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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.
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
GM is adjusting to the transition from internal combustion engines to electric; it's not one manager or one company, it's the entire industry. Some product lines and manufacturing facilities are obsolescent. Society will move on.
He also claims that capitalism is expanding at an unprecedented rate into previously uncommodified geographical, cultural, and spiritual realms.
This guy has no room to talk about gobbledygook.
But that aside it shouldn't surprise anyone that capitalism is expanding; it's the best economic system of the alternatives we have. Communism has failed every time it's been attempted.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
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Yes, and successful capitalism is dependent on regulation and social programs to prevent disaster.
Maybe the answer isn't to run amok with an extremist ideology.
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.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.