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Title: Modern Times Author: Felix Frost Date: 2006 Language: en Topics: Capitalism, nihilism, modernity Source: Retrieved on August 23, 2011 from https://web.archive.org/web/20110823074111/http://nihilpress.subvert.info/nihil2.html Notes: Published in The Nihilist #2.
We’re living in modern times, and nowhere is more modern than the USA —
the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. But what is it that
makes “the American dream” fundamentally different than any society that
has existed before us? The answer is mass consumerism, or to be precise:
commodification. In our society everything is made into commodities;
goods or services that can be exchanged on a market. Surely markets and
money have existed for thousands of years, but it only comprised a tiny
fraction of society. Not until this century did the market economy
become the dominant way of life; increasingly taking over every aspect
of people’s existence.
There is no longer any obvious relationship between production of goods
and their use. Instead all products are produced for the sole purpose of
making a profit for people who are not even part of the production
process. It make no difference whether or not the products are actually
useful for someone. As long as a company is making a profit, it is
considered contributing to the national economy and the common good. Not
for profit activities are on the other hand not counted as “real”
production, no matter what kind of usable goods or services they yield.
But things are worse than this. In order to obtain the necessary goods,
most people are forced to make their own bodies into a commodity;
renting it out at a market for the highest price. To improve your value
on the job marked, you might invest in education, but your most
important “job skill” is to learn how to take orders and preform your
tasks like a robot. Remember, the customers are always right, because
with their money, they buy a small slice of your time. At work, you are
no longer free, you are a rented tool to be used in the production of
profit. The job market not only makes yourself into a commodity but even
time itself. Your working hours cease to exist as your own, but are made
into rigid units of measurement, dead time that serve you no other
purpose than earning money to be spent in your remaining “free” time.
This “free” time is where you are supposed to realise your desires and
live out your dreams. But dreams and desires are like everything else
made into commodities to be bought and sold on the market. Thus modern
life has no other meaning than to consume.
Politics and elections are likewise made into commodities that are
marketed in the exact same way as deodorants or cars or any other
product. 30 second soundbites tell us that if you choose presidential
candidate X instead of Y, the country will prosper and you’ll have a
better life. Of course, everyone knows that the commercials lies and
that there are no significant differences between the candidates. But
then, there are no significant differences between Pepsi and Coke
either, and no one really believes the commercials that tell you that
“things go better with Coke.” Why should politics be any different?
People generally pay little attention, and simply vote for the guy who
looks best on TV.
The only part of life that is considered exempt from this dreary routine
is the “family.” In the past, families were the fundamental building
blocks of society. Today they are the negation of society: The family is
where you escape from the world around you. The family is where you can
take out your frustrations on your loved ones, without making waves in
the social order. This is of course why conservative politicians love
the family so much.
The tyrants of the past defended their rule by declaring that they were
appointed by God himself to be his representatives on earth. Likewise
today’s rulers claim to be put there by the actions of the holy
“invisible hand” of the market. And just like the scholars of the past
studied the holy scriptures to discern the will of the almighty; today
the bourgeoisie send their sons and daughters to universities to try to
learn the laws of the market. But no matter how hard they study; they
never manage to penetrate the inscrutable ways of the capitalist
economy. Every time a new economic crisis hit; the capitalists are just
as perplexed. Even though the world is their own product; it appears
strange and foreign to them. So strong is the alienation of today that
even the rulers of our society are blinded by it.
What is then left to be done by the few of us who are not content with
being spectators to our own exploitation, and who still wish for a free
life? Are we to “hurl ourselves at the wheels of the machine to try to
stop it with our own bodies,” as was the cry of radical students in the
sixties? Or are we to turn our back to the empire in order to eke out a
living on the margins of society where we can attempt to build our own
free communes? Or perhaps we should bide our time and wait for ampler
opportunities to come for an all out assault on the establishment. Maybe
we can’t halt the juggernaut of capitalism, but let us at least strew
some sand in its machinery, if only to maintain our own dignity and
self-respect.