Thursday, October 21, 2021

Another twilight of industrial capitalism declared


No, I won´t read "The Age of Surveillence Capitalism" by Shoshana Zuboff, and the hype surrounding the book makes me wanna read it even less. First, who is Shoshana? Why haven´t we heard about her before? Why is her Wiki page so incomplete? And why does she look like a "he"? And no, we don´t live in a new era of neo-neo-capitalism blah blah. Nix. I´m old enough to remember the bunk about "post-Fordism" from the 1980´s. And it was probably same old, same old even back then. (Insert angry Marxist polemic against Eduard Bernstein here.) 

I´m also old enough to remember "the most important book of the 21st century" (or was it ever) during the 00´s. I think it was called "Empire", but I no longer remember the names of the authors. Some kind of Italianate blokes. And during the 2010´s, it was Naomi Kline or whatever. Who today remember them, or write extensively about their ideas? Nobody, of course. Oh, and what happened to David Korten? (Koresh?)

These are (of course) some kind of leftists or leftish liberals. But "the most important book EVER" is also a common trope on the right, or among spiritual people. I have no idea what books the right-wingers have considered the Messiah of the Millennium, but I´m old enough to remember the most important books ever on the spiritual side. Or at least their authors. If we backtrack in time, I believe it was Eckhart Tolle, Ken Wilber and James Redfield. Oh, and now I realized who is the right-wing icon. Why, it´s Jordan Petersen, of course! 

And know what? Nothing came out of that, either. 

In ten years time, Shoeshine Anna will be just as forgotten as these guys are today. Capitalism and the working class will still be around. Without making any revolution. Prompting yet another "innovative" theory further down the road. And so it will continue, until The Great Meteor will finally put us out of our misery altogether.

I sense a best seller coming up!

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