Youtube has intellectual purposes...

Some Highlights

Chomsky
BBC Interview Part 1
BBC Interview Part 2

Debate of Chomsky vs. Foucault
Part 1
Part 2

Michel Foucault On 'Disciplinary Society,'
Part 1
Part 2

Michel Foucault On 'Pleasure Vs. Desire'
Clip

Sut Jhally and Edward Said on "Orientalism"
Clip

There are tons more on youtube, use it productively.

The Decline of the American Dream…For the Working Class

This article (1) seems to be cautiously worried and partially intrigued about the American public’s failure to increase consumer spending when wages have increased and energy costs have fallen. Yet, through its explanation of the factors that could be attributing to this dilemma for capital the article points to the logic of capital and its inherent bias against labor - the working class.

Where are Americans spending all the money they’re saving on gas? Not at Wal-Mart, it seems. Wal-Mart Stores was one of several large retailers, along with Target and Costco, to post disappointing October sales totals yesterday. The results suggest that lower- and middle-class Americans are holding on tightly to their wallets even as energy prices fall and wages rise.(2)

And holding on tightly they should, because American consumers bank accounts are in the red, America has a negative savings rate folks, that is not good for the lower and middle classes.

The slowdown in business at big-box retailers like Wal-Mart is one sign that some consumers are cutting back as the weakening housing market is dragging down overall economic growth.(3)

This is also not good news for two reasons (1) the housing bubble has to deflate at some point in time and (2) all the individuals just scraping by who bought a house during the low interest rate boom of 2003-2004 are just now starting to declare bankruptcies and this should become an even bigger problem as interest rates rise. Most lower income and middle class families turned towards ARM – adjustable rate mortgage - loans when interest rates hit historic lows in 2003-2004. Unlike traditional fixed rate loans whose rates are fixed over the life of the loan, typically 15, 20, 30 or now 40 years the new ARM loans have low teaser rates for 1, 3, 5, 7 or 10 years which then adjust after that initial low rate to the going market rate and then can readjust as soon as every year after that. In addition, during the initial low teaser interest rate period the home owner can also choose P&I – principal and interest - or IO – interest only - payments, P&I pays off the interest on the loan as well as the loan itself, while interest only merely pays the interest on the loan and does not even begin to reduce the actual loan amount.

Now, the ARM loans are appealing to lower income and young buyers who believe they will be making more money in 5-10 years and they better be, because when their ARM adjusts or the P&I payments start kicking in their monthly payments will skyrocket. An example:

For Inga Rogers, the party ends in 38 days. On Nov. 1, the adjustable-rate mortgage, or ARM, she took out three years ago at the spectacular rate of 3.875 percent will get considerably more expensive. Ms. Rogers, a single mother of two living in a three-bedroom ranch in suburban Boston, faces a rate increase of three percentage points, raising her monthly house payment by $300, to $1,419, and putting her at a financial crossroads(4).

Now, this situation is not in the best interests of lenders nor homeowners, the American government and the business industry does not want individuals to grow sour on the myth of obtaining the American dream and lenders with high bankruptcy rates make no profit. But with so many people taking on ARM loans it signals the main problems that the lower and middle classes are facing: HIGH HOUSING PRICES and LOW WAGES.

Another topic we could address in a future article is what is going to happen to the generation coming out of college now that is being priced out of the housing market on the West and East coasts and is forced to either (1) move back in with their parents and save money to buy a home or (2) rent for a majority of their life and pray that the housing market crashes so they can find an affordable house.

Think about how much rent you pay or the cost of your mortgage for the year...if it is over 30% of your annual income then where you live does not meet HUD’s (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) definition of affordable housing.

The generally accepted definition of affordability is for a household to pay no more than 30 percent of its annual income on housing. Families who pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing are considered cost burdened and may have difficulty affording necessities such as food, clothing, transportation and medical care. An estimated 12 million renter and homeowner households now pay more then 50 percent of their annual incomes for housing, and a family with one full-time worker earning the minimum wage cannot afford the local fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the United States.(5)

Based on the 2003 American Community Survey:

In 2003, more than one-third of renter households in every state lived in unaffordable housing...nationally, 47 percent of renter households paid over 30 percent of their income on housing in 2003 (up from 45 percent in 2002).(6)

There is not a single jurisdiction in the country where a person working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year at the prevailing minimum wage can afford a one-bedroom apartment. On a national basis, a person needs to earn a Housing Wage of $15.78 an hour, working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the Fair Market Rent.(7)

Obviously, there is a housing crisis in America, everyone should not only be guaranteed a place to live, but one that is affordable. These statistics display just how precarious the lives of the lower classes really are, how individuals struggle day by day to not just put food on the table, but a roof over their head. For more information on actions going on to remedy this situation check out: National Low Income Housing Coalition(NLIHC) or The Joint Center for Housing Studies(JCHS)

In essence, by paying worker's little they are forced to take out high-interest high-risk loans to purchase a home and live out the American Dream and when interest rates increase and their paychecks do not they will have to default on their loans and possibly declare bankruptcy, which will no longer wipe their slate clean, but force them to pay back their debt - no chances to screw up anymore. The capitalist class will get its money one way or another. The extension of credit to the masses, one way to increase profit levels - to bridge the gap between low worker pay and the high cost of commodities - can be seen as one way to attempt to squeeze as much capital from the hands of workers as possible.

Another interesting point, giving high-interest high-risk loans to individuals who are realtively unlikely to afford these loans in the long run benefits financial capital but does not benefit other forms of capital - such as entertainment capital, for consumers who are burdened with housing debt are no longer able to enjoy time out on the town anymore, because their housing payments eat up all their disposable income. This displays the contradictory nature of competing capital - they fight with each other over the same nest egg.

Back to issues of consumer spending:

But even as the economy continues to downshift, wages are increasing and Americans are finding themselves with more disposable income, in part because of falling gas prices. Instead of spending that money, low-and middle-income consumers appear to be sticking to their budgets…There is some evidence to suggest that Americans are putting more money aside. This week, the Commerce Department reported that the national personal savings rate in September came the closest it has in a year and a half to being positive. It was negative $15 billion, its healthiest level since May 2005.(8)

Excuse me? The healthiest level since May 2005, back in the 1980s the savings rate of the U.S. was 8%, it has been negative for several years now. If this is a not a key example of the lower and middle classes getting screwed by the capitalist class then I do not know what is. The fact that so many families are spending more than they take in is definitely not good news for the working classes, especially in light of the recent action by congress, which passed their heavily class biased bankruptcy bill that in essence prohibits working class families from declaring bankruptcy and starting over, it is now harder to do that, most will have to pay back their debt. So much for a new lease on life.

Explain how good the retirement of the working classes will be if they are forced to live day-to-day for their entire lives? With no savings means no retirement, abysmally low social security payments, elongated working lives and the loss of leisure and relaxation in one’s old age.

Welcome to the fifth layer of hell.

From Ideology to Hegemony

Below is a section from my thesis on how Marx, Gramsci and Althusser saw the concept of ideology. It is very informative in my study of society and I hope it will be helpful for you as well.

For Karl Marx (Tucker [1972] 1978), when individuals view the world through the lens of ideology “men” and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura. This brings up two important questions: (1) What does this mean? (2) How does this happen? For Marx, the lived ideology of the subordinate class, the proletariat, was based upon the dominant classes mode of thought. The bourgeoisie use the power legitimated to the state to make their particular interests appear as if they are in the interests of all of society, that they are the general interest. To do so the bourgeoisie employ the superstructure (the legal and political structure of society) to reproduce the existence of a capitalist base (the economic structure of society). In essence, ideology causes men to see their social existence and relations in ways that do not actually exist, as a result of a socialization process into the dominant classes way of thinking. A mode of thought that does not speak to nor is it from the proletariat’s location within the forces of production, which causes the proletariat’s mode of consciousness to support the dominant class and further their own exploitation. The proletariat sees an economic system of man as a social being and between men as one of autonomous individuals and between things. This view obscures their exploitation and allows the bourgeoisie to accumulate surplus value (profit) from the labor of the proletariat.

In Marx’s view, as individuals enter into relations to reproduce their material livelihood, relations that are independent of their will, they enter into social and political relations as well, ones that are constructed and based upon the form of production through which individuals reproduce their material existence. Furthermore, it is through the reproduction of their material existence that individuals produce their ideas, conceptions and consciousness. Consequently, each persons consciousness is determined by where they fall in the reproduction of society’s material existence. A system of reproduction that depends on an increasingly regimented division of labor, a division of labor that produces different forms of consciousness that come into direct conflict. This conflict arises from the division of labor, as intellectual and material activity are separated and given to different individuals who now have different interests, goals and outlooks on life. Consequently, the struggle for power between these different forms of consciousness are played out in the sphere of civil society, that of the state. Since it is through the state that a group of individuals can gain the political power invested within the state and turn their particular class interests into that of the general interest. As a result of the successful attempt to exercise their particular interests as the general interests, the civil society becomes that of the bourgeoisie and reproduces in the superstructure the same conflicts that exist at the level of the base. “For the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its intellectual force (Tucker [1972] 1978:172).” The class that owns the means of production is at the same time the class of mental production and therefore, the class that lacks ownership of the means of production is unable to articulate their material interests and becomes subject to the ruling classes mental productions.

In summation, the ruling classes ideas must obtain a universal dimension and speak of their communal orientation, they must become the only way of seeing society and its form of existence, their ideas must appear to gain an independent existence apart from the ruling class. As a result, it is illusion when laws appear to gain independence of their relation to the ruling class, who use the state to reinforce their particular interests as the general interest. Thus, the ruling class and the ruling ideas become “lived” by the subordinate classes even though they do not correspond to their actual mode of existence. Thereby, when the division of labor in society that reproduces man’s material existence is actually a social division of labor and therefore a relation of men it can appear as merely a relation of things. For that reason, the current form of production and consumption takes on the appearance of autonomous individuals exchanging private property and denies the interconnection of man that is required for their production and consumption; when in reality this form of production and consumption actually creates men as independent individuals who interact through private property. How individuals view the world is largely imaginary for Marx, a world of illusion, as they do not correspond to reality. They view what is a man made activity and inherently a relation of “men” as a relation of things, one that obscures the capitalist economic system as a historical creation of man and is thereby subject to their control. This illusionary world furthers the proletariat’s exploitation at the hands of the bourgeoisie, who have made their specific value system a universal value system.

Antonoi Gramsci (1971) builds off of Marx’s exposition on ideology and its relation to both the base and the superstructure of society with his discussion of the formation of hegemony. Gramsci argues that every social group arising out of economic production creates a group of intellectuals that provides the group with the knowledge of its purpose in the economic, social and political spheres. These intellectual elite attempt to function as the organizers of society and seek to not only keep but also extend their own classes power. For Gramsci there are two superstructural levels, the civil society (private individuals) and the political society (the state) that work together to preserve hegemony, one groups dominance over others that is exercised throughout society. The two major effects of hegemony are (1) that the masses give consent to the way society is structured and run and therefore give consent to the dominant social group to continue as rulers and (2) this consent thereby allows the dominant social group to exert its force legally to maintain the current societal form.

For that reason, hegemony consists of not just political force to make compulsory the current economic form, which benefits the dominant group, but that the dominant group is able to maintain a hegemonic influence on subordinate groups through the use of culture as well. Hegemony is maintained through ideas and modes of thought; its power can be wielded either through physical force or intellectual force. It is through the intellectuals of the dominant group that an ideology is disseminated that cultivates within the subordinate groups the bourgeois values that will maintain the current economic, social and political structure. Therefore, through the use of ideology the dominant group is able to gain consent over the lower classes, as the lower classes see their reality through the lens of the bourgeoisie and do not see the world as it is, but as they live it through ideology. It is important to note that Gramsci did not see hegemony as static nor without conflict. Hegemony must be constantly maintained through the use of the superstructure – the apparatuses of the church, education, media and family, which all contribute to the creation and implementation of ideology, which allows for the maintenance of hegemony. Consequently, Gramsci saw that hegemony is difficult to maintain and that total incorporation or domination does not occur, thereby enabling resistance to the dominant ideology. Thus, the role of ideology in the subordination of the working classes was key for Gramsci and he argued for the creation of “organic” intellectuals that were of the working class and spoke of and to their interests. If the working class was ever to gain control of the means of intellectual production, that of the education system and the state and therefore the means to disseminate values that favored themselves then they needed to create a mass of “organic” intellectuals who would popularize the values of the proletariat.

Althusser expounds upon Marx’s concept of ideology and Gramsci’s concept of hegemony through his essay on “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (2001). Althusser begins with the explanation that the dominant mode of production conditions the social formation and that the continuation of the social formation requires the reproduction of the current productive forces and the existing relations of production. For Althusser, the current productive forces and the existing relations of production are reproduced through the interrelations between the Repressive State Apparatus and the many different Ideological State Apparatuses: religion, education, family, law, politics, communications and culture. In contrast to the Repressive State Apparatus which is one public entity that functions through the use of violence and repression there are a plurality of ISAs whose province is private and function primarily through ideology. Yet, the two are linked since the ruling class that holds State power and controls the RSA also has influence over the ISAs, as “no class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses” (Althusser 2001:98). The RSA secures by force the political conditions necessary for both the reproduction of the relations of production and the power of the ISAs, while the ISAs primarily secure the reproduction of the relations of production. Therefore, it is through both control of the RSA and the ISAs that the ideology of the ruling class becomes the ruling ideology. Additionally, Althusser agrees with Gramsci in two respects: (1) that the control over the ISAs by the ruling class is not concrete, resulting in the ISAs being the site of class struggle and (2) that the foremost or dominant ISA in capitalist society is the school or educational ideological apparatus; the school is one of the foremost reproducers of the relations of production and infuses each type of worker with the ideology necessary for their reproduction of the existing relation of production, it socializes them into the ruling ideology.

Althusser builds off of Marx’s work and argues that through ideology men do not represent the real world to themselves, the world as is exists, but an imaginary representation, the world as it appears to them. Ideology represents not the system of relations that actually exists in society and by which men interact with each other but the imaginary relations to which they believe they are governed. “Ideology represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to their real conditions of existence” (Althusser 2001:109). It is an ideology that becomes lived by the people and therefore gains a material existence, as it exists within an apparatus of control and influences action. Ultimately, ideology is situated on turning individuals into subjects, on creating a subject who sees him or herself as a self-contained subject who subjects himself to self-control; rather than being forced into submission the individual submits themselves to subordination, a process Althusser named this interpellation. The individual views him or herself as an autonomous person, a construction of his or her own action rather than their construction through the pre-existing social structures. In actuality, the individual is constituted as a subject not by themselves but by the ISAs. Althusser’s structuralist oriented philosophy shines through in his idea of ideology and interpellation, he argues that the individual is constituted as a subject by pre-given structures; that they are socialized into existing modes of thought with little ability to resist and that the individuals inability to see the process of their social constitution as an autonomous individual is itself ideological.

Althusser, Louis. 2001. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation.” Pp. 85-126 in Lenin
and Philosophy, and Other Essays. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey
Nowell Smith. New York, NY: International Publishers.

Tucker, Robert C, ed. [1972] 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

Class Struggle and The Logic of Capital: France

France expands working hours:

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said the changes were aimed at restoring the work ethic in France and improving its sluggish economic performance by encouraging people to earn more by working more…He said the change was vital to keep the French economy competitive and to create more jobs...Employers said the 35-hour week, introduced in 1998, had failed to create jobs and was uncompetitive…the changes will allow workers to work up to 48 hours a week - the maximum allowed by the European Union.(1)

This is a perfect example of how capital valorizes itself, how capital begets capital. Now capital is produced through the production of surplus value, a process that can go either of two ways – the production of absolute surplus value or the production of relative surplus value. Absolute surplus value is produced through the elongation of the working day while relative surplus value is produced through the increase in productivity of labor.

An example is that the working day is 8 hours, the necessary labor time is the amount the laborer has to work to produce the equivalent value of their wage. Under capital this time is always less than is actually worked, for as labor power is the only commodity that produces value – machines merely transfer value from themselves to the commodities, they do not produce additional value – if the worker stopped producing at the equivalent of their wage there would be no surplus value for the capitalist – the owner of the means of production.

Therefore, the excess labor the worker expends past the amount of time necessary to reproduce their wage value in commodities is labeled as surplus labor time – during this time the commodities produced are combined together and become the surplus value. Consequently, the elongation of the working day is one way to produce more surplus value, as the wage paid out will not be equal to the value of the commodities produced. The capitalist would not push to extend the working day if it was not in their favor.

Another tactic is relative surplus value – increased productivity. An example of which is where the worker now produces in two hours what they used to produce in three hours. They are paid the same amount, but must produce more commodities in the same amount of time. Meaning, that they now produce more surplus value in the same time than they used to, due to mechanization.

Yes, France is beset by several economic problems, one being a labor problem, another a capital problem, the former being unemployment which is hovering around 10% and the latter being rigid hiring and firing regulations which are blamed by industry for preventing corporations from easily hiring and firing labor, which industry argues produces the high unemployment levels. Additionally, industry attacks these labor laws for limiting innovation and growth.

These arguments leave out the facts that the French welfare model is much more supportive and plush compared to the U.S. welfare model – which is almost non-existent. Moreover, capital wants and needs flexible and cheap labor and so desires as little labor protection and regulation laws as possible, for these labor laws limit the exploitation of labor by capital. Implicit within this argument is the assumption that economic growth and innovation is always good – but one must ask good for whom? What standards are we judging economic growth by – nuclear proliferation, pollution levels, GDP, profit levels?

And so what is the solution to unemployment and supposed lack of competitiveness on productivity levels: INCREASE WORKING HOURS!!!

Now this defies most logic for the workers, while it may benefit a small number of individual workers it will negatively harm the workers collectively, it gives in to capital’s desire for surplus-value through an increase in ASV – absolute surplus-value - an increase in the total working day. Corporations benefit because they can now have their current workers work longer hours and avoid the hiring of new employers whose costs are more than the mere regular or overtime pay the current worker would receive, because a new worker would get benefits and other costs that are tacked onto their wages, new increases which are not incurred through the elongation of exploitation of the current worker.

In addition, the elongation of working hours actually directly maintains the current unemployment rate, especially within that industry, for instead of hiring new workers to fill up the required working hours they now force their current workers to work longer. This is where the movement for shorter hours, higher wages comes in. So capital wants to elongate working hours, mechanize, or automate to increase productivity levels. The workers response should be yes, but we will work less as a result, for this increase in productivity, spurred by the desire to decrease costs of production, will result in layoffs which will increase the unemployment levels and decrease the wages of the current workers – as increasing unemployment tends to decrease wages due to higher supply and lower demand. By saying they will work less they allow for the increase in productivity while not increasing the unemployment rate and maintaining their wage or salary level.

For instance, if 7 workers reduce their work week from 40 to 35 hours a week, there is now one more 35 hour work week position available. Imagine this taking place on a large scale, wages are relatively maintained, workers can work less, unemployment decreases and production levels increase. The one problem is that for this movement to work it needs to be inclusive and global, which is a major hurdle, but not one that should detract us from its pursuit, the shorter hours, higher wages movement had its birth in the U.S. and needs to be revived as a sound and plausible theory for social change.

Restoring the work ethic, come on, last time I checked people did not want to work more because they enjoyed their jobs, but because they needed the extra money – does this not signify that maybe the jobs do not pay enough and it is a tactic of capital’s to underpay their employers so they are forced to take overtime or work longer hours to earn enough money to survive and thereby maintain the current unemployment levels, which continues to depress the wages or salary of their job. If the workers created a tight labor market through shorter hours – higher wages then workers could get the best of both worlds. Most people do not like to think of being exploited, it is not top on the list of things one wants to do on a daily basis; the whole concept of a work ethic and working longer hours is ridiculous. The language of the work ethic and uncompetitiveness is the language of capital and is a race to the bottom for the worker.

To see labor's response to these and previous attacks on the rights and lives of workers, to see their show of refusal and their collective power, check out these news articles, (2), (3), (4), (5)

Freedom and the ability for security, stability and self-determination are not gained in a day nor given to you, it must be obtained through struggle.

Labor will not put up without a fight!

The State as a Class Weapon

The Capitalist Class has succeeded tremendously in transforming the state from that of a welfare oriented model to that of a mechanism for capital accumulation. From a state that is geared towards the workers and therefore the lower and middle classes towards the capitalists and therefore the upper and capitalist class.

Through rewriting the tax code, increasing bonuses for top-executives and providing enormously generous stock options and severance packages the rich are getting much richer and the middle classes and the poor are falling behind significantly (more on this in a future post).

The first graph (right) shows the dramatic increase in CEO to average worker pay that has occured in the U.S. since the 1940s, with a dramatic take-off occuring in the 1990s. The numbers are mindboggiling and unique to the U.S., for other countries are no where near as high (more on this in a future post).. For instance, in 1940, half of the executives earned more than 54 times the average worker's pay and in 2004, half of the executives earned more than 104 times the average worker's pay. What is even worse is that the top 10% of executives earned 74 times the average worker's pay in 1950, in 2004 this had increased to 350.


The second graph (left) shows the increase in dollars of average executive pay, increasing from around $1 million in the late 1960s to $4.4 million dollars today. An increase of 77.3% (comparision to average worker's pay increase in % in a future post).



The last graph shows just how much the guilded age is back in full swing, how the richest of the rich are becoming more rich and distancing themselves from even the rich. How the rich are amassing more and more wealth (futher numbers on this in future post).

Class Struggle: Workers and the Nation-state of Greece

The marxian view of the state (simplified): under capital the state is a weapon of class warfare, controlled by the ruling elite and used to maintain its political and economic power while subordinating others classes to its interests.

But look at what has happened recently in Greece, the workers are fighting back.

[A] 24-hour general strike [was] called by the main public and private sector unions…There was widespread disruption to transport and public services across Greece on Wednesday…The unions called the strike as part of an escalating campaign of action over the conservative government's attempts to reform the economy…There is real discontent amongst the workforce at low wages and high prices. Union officials say the minimum wage in Greece is half the European Union average(1).

It is nice to see that labor has some organization and power in the world today. The Greeks know how to stand their ground and fight for the hard won benefits that all individuals should receive. This is not just a one of occurrence either, Greek labor has been very active the past two years in striking and letting their voice and power be shown(2)(3)(4)

It would be nice to see this type of syndicalistic labor action in the United States, whose corporatist labor structure has effectively gutted any radical potential of labor to create a social welfare state. The extremely bureaucratic and top-down business and management approach of American labor has decimated the rank-and-file and grassroots support which was a key for mobilization and building bridges within the labor movement and making it part of a wider social struggle as well. Additionally, the heavily anti-labor laws in the U.S. gutted a lot of the radical potential of labor unions as well.

However, the loss of a rank-and-file labor organization structure lead to the lack of focus on increasing membership, maintaining energy in the labor organization process and building coalitions with other groups oriented to social struggle. About the only worthwhile and grass-roots oriented labor organization now is UNITE(5).

Labor’s demise is largely its own fault for not branching out and increasing membership - through grass roots campaigning and union leadership, failing to make labor part of a broader coalition for social change and for letting the government rob it of its revolutionary potential through the enactment of anti-labor legislation, which was allowed to pass precisely because of the two problems mentioned previously.

Commodification and the Counterculture

I think we need to investigate the relationship between commodification and the counterculture a little deeper.

First off, what is the difference between a dominant culture, a subculture and a counterculture?

Simplified sociological definitions:

Dominant Culture: The values, beliefs, norms that maintain the ruling social, economic, and political interests.

Subculture: Segment of society whose values, beliefs, and norms differ from that of the dominant.

Counter Culture: A subculture whose values, beliefs and norms deliberately oppose those of the dominant culture.

The relationship between commodification and counterculture also raises several key questions which could guide research and understanding of this relationship. Questions that link the individual and culture, the individual and the social structure, ones that address the interrelationship between consumption and identity:

Why do people rebel/What causes rebellion?
How is rebellion commodified?
How does commodification affect the rebellion? Its goals and aims?
Does commodified rebellion address social issues that underlie the rebellion?
Has rebellion become individualized, rather than a social movement?
Why has rebellion been individualized, if it has?

I believe what has been lost in the ongoing debate within research on consumer culture and the argument over the consumer as dupe or the consumer as sovereign is a middle ground that addresses both the desires and identity of the individual and the requirements of capitalism for profit maximization – how it uses these identity needs in its such for profit (I believe this middle ground has been taken by some but does not seem to be overwhelming)

This angle is the product of William Fritz Haug and his book Critique of Commodity Aesthetics: Appearance, Sexuality, and Advertising in Capitalist Society.

Haug argues that commodity aesthetics is

a complex which springs from the commodity form of the products and which is functionally determined by EV – a complex of material phenomena and of the sensual subject-object relations conditioned by these phenomena (P.7).

For Haug commodity aesthetics has two main parts, (1) signifying beauty – appearance appealing to the senses and (2) a beauty developed in the service of the realization of EV – commodities designed to stimulate in the onlooker the desire to posses and the impulse to buy (P.8).

Commodity aesthetics is born from capital’s demands for valorization, a demand and a process which is encumbered through the process of exchange – where a seller attempts to unload a commodity in the search of exchange-value and a buyer attempts to use money to obtain a use-value. This process of exchange is key for capital to obtain profit, for without exchange profit would not be realized. So in an attempt to increase consumption and therefore the profit levels of corporations, as well as an attempt to decrease the time between production and consumption, commodity aesthetics is born. For the whole purpose of commodity aesthetics is to give the appearance of use-value to its commodities so that individuals will part with their money.

“The aesthetic abstraction of the commodity detaches itself from the object acting as a carrier of exchange-value and makes the two available separately (P.50)”

Appearance is detached from the material form and quality of the commodity and is embellished and altered for means of deception – promising what it is not.

“At first form and surface are merely separated – the form being cheapened while the surface appears of a higher quality or quantity. But then its image is splintered from the commodity itself – fed through the mass media – and arrives to the individual before the formal commodity every does (P.50).”

The disassociation of the commodity object and commodity image has occurred.

It is within this discussion of commodity aesthetics that Haug lays out his thesis of manipulation:

“that manipulation can only be effective if it somehow latched on to the objective interests of those being manipulated (P.6).”

The masses, he argues, are being manipulated while pursuing their interests. If we take Haug’s work as legitimate and true than I think his argument ties in well with an attempt to understand the ongoing sub-culture and counterculture pandemic among advertising and marketing. His manipulation thesis ties together the economic system and the individual’s identity needs.

Working with the arguments that individuals crave a meaningful existence and the desire for uniqueness and distinction, all attributes that can be provided by belonging to a subculture or counterculture, I would argue that when individuals consume commodities that are to provide one with or facilitate their belonging to a sub- or counterculture they sincerely believe that these commodities will bring their desires or dreams into reality. They believe commodity consumption will meet their identity needs and provide them with happiness.

However, I would argue that commodified rebellion must work within the existing property relations of capital, of bourgeois private property. As a result, in consumer culture sub-cultural components or counterculture rebellion must be individualized. It must become “image” and/or “style.” It must become removed from the political process and social movements - reduced to an image or collection of signs. Primarily because social movements affect the political and economic systems and therefore have qualitative social and economic change potential – which is a potential disaster for the power elite, but also this reduction to image or style occurs do to the logic of the market – which presupposes commodification and individuation – that the market is the answer to all your “individualized” problems.

Consequently, rebellion has become hip or cool based on both the needs of the individual and capital. Therefore, rebellion is commodified to sell as identity components, as something to display on your shelf - look I’m different, I’m not a corporate tool. Rebellion has been subsumed under the demands of the fashion system – its image obliterated from its meaning and social context to become an ahistorical entity, reduced to merely one “style” among many, one choice of life among a plethora of other lifestyles that the market can provide to you, if you can afford it.

Working off the belief that individuals are indeed being manipulated, as the market fails to follow through on the use-value of commodities – they fail to actually provide happiness and rebellion, then the question becomes, how can a radical aesthetic seek to change society through individualized consumption? Is this possible? Can a radical aesthetic work within the confines of the society that is it apart of – can it use commodified leisure time to its advantage, can it use the logic of capital to its own advantage to bring about a revolution in the social order of society. Can an aesthetic be introduced into the market via commodities that would facilitate social movements to alter the political and economic system?

Capitalism as a Global Phenomenon

Student said: “So if capitalism has subsumed or partnered with coolness, can it survive without it? What about cultural facets, outsiders who are not part of this totality of the protestant ethic (like developing nations) that capitalism has not found a way to market/profit from?”

“Developing” nations are indeed crucial for the sustainability of capital, for capital is a global phenomenon, both in thought and action. Several authors have written on this, V.I. Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism(1) and Immanuel Wallerstein’s World System’s Theory(2) both discuss the need of Advanced Industrial Nations – first world powers – for these developing countries for several reasons (1) raw materials and resources which are crucial for mass production and cheaper to extract due to cheap labor, lax environmental regulation and state oversight, really flexible labor laws and low corporate taxation, (2) cheap labor also keeps commodity prices down so that the first world consumers can buy the products for sale, even with their wages stagnating since the 1970s – it is one way to increase the purchasing power of “first world” consumers without having to raise their wages and decrease corporate profits, you just decrease the products cost of production via decreasing the cost of labor-power, (3) these labor markets can be used to keep the wages of “first world” workers from rising substantially – through the threat of off-shoring, (4) these markets can be used to dump product that cannot be sold in the U.S. do to lack of consumer demand or their becoming illegal to sell – for instance, Nestle sold millions of packages of dry formula to mothers in Africa and ran a campaign to get mothers to stop breastfeeding their babies and use the Nestle formula instead, at a time when these practices were illegal in the United States. Globalization and colonialism is a direct result of capitalism and colonialism is a direct manifestation of accumulation through dispossession.
Additionally, through IMF and World Bank policies “developing” countries are kept in a state of dependence on “first world” countries through debt repayment plans and industrialization plans which tend to push money away from creating a viable autonomous state with a self-sufficient industry and infrastructure to one dependent on being integrated into a world economy – with devastating affects on the agrarian population and small industries who cannot compete with the big industrial or agri-business of the U.S. or Europe. These policies tend to focus on opening up their markets to “first world” investment, with the majority of profits going to the U.S. or European corporation and not staying locally or national to benefit the nation itself.
If Capital was merely a national phenomenon and not a global phenomenon it would be even more unstable and class conflict would be even more salient than capital is on a global level. For capital’s internal logic makes it a global phenomenon, it cannot be kept nationally, it will expand all over the globe, converting everything in its path over to its side. If Capital was forced to be national the internal contradictions within capital would manifest themselves at a much more frequent and deeper level than they currently do.

Student said: “So if capitalism has subsumed or partnered with coolness, can it survive without it?”

For the past 40 years capital’s advertising and marketing of products has been directly intertwined with youth, sexuality, being rebellious and being cool. These components I believe are identity needs, the last three primarily of the youth – adolescence and early adult hood. Youth subcultures are constant springing up because they want to be cool, be different, be rebellious, it has become a natural part of life. As long as the youth create new subcultures then capital will use their image and style to mass market them to the masses who want the same things. Capital might find a way to work around it, find something even better – but I think it has found the perpetual fountain of youth – the geyser of eternal ideas and change, which is great for capitalism – giving it new images and styles to sell to the public.

"Counterculture" and Capitalism

For an interesting read on the unity that exists between the counterculture and capitalism check out The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism(1). In the book Thomas Frank basically links up the importance of business in fueling the popularity of subcultures and countercultures for their own economic needs and the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. It is in this decade that a focus on being a rebel, on being alternative and against the man became in vogue. Frank argues that the livelihood of the capitalist economy is dependent on this image and selling of being "counter to the mainstream". The counterculture, argues Frank, is a product of capital's need for valorization and of the individual's need to feel unique and cool.

Another book that focuses on the unity of the counterculture and capitalism, as sharing a similar entrepreneurial spirit that feeds the growth of capital, check out Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture became Consumerculture (2). The authors basically argue that the counterculture has very similar orientations economically as that of capital and therefore they are easily mass marketed and popularized, because in reality, cultural opposition is not that hard to sell or profit off of. In fact cultural opposition is what has fueled the growth of capital in the last fifty years. Everyone wants to be hip, cool, an outsider, for they base consumption and subcultures along lines of status - of distinction. Being part of the counterculture is cool, it makes one superior to all those boring, workaholics who have no life - "the squares". The selling of a counterculture and people's own needs for individualty and coolness directly supports the capitalist econoimc system, the counterculture is not oppositional politically or economically in its current form, so argues the authors.

When someone speaks of countercultures I always try and look at that counterculture and determine what exactly are they counter to? Does it lie on a cultural, economic, political, ecological level, etc. How do their ideals or goals oppose those of the dominant cultural, economic, or political systems - and who are these dominant groups/systems? To what degree of change would the exisiting society have to go through to implement their demands? Who would fight against these changes and how hard - what tactics would they use to prevent this changes from happening? Based upon what I have seen in the U.S. oppositional economic, political and ecological ideals and models - which of course are tied up with cultures, are more counter-to the dominant power blocs than easily commodified lifestyles - skating boarding, hipsters, punk, hip/hop. Now there are certain groups within each of these just mentioned that may be truely oppositional, but by and large these groups are either tamed by the marketplace or not really threatening the existing power blocs, in my opinion.

The Protestant Ethic and Capitalism

Explanation of the Protestant Ethic and its historical transformation for those not familiar with it.

Max Weber(1) argued that the (PE) was an important cultural factor in the creation of modern rational capitalism, it was a critique of Marx’s theory of historical materialism, which argued that cultural and political factors – part of the superstructure – were merely a manifestation of economic factors – the base. Weber attempted to display the relations between religion and the economy, highlighting the relative autonomy of religion and cultural factors from economic matters.

The (PE) was birthed by the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, which posed troubles for followers; how was I to know that I was one of the chosen? The followers looked to their pastors who offered two remedies 1) a lack of faith in feeling that one was chosen signaled lack of faith in God and a fall from grace and 2) that a tireless labor in a calling was the best possible means of attaining this self-assurance – one needed to constantly display their proof of being “a chosen” through labor. The result was innerworldy rational asceticism: rigorous, scrupulous, methodical work within a calling and the individuals who practice this discipline are the vehicles of the rationalizing capitalist spirit.

The rise of the (PE) signaled the destruction of traditional forms of work and profit orientation. Labor was soon organized along lines of efficiency and lax time was not allowed. However, while profit and material wealth displayed that you were chosen by God, this wealth was not to be consumed by the individual for leisure purposes. The wealth was not supposed to support an idle or luxurious life, the money was to be reinvested into the business – creating ever expanding industries and drawing more people in the production and consumption spheres into this new economic production system.

Yet, over time the economic foundation of modern rational capitalism would be able to survive without this religious impulse, as future generations would no longer have a choice nor religious conviction to engage in “the calling”. All would be forced to work under the new economic demands of modern rational capitalism.

Subsequently, the stigma against conspicuous consumption, against using wealth to provide for a luxurious or idle life, against instant gratification would fall away, especially with the rise of marketing and advertising in the early 20th century, which focused on breaking down the stigma against instant gratification and materialist hedonism. Strategies that focused on inducing people to consume the commodities of mass production and linked happiness, freedom, democracy and the American dream with consumption of commodities, material wealth, ownership of the newest toys.

So modern capital tends to focus on maintaining the methodical and rigorous work discipline (the production side of the PE) while breaking down the taboo against consumerism and enjoyment of wealth production (the consumption side of the PE). This apparent conflict of the production and consumption ethics of modern capitalism is viewed as very problematic for capitalism by Daniel Bell in his book “The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism”(2), others disagree and that these two spheres work very well together, increasing worker dissatisfaction is sedated through leisure activities and entertainment industries, which appease the individuals need for satisfaction that is denied them in their working life. Instead of the working classes attempting to create social change and overthrow capitalism, the leisure and entertainment industries keep the masses happy and isolated, preventing the formation of a historical bloc that seeks to change the existing society.

Mass Culture: A response to a student

Student's question: I had wondered in recent weeks about a good working definition of mass culture. My internal assumptions, which of course could be faulty, are that (a) mass culture as is a product of the industrial, market-driven age -- i.e. that there is a recprocal relationship with the marketplace (in its abstract defition) and culture and (b) that mass culture is some kind of social remix of the low/popular, and high/authoritative cultures that, as we have seen, were divided out when certain societal hierarchies were formed. But, perhaps we can think of it as (high-culture) power's appropriation and transformation of low culture forms, which it "tames" or censors in some manner, and then reimposes it back onto the less powerful classes. So, I suppose related questions I have are: is modern mass culture a stripped-down carnival culture--non-threatening to power-- in a box? If so or even if not, who are the 'masters' of the culture and who are the 'slaves' to it, or is this even an appropriate way of thinking about it, when everyone is a consumer, even the 'masters'

Mass culture from my perspective and based on the readings that I have done in this area tends to be tied to the growth of industrial society and now is a key component of advanced industrial society. Mass culture is born of mass production which begets mass consumption.

Therefore, mass culture is not merely an autonomous cultural manifestation but is the product of certain economic modes of production that necessitate that a mass of people consume the commodities in production, otherwise you have overproduction and a crisis sets in leading to a recession, unless new markets for consumption are found. Therefore, historically there is movement by capitalist industry to devalue the protestant ethic in the sphere of consumption only, not in the sphere of production. There is movement, espeically through marketing and advertising to get people to consume the commodities for sale, the linkage of democracy and happiness and equality through the consumption of the commodities become omnipresent, so the market becomes the beacon of freedom, equality, individuality, etc.

This is of course incorrect, for several reasons, (1) consuming requires you have money and therefore a job, we all know how "free" we are to work and how work is in our best "interest", (2) equality of consumption is impossible since income inequailty is produced through the sphere of consumption, therefore as long as the sphere of production is unequal in pay then then "the democratic equality of the image" of commodities will be false, (3) mass produced goods cannot provide you individuality, it is its antithesis.

Additionally, not only does capitalist industry seek to change the culture of society towards their interests there is now the production of mass culture - where art, literature, music, film, etc. is mass produced for the masses, so cultural production is now tied into the profit motive and its form and content are altered by the economic requirements of large scale corporations to meet their needs, while also appearing to meet the desires of the populace. (We can talk about the manipulation thesis of the consumer later).

Indeed, mass culture does tend to be a merging of lower and higher cultural into this odd manifestation for sale to all. The barier between high culture and high art and the rest of the people tends to be reduced in mass consumer culture - for high art becomes subject to similar economic demands as almost any other piece of art does.

Mass culture does tend to remove the oppositional or critical content from popular/working class culture. This is very evident in the birth of rock and roll, punk, etc. all lower class/working class and in rock's case, black culture, same thing happened with rap, it is lifted out of its lower environment, its scene, shorn of its true meaning and essence and converted into aesthetics of image and clothing styles, into fashion. same thing has happend in teh last 5 years in the underground hardcore/metal scene which i frequent, fashion and image are so dominant now, its community mindedness and oppositional content, what little there was, is now fading.

We must also determine how oppositional are these culture's? on what level? culture, economic, political, etc. Sub-culture's tend to be easily mass-marketed, oppositional economic/ecological agenda's are less easily adopted into capital's demand for valorization - maximization of profit. [a good book on how capital has been able to incorporate all oppositional elements into its continued and strengthened existence and the brith of one-dimensional society and throught is Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. He was part of the Frankfurt School in Germany in the 40-60s. They attempted to bring Marx up-to-date and even combined him with Freud and focused on capital and culture primarily.]

In terms of who controls what, that is an interesting question with many different answers depending on who you ask and what academic department they work in and what lens they see the world through. Sub-culture's manifest their own content but it tends to get modified through its massification by captialist industry and I would argue that there is a continual battle for control over meaning production and consumption.

If you are interested in the concept of culture from a cultural studies perspective than the work of the Cultural study pioneer's in the 1960s in Britian check out E.P Thompson, Stuart Hall, they saw culture as a way of life lived by people, as a struggle over meaning between a subordinate and superior culture (based on a power dynamic, not on aesthetic taste). Their work focused on working class culture and the affects of mass culture on it.

In addition to Herbert Marcuse in the Frankfurt school you have Theordor Adorno who has book intitled "The Culture Industry" its on mass culture and the commmodification of culture for the masses. From a different perspective, that of cultural studies you have Dick Hebdige's classic "Subculture" and Friske "Reading Popular Culture", they champion the person's ability to subvert industry while the frankfurt school saw capital as a totality that allowed for little subversion or resistance.

Individualization and Energy Policy

Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim have written a book entitled Individualization(1). In it they discuss the concept of individualization, where the structure of society forces the person into being an independent individual. This is a process where the individual is disempowered because they actually lose structural supports that provide for autonomy, freedom and choice. Instead of the society empowering the individual and providing them with the structure necessary to cope with the negative effects of globalization and the growth of capital it forces each and every individual to deal with large scale structural problems by themselves and with their own resources.

Now this situation is extremely problematic, as it creates individuals who are unable to shield themselves from the global and national problems that affect thousands and millions of people and therefore should be dealt with through a structural realignment or a collective action solution. If you leave each and every individual to deal with large scale structural issues by their own accords than the richest groups in society will feel the negative effects the least and the lower and middle classes will bear the most weight.

An example of this was the solution proposed by Bill Frist in congress to deal with the rising gas price. It is a perfect example of the false logic of personal solutions as the avenue to empowerment and problem solving. This solution is not really a solution at all, it is merely a heartless gesture; a short term hand out that will in no way address the true factors fueling the rising gas prices. If the American government and the American citizen actually wanted to empower individuals and reduce our dependence on oil than there are several large scale structural solutions that would not only be beneficial for lowering gas prices and reducing pollution but it would provide the United States and its citizens with more autonomy, a higher level of self-sufficiency. The solution would be to actually have a long-term alternative and environmentally sustainable energy policy that is well funded.

Bill Frist, a Senate Republican, wanted to offer a $100 tax rebate. Senator Frist said the rebates would go to single taxpayers making less than $125,000 per year, and couples making less than $150,000(2). The rebate would target only the first half of that income group - you do the math - its probably around $440 million. Which would be about 57% of the current fiscal spending on alternative energy(3). Now the rebate might appear to be good but, in fact, this solution in no way changes the structural issues that created this problem in the first place. The United States has learned nothing from the 1970s oil crisis except that if you do not own enough oil you can attempt to appropriate it from other countries through military force. Considering the U.S. government’s budget this year for alternative energy is $771 million(4), the hundreds of millions the U.S. governemnt would be giving back would be much better spent on investing into alternative and sustainable fuel, fuel that will exist long after oil is gone, fuel that is cleaner than oil and fuel that would make communities, states, and the U.S. much more self-sufficient energy wise.

Think about it, the lower west coast and the southwest is almost always in the sun. There is no reason that a significant portion of these regions could not be powered by sunlight, making each home and neighborhood self-sufficient. But one must remember that oil corporations have a significant say in the oval office and congress and do not want to see individuals who are self-sufficient and autonomous. Oil corporations depend on our dependency on them. Self-sufficient communities and individuals, who can live off of the sun, wind or waste products is not the in these corporation’s best interest, but it is in the citizens best interest and the nation as a whole. No longer should we allow big oil to control our own lives nor our countries. An America with an energy policy built around sustainable clean energy, biomass, sun, water, and wind can be done, we just have to incentivize the government and business, through a combination of “voting” with your dollar, but also with who we put into office and the legislation we pass as citizens in a “democratic” country. The future lies in a combination of legislation and funding that promotes biomass and biofuel, increased gas mileage for all automobiles, solar power, wind power, and tidal wave power.

Some ideas(5)

Thoughts on Education and the Economy

Assorted free-flowing thoughts of the day:

(1) Free education for all. This is a must. No litmus test based on money, but not just free education, for the lower classes could still not afford living expenses. Therefore, education should be free and all those who go to college should get a living stipend as well, to allow for rent, food, health insurance, etc. Working detracts from a quality education.

(2) Acknowledgment that taking on debt and then starting out in the job market with a B.A. and $20K in debt (at least) puts the worker in even more of a disadvantage than typical capital-labor relations. Since payment on debt starts six months after one graduates one cannot hold out for the best job that they want but is typically forced to take whatever job they can get so they can start paying those loan bills.

(3) The credentialism aspect of education is very true, Max Weber said it best, “the demand for regular curricula and special examinations, the reason behind it is, of course, not a suddenly awakened 'thirst for education' but the desire for restricting the supply for these positions and their monopolization by the owners of educational certificates." [From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, p.240-244]. University education, the process of certification, is the means for class privilege and the way to protect one's economic and social class position, particularly the middle or upper class, but primarily the upper class.

(4) That university education is nothing more than costly individualized job training. All the costs of having semi-skilled workers are passed from the corporation to the state that passes it onto the individual. I have to pay to obtain skills so I can be employable. This is ridiculous, if we are forced to take loans than corporations should have to payback our loans for hiring us, but that sets up a whole new set of problems.

(5) Accept the fact that the link between academia and the job market is tenuous at best and that higher education should be for creating knowledge and civically active people on an ethical, ecological and political level. If one wants an education strictly for the job market than go to schools specifically designed for that.

(6) Realize that oil is purchased in U.S. dollars, if enough countries go off the dollar to the euro, like Iraq (with Saddam) and Iran have threatened than that will hurt the U.S. economy even more, since the Euro is worth more than the U.S. dollar.

(7) Realize that one path to autonomy and self-determination for all within capital, at least at a higher than current level is through the guaranteed universal income, with no work requirement. http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html

(8) Realize that in all actuality capital might not fail during our lifetime, so one path is to try to work on improvements within that system. I am not giving up on a different economic model, but with western Europe turning towards capital along with China and India and south America turning relatively leftist I think there is a long time left, hence the search for alternatives within capital, like the one above. The proper question is, what economic model can provide for the autonomy and self-determination of the majority.

Impassioned Rant...512 [The Society of the Spectacle]

We live in a society divorced from matter, a society where the democratization of the class based image has fueled the belief in the loss of class creating an image of equalitarian society. Yet, if we divested ourselves of this split, negated its separation through a reunification of matter and form we would be able to see how unequal we really are. We must move beyond this split and unify the divested image to the matter of society. Only though the reunification of form and matter can we advance as a society.

For only through disassociation of form and matter could we realize just how false and unsafe a world of image is. One divested of the link between form and matter is one inherently out of touch with reality, with the objective social conditions within which people live. This dissasociation relies on a world full of subjective perceptions of mistruths, lies and misinformed conceptions.

The self as an image is reproducible, it is manufactured and sold not for one person, but for the millions, what is offered to you and I as unique, individualized, is the antithesis of this, it is mass produced, standardized, subject to a routine. Life is no longer about crafting a truly authentic self, even though that is what people want.

The economic system has taken the desire for authenticity and individuality and rubber stamped it with mass produced materialism. A self for the market place means, fancy car, fashionable clothing, big screen TV - it is the commodity self, a self built around an image of material wealth.

This world of image, dominated by mass technology is totally divorced from the reality of the material world, it seems to float above the material world, smothering its existence in its wake, its model of reality appears to take precedence in the lives of people, we now communicate solely through free floating signifieds unattached to their signifiers. Reality is now dominated by image, people simulate what they wish their lives were or what they want them to be. People no longer display who they truly are. Individuals now produce their own reality via their presentation of self, via images of the world.

People now interact primarily through their presentation of self, images converse with images, signs interact with other signs. The body is now devoid of any purpose other than as a hanger for the signs of self. The interplay of signs has obliterated the importance of material reality, it is no longer able to bind people to natural limits, the world of the image knows no bounds or limits, it is a world of image that has become substance, one is now forced to play in its reality, its world, for any tie to the land is now obliterated.

We are now socialized into a world that deemphasizes the material world and concrete human interaction. We are socialized into a world of mass mediated images. The image is now autonomous from material reality, yet it begins to obtain its own material form, its own reality, one that becomes the dominant mode of thought in 21st century society. It is a society that has transformed the concept of being into having and then taken it one step further again, from having into the appearance of having.

The world of touch has been replaced by the world of sight.

As long as people equate the appearance of having with being, then the dominance of the spectacle, the dominance of disembodied images with no correlation to reality reigns supreme, and then the goal of individual emancipation is doomed. The world of spectacle allows for the obliteration of the conception of class society and the consciousness that the societal form that humans have constructed can be altered through political action.

The commodity self is a part of an apparatus of social control, one designed to focus one's concentration on their relative status to others, their material shortcomings, their failure to obtain the image of the good life - that of material wealth. It is created to blind people from the reality that an authentic and happy you is not dependent on material wealth, that freedom, autonomy, choice, security is not to be found in your current job nor the existing commodity market, it is to be found in your human interaction, in your political activism.

The Splinter of Form and Matter

I have come to the conclusion that matter no longer produces form, that substance no longer determines style. Consumer culture has created the ultimate reversal, a complete alteration has now occured in how people interpret the world and themselves. Today image determines substance, style creates substance, form creates its own matter. Plastic surgery determines your inner self. Your clothing determines who people see you as and who you see yourself as. The image of happiness now produces the appearance of happiness. We no longer work from the inside out, but outside in. A great reversal has occured and it will be interesting to see where it takes us.

Guaranteed Universal Income

Many economic elites speak out against the guaranteed income movement specifically because it is for the working classes and might end up hurting their profit levels, as it would give some leverage to the workers against corporations, allowing them to demand more pay and benefits from corporations. U.S. GIM
My response is "capitalist's want a guaranteed income for themselves and no one else." Think about it, it makes perfect sense. They seek to guarantee through labor and tax laws that they get paid, while also denying the legal rights of workers to a guaranteed income. The interest of labor and capital are anitithetical in the long run.

Republican Race baiting

The Republican Party plays the race card, what? No way! You mean they are racist? Of course they are, they are classist and misogynist, why not the trifecta?

So for those not following politics, the Republican's are trying not to lose Bill Frist's seat in Tennesse to a black democrat. In response they go to the race card. Lately, the focus has been on an ad that tied him to white playboy bunnies who wanted to have sex with him and that he gave money to porn companies.

But this is worse, check this out:

"a radio ad accusing him of unfairly favoring blacks repeated the word "black" six times in its first twenty-four seconds, warning Tennesseans that he's a member of the "Congressional Black Caucus, an all-black group of congressmen who represent the interests of black people."

The Nation

Now if that is not trying to create a race war than I do not know what is.

But what is worse is that the Republicans win either way, they are too blind to see that this guy is a republican, he is such a republican that it makes me sick. Southern democrats are so backward that they should just join the republican party so the democrats can actually start being left. The democrats need a cleansing if Ford is a democrat. Listen to what he has said and voted for and against:

"I voted for the Patriot Act, five trillion in defense, and against amnesty for illegals. I approved this message because I won't let them make me somebody I'm not. And I'll always fight for you...Junior" came to Washington preaching the New Democrats' gospel of fiscal restraint, corporate-friendliness and social moderation...In the past two Congresses, he voted the conservative line on every issue likely to matter to Tennessee voters come 2006. From being a moderate on immigration, he became one of Washington's staunchest border-warriors. He voted to extend Bush's tax cuts and supported constitutional amendments against flag-burning and gay marriage. His old F rating from the National Rifle Association turned into a B."

The Nation

If that's a Democract we are all in trouble. I cannot belive this is what the democratic party has come to. I knew they sucked, but not this much. None of these isssues are going to solve the issues of the working class or bring stability, security or autonomy to individuals. I hope that neither party wins and Tennessee implodes from this insanity.