalist state "is a democracy" is just utter bullshit when it has been owned lock stock and barrel by corporations for most western states history with brief interruptions of world war 1 and world war 2 and the cold war to try to soften the ruthless harshness of capitalist societies.
Now with the fall of the USSR corporations are unchecked and out of control and being enabled by a heavily indoctrinated public.
Don't think so? Every time IP law came up for review to benefit the public it was pushed to benefit the rich and their corporations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The reality is the general public in the US worships their robber barrons. George carlin said it best about americans.
Carlin
Look at the distribution of wealth, it is just insane, anyone who thinks they live in a society that benefits the many is uninformed.
US distribution of wealth
https://imgur.com/a/FShfb
Wealth in america
Seriously, what we do to all of the Southern continent with our foreign police really pisses me off. We wreck their economies and governments and then we bitch that refugees from the disasters we caused come up her and take our jerbs.
The term "jerbs" is what really pisses me off.
"jerbs" = "someone else's jobs"
When it comes around to your own job though, suddenly people around here don't like the H1B program. Funny, that.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada are all capitalist countries. I'm not really sure what point you were trying to make.
I do agree with you that we should just stay the fuck out of other countries business though. If they want to try to build their own little socialist utopias, let them.
Corporations are no longer stewards of society in general, and only looking after interests of shareholder. As such corporations have no reservations to damage society to the benefit of shareholders. This, in itself, is what will doom Western society.
You can't have powerful agents (i.e. corporations) act as sociopaths and have society as a whole succeed. There are two solutions to this - reduce power of corporations (i.e. socialism) or change rules governing corporate behavior to disincentivize antisocial behavior (i.e. strong regulation and anti-monopolist laws). Without this, we will have a new era of Robber Barons. Arguably, silicon valley technocrats are already there.
Those are all extremes and fail because they are so. Capitalism has worked best in the past when properly regulated. The keyword is properly. Breaking up Ma Bell was great for telecommunications in this country. Unfortunately we don't do this anymore. The very idea that we have banks or other companies that are too big to fail should be a sign that we're not regulating properly.
It is a difficult task and even harder to maintain over the long haul as corporations have way too much influence in government and also will do what they can to corrupt the intent of many regulations whether it be through lobbying congress or embedding stooges like Ajit Pai. Too many regulations or regulations that don't make sense and you stifle innovation, not enough and corporate greed leads right back to its destructive roots.
Growing up in Vermont when I did was during the birth of Ben and Jerry's. They had a novel concept that local companies should support the local community every way they can. They instilled a corporate morality into their company and it provided a great example where a corporation can actually do a lot of good and still make a lot of money. They pooled dairy farms in the surrounding area helping those farmers even to this day. They've grown so they are helping even more farmers today despite being sold to a much larger corporation. Most business owners border on the sociopathic though and will not see spending money on the local community as anything but a loss of profit.
Ford had it right while not being perfect he understood that to make a product you have to pay workers enough to afford your product. That is overly simplistic of course as there is a lot more to society than a paycheck. If Ford helped build roads and schools they would have had even larger demand and people to fill the demand. I've yet to work for a company in my professional life that understood the concept of soft dollars without just seeing it as sunken costs. Hard dollars is all a lot of people seem to understand.
Capitalism always results in consolidation of options. This is why Qwest merged with a dozen other companies and then merged with Centurylink. So my local area went from dozens of options to 2.
I've lived in this area for over a decade now, their used to be a dozen or so different grocery stores, they are consolidating now as well. Often times they will be the same company with just a different brand name.
It is the very nature of capitalism to take out competition either through mergers and acquisitions or via price fixing until the competition goes under.
Naturally the alternative is worse and so we have regulations in place to protect us from product labeling that is disingenuous and in the past we had limits on mergers if there was insufficient competition in the area. That regulation has been largely gutted by Republicans though as now you have Sinclair or ClearChannel owning entire markets for TV or Radio. Internet is usually limited to a DSL provider or a cable provider and that is is for options again since mergers were allowed to proceed with insufficient competition.
The problem is capital is power, so therefore the greedy also become more powerful, therefore they will
a) not let go of their power (spend cash)
b) make laws to help them gain power (accrue wealth)
Estate taxes. Make it 80% of everything over 1/4mil. 100% of everything over 10mil. When the greedy cannot pass on their power to their family, they'll spend it rather than let "the ebil tacks men" get it, and it is the spending of capital that keeps capitalism in check.
Spending capital moves power from the powerful to the less powerful.
If your children don't make it independently by the time you retire and they are full adults, then they're a wash out as a success and they should not benefit from your wealth. If you want to help them, help them while you're alive.
Given that for the entirety of Congress, the Presidency and the Supreme Court have been controlled by Republicans for the entirety of Trump's administration (including today as of this writing), maybe you should complain about how the Republicans are incompetent at running a government.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
PS - Sweden is capitalist. Note that they have a stock market...
Venezuela does too, it is called the Caracas Stock Exchange. So Venezuela is just as capitalist as Sweden, and I guess the U.S.
So why are righties always claiming that Venezuela is socialist through-and-through and proof that socialism always fails?
Because they define all successful economies as "totally capitalist, man!" and all failed economies as "proof of the universal failure of socialism everywhere". In other words it is plain dishonesty. All economies in the world of any size are mixed economies, with some level of regulation for the capitalist component (and the socialist component as well, for that matter).
Venezuela's economy tanked because its government was taken over by corrupt incompetent authoritarians whose only interest is self-aggrandizement.
But don't worry, that can't happen here.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
I absolutely cannot. Because Communism is always destroyed by the first person who succeeds. The effect of greed is such that while the greediest spout about egalitarianism , but their greed causes them to want anything but competition. If I want all of the power that is possible to have , upon success, I will do everything to take others things , and ascertain that the deck is stacked in my favor.
You aren't wrong. I hope you weren't trying to disagree with me. Any pure 'ism destroys itself because it makes fatally flawed assumptions.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The thing is that a lot of folks reduce this whole topic down to a binary point of capitalism versus socialism. That's not just you saying, better of two evils, but there others that would say, "socialism is the only cure to capitalism" or some BS like that. The whole thing is that our current model of capitalism isn't good. It encourages less diversity and bigger more centralized, more too big to fail companies. I'm not saying ditch capitalism, but clearly our current approach is less than ideal.
Funny, if the US is so damn bad, why don't "progressives" support building a wall around it to keep people out of the awfulness?
I have no idea what that has to do with anything other than sounding edgy. I'm not progressive in the sense of economics or security in any sense, but even I think the wall is a silly idea. The US as a nation doesn't adequately fund anything, hell we've got bridges that have millions of people going over it that have spent the last two decades needing repairs. But some wall that 99.995% of the nation will never see is going to kept tip-top? Call me skeptical, but even if the wall got built, I'll put my dollar here on parts of it falling down and the number of people caring about that, being countable on one hand in two/three decades hence.