Empire Socialism Part 4

The Spectacle

Way back in the 1960’s the French activist Guy Debord talked about The society of the spectacle, which is a simple idea, but the book is quite hard to follow. Capitalism needs us in order to exist, but it also needs us to go along with its bullshit. Given that it’s one of the most destructive things human beings have invented, it has to really break our ability to see it for what it is. It needs us not to question political systems that are incapable of delivering the things we need, industrial systems that are destroying our ecological base, endless profiteering wars that suck resources out of poor countries, poor countries themselves being forced into credit-based economics where the debts will never be repaid but the people living there are always paying off their abuser first before they can do anything else … and so on, murder, theft and destructive mayhem all the way down. So it creates this surface of consumerism, of commodities, a shiny happy dreaming spectacle of beautiful and interesting things, a cornucopia where we are all contented and happy. It hypnotises us to go along with a convenient dream that doesn’t disturb its true intentions. This is the world the small L liberal or small C conservative thinks we live in, this magical world where the life-destroying actuality cannot be seen. It’s a world where the rule of law protects everybody, rather than only those who can afford it. Indeed the whole murderous charabanc isn’t there, it isn’t being driven at breakneck speed off a cliff and taking everything we know and love with it.