via www.youtube.com
In this interview Chris Hedges makes the critical connection between corporate fascism and branding as management of affect - mediating how we feel versus what we know. I think the resonance of the neoliberal ideology that has led directly to a distinctly American form of fascism or as Chris Hedges puts it "inverted totalitarianism" may relate to this incorporation of our sensory world by corporate interests. The images we see on screen become incorporated and merged with all of our other memories, including our sensory perceptions of ideals such as freedom - the brand has the power to make us feel more free, and we incorrectly identify our freedom with the corporation.
Who Broke America’s Jobs Machine?
via www.washingtonmonthly.com
In this cogently written article, Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation raise the issue of why the "elephant in the room" of corporate consolidation is not being debated within public discourse. Although it's not obvious when you're shopping at Bloomingdale's that you're actually shopping at Macy's, which now owns Bloomingale's, or that when choosing between milk brands you're actually only choosing between labels, I don't think this is a sufficient explanation for why consolidation has not been more discussed in the news or why the issue of corporate consolidation is not top of mind for the American public. I think the next step for collective inquiry is to ask why we have come to adopt an ideology that does not perceive this obvious undermining of the free market as problematic.
The article points out that in the past new technology has increased jobs, and uses this point to refute the relevance of technology to job loss. While I'm not sure if it's accurate to say that new technology has historically increased jobs, setting this point aside, I do feel that the article narrowly perceives technology only as a sort of tool that impacts efficiency. Whereas technology can also be perceived as having a programmatic effect on human consciousness. For example, the ability to read silently rose with the technology of the printing press, and industrialization changed our perception of time. Once we perceive technology as potentially having a programmatic quality, we can pose the question of how new technology may be at the root of ideological change toward a social Darwinist belief that the "elephant in the room" deserves its social position of invisible domination.
Who Broke America’s Jobs Machine? - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman
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