'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.

Comments

Re:France, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada

[jbmartin6]

The Yellow Vests seem to disagree with you that France is doing fine. But true enough that US interference in other countries is a big factor in our refugee "crisis." Look at how we made of mess of Honduras recently.

Re:France, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada

[gtall]

Hmmm...you mean like Nicaragua? Daniel Ortega, that paradigm of left wing-nut populism, is currently throwing opponents into jail and refuses to allow the people to unelect him. Last we heard, the U.S. hasn't had squat to do with Nicaragua for several decades during which he became Dear Leader, stopped being Dear Leader, and now is Dear Leader again...for life...which may not be long for him.

Cuba has had an exemplary left wing-nut government for many years...still sucks. Try starting a political party there and see what Castro's goons (they are still there after he went all stiff and incommunicado) do to you.

Last we checked, the Central American gangs were winning the drug war, and they won't brook any opposition to their loving rule. Yep, those countries should be breaking out into Left Wing Heaven any day now.

Re:Book

[Ol Olsoc]

But think about all the extra money he would make from royalties from the book. A lot of people will pay top dollar to reinforce their views against capitalism.

The biggest problem is that I am not sure if I am being sarcastic or not.

Any conflicts you might have are probably based on the differences between unfettered and controlled capitalism. Capitalism in it's purist form is suicidal. What is surprising is that more people don't realize that an economy based on greed needs some control over that greed. Since greed lies along a spectrum, from people who are altruistic, to people who can and do kill other humans to secure wealth in their sociopathic level of greed. Some want it all.

It also tends toward the common mistake of humans that they don't understand simple math. Pure capitalism will attempt to accumulate all other money, especially in it's corporatism mutant form. The simple math is an equation. If the corporation has no customers, or almost no one can afford to buy their products - it makes no money. If all of the potential customers are out of work because " 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.." as the lady said, they miss the profitable part.

It's all well and good to make money. A lot of it is fine. I loves me my money. But in today's corporatism/capitalism world, it appears that some folks think you can make money without having any customers. Or by demanding first world prices at the some time as demanding third world wages.

Re: Book

[Opportunist]

I don't know what it's gonna be replaced by, but capitalism in its actual sense is already dead. The key features are in many areas already gone or on the way out, with competition and the demand side as the decider of the "best" product being two of the most important parts that are already gone or pretty much gone in most areas.

Where they still exist, capitalism still works pretty well. Where they don't, well, it's been replaced by a corporate dictate of products and prices.

Yep, that was kinda the point

[rsilvergun]

of the episode of South Park it came from. Randi Marsh didn't care until it was his job, then he was furious and joined the chorus of "They took our jerbs".

This is why we need to push real solutions to the problem. There are a ton of out of work construction workers seeing Mexican and South American immigrants doing the jobs they used to do. Just like there's a mountain of out of work tech workers seeing their jobs go to H1-Bs. Workers in America need to learn solidarity. They need to understand that if you make a living by working you are a member of the working class no matter what color your collar.

If us techies don't start doing that then the blue collar guys are going to get tricked into voting for folks that'll screw us all over. Maybe "tricked" is the wrong word. If they've been abandoned what's the point of caring if the elites in Silicon Valley get screwed? That's where the concept of "stigginit" comes from. Where you're just lashing out.

What's frustrating is that in 2018 we should be able to see these things for what they are: common tactics by our ruling class used to divide and conquer the working class. Race, religion, collar color, wedge issues. Over and over again we see the same pattern. We even have numerous examples of the ruling class talking about how they're going to create issues to separate us (go google the history of how abortion became a political issue in America sometime).

The tricks are all there out in the open, but nobody really seems to call them out on it. Bernie Sanders does I guess (he repeatedly tries to bring folks together) but not sure how far he's gonna get. They're already running adverts on TV against him and he hasn't even announced he's running for the primary...

Re: Book

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, copyright didnâ(TM)t exist anywhere until 1710, and then only in England. It didnt spread elsewhere for quite a while, with most of Europe adopting it in the mid 19th century, and the rest of the world (by force through colonialism and imperialism) until the 20th.

But creative works have existed since before written history. So if your contention is correct that creative works wonâ(TM)t be created and published without copyright, please let me know how you explain the existence of works that predate copyright.