Ljubodrag Simonović
E-mail: comrade@orion.rs
Download Duci’s text
THE INTEGRATION OF PEOPLE INTO CAPITALISM
Capitalism, as a totalitarian order of destruction, created appropriate means and methods to destroy critical and visionary consciousness and such other forms of mediation between man and world as prevent man from abolishing capitalism and creating a new world. In the past, people’s consciousness was controlled by the clergy. Today, it is controlled by TV presenters and other capitalist manipulators, united in show-business, who use the results of modern science and technology, and the myths based on them, in conjunction with an instrumentalized mysticism that produces a quasi-religious consciousness. Instead of being directed towards disclosing the destructive processes that call man’s survival on the planet into question or towards creating a vision of the new world, the mind is directed towards the production of spectacular phantasms that destroy man’s critical mind and visionary consciousness. Hence the popularity of various “Coca-Cola” mystifiers and intellectual con artists with their stories about mysterious “world rulers”, “extra-terrestrials”, “mystical forces”, “parallel worlds”… The art of mystification replaces historical analyses, while mysticism replaces visionary imagination. Modern, technocratically based “fairy-tales” are one of the ways by which capitalism degenerates the mind and creates a mass idiocy. With the existing world being less and less human and with man being more and more lonely and, thus, less capable of changing his life, the need to retreat into an illusory world is increasing. Illusions are the most demanded commodity on the “consumer society” market, resulting in a hyper-production of illusory worlds. The production of illusions has become one of the most important ways by which capitalists deal with humanistic visionary consciousness and the efforts of the oppressed to organize and fight against capitalism. Manipulation no longer resides in the ideological, but in the psychological sphere. The story about a “bright future” and the “American dream” is gone. To flee from that ever darker reality has become the obsession of the average (petty) bourgeois in the “democratic world”.
The destruction of the mind and the historical self-consciousness of the oppressed is a link between the contemporary entertainment industry and Nazi propaganda machinery. Here are Adolf Hitler’s instructions to the Nazi leaders (1942) intended to “help” them establish efficient domination over the “conquered peoples”: “Hence we should not allow the appearance of teachers who might suddenly ask for compulsory education for the conquered nations. The knowledge of the Russians, Ukrainians, the Kyrgyz people and others, of reading and writing would only do us harm. It would enable those with bright intelligence to acquire certain knowledge about history and thus develop political ideas, which could somehow be directed against us. – It is much better to set up a radio in each village, in order to inform people and offer them some entertainment, than to enable them to acquire their own political, scientific and other forms of erudition. Also, rather than telling the conquered peoples their history on the radio shows, we should play music, the more the better. Because popular music improves work efficiency. And, if people insist on dancing, according to our information and systematic approach, this we could welcome.” (Cursive Lj.S.) Hitler’s instructions on how to manipulate the consciousness of “lower races” are, actually, the basis of the contemporary capitalist strategy for establishing domination over the working class in the most developed capitalist countries and over the peoples on the “margins of capitalism”, who are doomed to be exterminated by the West.
Giving a spectacular dimension to the marginal – on which both the advertising industry and the entire ideological sphere of capitalism are based – is one of the most important ways for destroying the quality criteria. As a result, people cannot realize the true nature of the ruling order and, at the same time, see the actual possibilities for the creation of a new world. Without the possibility of recognizing quality, it is not possible to acquire a true visionary consciousness. When everything becomes “fantastic”, “ingenious”, “incredible” – then the true values sink into the mud of the trivial. The public “dispute” over sports events is a typical example of marginalizing the important, of people’s depoliticization, of the creation of false sociability and mass idiocy. The ruling media are broadcasting increasingly aggressive and primitive entertainment programs in order to destroy people’s interest in truth and separate their mind from the real world created by capitalism: the destruction of nature, mass deaths from lack of food, water, and from diseases, the criminalization of society, the creation of a police state, increased chances of using nuclear weapons, monstrous technical projects for causing earthquakes and fatal climate changes, mass killings of children to “obtain” their organs, the disposal of nuclear waste in the oceans, nuclear plant accidents, white plague, increased illiteracy, destruction of national cultures and historical self-consciousness … In the “curved mirrors” of capitalist ideology and in the lights of spectacular advertisements of “consumer society”, the important things become distorted and marginalized, while the marginal acquires a fatal and spectacular dimension. Advertising slogans, such as the “Coca-Cola“ slogan: “Can’t beat the Real Thing!”, which are constantly broadcast by TV and radio stations, impair man’s ability to discern and comprehend what is really important. Contemporary spectacles do not involve the creation of classical illusions through mental manipulation, which means the “seduction” of man by way of his prejudices, fears and desires, but on the creation of spectacular illusions, devoid of all content, which comes down to aggressive stimulation of senses by technical means. Instead of a melody, what we hear is a deafening noise; instead of a visual effect, we have a dazzling light… There is no emotion, no imagination, no reason… In addition to being marked by escapism, the creation of illusions serves to impair the senses and destroy the need and possibility for meditating about a humane world. The illusion is not only a spectacular manifestation of a destructive capitalist nothingness. It is also a technical means for destroying humanity.
Life, itself, degenerated by capitalism, has become the means for drawing people into the values and existential orbit of capitalism. The “consumer society” is directly reflected in the political sphere. For Marx, workers’ disposable time is the result of their struggle against capitalist exploitation, which gave them a chance to develop class-consciousness and start an organized political struggle. In the “consumer society”, non-work time has become consumer-time, which pulls workers into the spiritual and existential orbit of capitalism. Through the “consumer society”, capitalists created a new market, enabled further development of capitalism, and (temporarily) purchased “social peace”. At the same time, they drove people into debt-slavery and thus integrate them into the ruling order. Capitalism has degenerated the workers’ class consciousness by creating a consumer mentality. The need for freedom has turned into the need to purchase and destroy. Workers have become “consumers”, who contribute, through their working and consuming, to the development of capitalism. Not only do they make “their own chains” (Marx), they also destroy life and cause their own perishing as biological and human beings. At the same time, the increasingly deep existential crisis turned proletarian youth in the most developed capitalist countries into mercenary soldiers, the tool of the most powerful capitalist concerns with which to deal with “rebellious” peoples and establish the (American) “new world order”.
As far as the “social state” is concerned, the official ideology claims that it is the result of a “compromise” between the bourgeoisie and the working class. Indeed, the “social state” is one of the established forms of bourgeois class domination over the workers. Rather than being founded on humanism, it is the political answer from the bourgeoisie to the ever deepening crisis of capitalism and the changing (revolutionary) potential of the workers movement in the most developed capitalist countries of the West. Its purpose is to establish a “bearable exploitation” of workers by capitalists, which means to reduce their existential threat and thus prevent the workers’ class struggle and enable a stable development of capitalism. Essentially, the “social state” is a legal form of plundering the workers, who, through the taxation system imposed by the capitalist state, finance their own “social contributions”, which should enable them to survive the capitalistically created existential crisis without any complaints. At the same time, the “social state” serves to destroy workers’ class consciousness and pull them, by instilling a consumer mentality, toward the value horizon of the “middle class”, as one of the pillars of capitalism. Ultimately, the “social state” enables the survival of capitalism and consequently contributes to the destruction of life on the planet.
Read the text to the end»