corporatism sucks (IE transformers 2, IE Crunch)

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by cacophony

his idea that our current system developed because "they" needed to develop consumers back in ye olden days attributes a mastermind-like genius to the people of the time. "they" didn't decide they needed consumers to depend on them and "they" didn't decide to divorce people from their sense of selves. that's ridiculous. people didn't set up a style of doing business in the hopes that in 200 years or 300 years or 400 years everyone would be a corporatized consumer. rather, people did what they've always done and always will do: find ways to make money and accrue power. our present situation isn't the result of diabolical forethought that deliberately and carefully turned us into the ipod-consuming cattle we are. we turned ourselves into that. and by "we" i mean even "they."

You're basically saying he's another Kevin Trudeau, which I guess is a reasonable conclusion based on 10 minutes of clips. In the book its pretty clear from the history of corporations he's laid out that there's no shadowy "they." The american revolution was based largely on economic opression, not oppression of social liberties. The economic oppression came in the form of having to ship cotton raised on american soil back to England only to have it shipped back in the form of clothing because a company chartered by the crown had monopoly on all textile production, to use a single example. Spinning cotton in the colonies could land you in prison. In other words, we weren't so much fighting the crown, but the chartered monopolies that were given the crown's blessings, including the central bank of england.

Fast forward that to now, we are enmeshed in the no-escape system of our own designs. There are computer programs that have been designed that proves mathematically, outside of any shadowy oligarchy, through the continuous process of exchanging money in a certain environment, in the end, the money ends up on a single bucket. That's math, not conspiracy. Read about it here. So really its a combination of people who are out to fuck us, and the system itself.

As far as alienation, that's a omnipresent marxist criticism of capitalism. One of the main beefs the left has with what they consider a "free market" is that it alienates people from their own means of existence. Rushkoff uses, what I think, is an airtight example of how far this process has noticibly gone. The very act of "flipping houses" means you treat the very place you live as a commodity. How fucked up is that?

But he goes further to show its not the free market, its corporate strongholds. Did you know that marketing theory has largely stopped strategizing ways of marketing to a group? As far as "they" are concerned, human groups don't even exist anymore. Everything is marketed to an isolated individual, now intentionally isolated because they are better consumers. Think about that the next time you see a commercial for jeans with a hunky guy and a hot babe with your spouse. Its clearly not something you're meant to share together. Unless you're swingers.

Originally Posted by cacophony

it's a remarkably effective way to spin a conspiracy theory to an unhappy population that's just hoping to see itself as victimized. the republicans bank on that kind of thing. "they" don't want you to have faith. "they" don't want you to have family values. "they" want to shut down your church and force your daughter to have an abortion. the invention of the mythical "they" wins a lot of hearts and minds.

Its no conspiracy that

1. Americans are the fattest people in the world.
2. Spend the most on health care, the majority on big pharma medication
3. Are the furthest in debt by a vaast margin
4. work the longest hours and have the less amount of free time