Tag: Capitalism
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Finance is everywhere in the cultural imaginary; it represents itself largely on its own terms, a set of appearances that do not correspond to its practise.
John MacIntosh, Finance Aesthetics -
Yes, people were angry about restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic, I got that, but what was being proposed in opposition? What was being proposed in response to the very real problem of dealing with a virus?
An almost humorous response from the US right came from the lieutenant governor of Texas who argued that we should be willing to sacrifice our lives in defense of the economy. Turn away from mass vaccines, contract COVID, in the name of all mighty capitalism. I was looking forward to the lieutenant governor being the first sacrificial lamb. I mean you just can’t make this up.
The response to COVID that was led by right wing authoritarian forces was coded rightwing libertarianism rhetorizing about freedom. It was a strange combination of self suicide and genocide, in other words, there was nothing here with which to offer critical support. And this movement has now expanded to address an alleged right to refuse vaccinations in the name of self control over one’s body, a hideous use of the call of the pro-choice movement.
Bill Fletcher Jr. -
Let us remember that the automatic machine, whatever we may think of any feelings it may have or may not have, is the precise economic equivalent of slave labour. Any labour which competes with slave labour must accept the economic conditions of slave labour. It is perfectly clear that this will produce an unemployment situation, in comparison with which the present recession and even the depression of the thirties will seem a pleasant joke. This depression will ruin many industries – possibly even the industries which have taken advantage of the new potentialities. However, there is nothing in the industrial tradition which forbids an industrialist to make a sure and quick profit, and to get out before the crash touches him personally.
Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society -
We have a good deal of experience as to how the industrialists regard a new industrial potential. Their whole propaganda is to the effect that it must not be considered as the business of the government but must be left open to whatever entrepreneurs wish to invest money in it. We also know that they have very few inhibitions when it comes to taking all the profit out of an industry that there is to be taken and then letting the public pick up the pieces. This is the history of the lumber and mining industries, and is part of what we have called in another chapter the traditional American philosophy of progress.
Under these circumstances, industry will be flooded with the new tools to the extent that they appear to yield immediate profits, irrespective of what long-time damage they can do.
Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society