Consumerism
The Post-War Industrial Consensus
The trajectory of industrial society following World War II provided a stark validation of the theories promulgated by Karl Marx.
While common discourse suggests that communism manifested solely in the Soviet Union or China, the industrialised nations of Europe and the United States adopted the fundamental tenets of Marxist thought during the mid-twentieth century.
This adoption was not nominal but structural, as these societies recognised that the worker constituted the heart and centre of the social order. The rationale for this organisation was rooted in the understanding that workers are the sole creators of value.
Money, in isolation, is speculative and generates no intrinsic worth; conversely, productivity and value arise exclusively from human labour. Consequently, the socio-economic structures of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were engineered to elevate the status of the working class.
The worker became the central organising unit of civilisation, endowed with the capacity to demand political reforms through unions and collective action. This period witnessed the zenith of working-class prosperity, characterised by excellent healthcare systems, robust public education, and accessible university schooling.
The state guaranteed not merely survival but a trajectory of improvement for the middle class, fulfilling a social contract where citizenship equated to economic security.
The Revolt of the Elite
The stability of this worker-centric system was dismantled commencing in the 1980s through a phenomenon identified as the revolt of the elite.
The egalitarian nature of the post-war consensus proved unsatisfactory to the upper echelons of society, who sought differentiation rather than equality. The accumulation of power and wealth requires hierarchy, and the prevailing equality of the previous decades hindered the ambitions of the ruling class.
This shift was politically manifested in the United States as the Reagan revolution and in the United Kingdom as Thatcherism, marking the ascendancy of neoliberalism and free-market capitalism.
The transition was underscored by a dramatic explosion in income inequality. During the 1970s, a chief executive officer earned approximately one million US dollars annually, a figure roughly twenty times that of the average worker.
This ratio was historically viewed as reasonable. However, in the subsequent era, this disparity widened exponentially, with the average executive earning twenty to three hundred times the wage of the employee.
This redistribution of wealth necessitated the destruction of the working class and the middle class as political forces. To achieve this, the organising unit of society was fundamentally altered from the worker to the consumer.
The Mechanics of Consumerism
The introduction of the consumer as the primary identity of the citizen represented a profound political revolution. In the preceding era, the state promised secure employment and a stable livelihood. In the new consumerist paradigm, the state s promise shifted to the provision of low prices and a wide selection of goods.
While superficially appealing, this transition stripped the populace of political consciousness. A worker possesses a natural inclination towards solidarity and organisation to protect rights and effect change. A consumer, by contrast, operates in a state of individualised competition and isolation.
The mentality of the consumer is driven by the acquisition of prestige through material accumulation. When individuals are provided with capital, the immediate impulse is to purchase assets such as property or luxury items. However, the utility of these purchases is secondary to their function as status symbols.
The drive to display wealth, exemplified by posting images of possessions on social media, initiates a cycle of mimetic rivalry. Individuals observe the acquisitions of others and are compelled to purchase larger, more expensive items to maintain their social standing. As the cost of these goods exceeds available resources, the population collectively descends into debt.
The Atomisation of Society
This competitive consumption destroys social cohesion. Rather than fostering community, the pursuit of material status engenders mutual hostility and resentment. Individuals cease to view one another as collaborators or peers, instead to see them as rivals in a contest for prestige.
The logic of the market permeates all human interactions, leading to the development of an economic logic where the world is analysed solely through the lens of capital. Personal value is assessed not by character or virtue, but by financial net worth.
The education system itself has been reoriented to serve this logic. Schools, once viewed as institutions for opening the mind and cultivating critical thought, are now regarded merely as credentialing factories for employment.
The sole objective of education becomes the acquisition of a high-paying job to fuel the cycle of consumption. This singular focus on economic advancement precludes the development of imagination or critical faculties, rendering the population unable to conceive of alternative ways of living.
The Historical Precedent of Financial Enslavement
The phenomenon of economic enslavement through debt and consumption finds a grim historical parallel in the aftermath of World War I. The experience of the German state during this period illustrates the destructive power of international finance when it supersedes national sovereignty.
Following the cessation of hostilities, the nation was burdened with immense debts and reparations, effectively mortgaging its future to foreign creditors. The product of German labour ceased to benefit the domestic worker and was instead transferred abroad as tribute.
This arrangement created a system where increased exertion by the worker resulted only in tighter chains. The transport of goods across borders did not represent trade but the extraction of value by entities that the worker would never encounter.
The nation was reduced to the status of a colony, its financial freedom extinguished by the domination of external commissions. This loss of economic sovereignty rendered political independence a nullity.
Although the trappings of democracy were established, and the people were told they ruled, the true power resided with the international banks and stock exchanges.
The Illusion of Liberty
In such a system, freedom becomes an illusion. The individual retains the liberty to move physically, to walk the streets or enter a workshop, but true freedom of expression and political agency is curtailed by economic dependence.
In the post-World War I context, the fear of offending a monarch was replaced by the fear of offending politicians and financial masters. The revolution that was promised to bring social gains and destroy capitalism instead entrenched the power of the financial oligarchy.
A critical distinction must be made between industrial capital, which is tied to production and creates value, and financial or loan capital, which is parasitic. The latter, embodied by the international stock exchange, operates as a super-national power without allegiance to any specific people.
It flourishes amidst national ruin. While the masses struggle for basic necessities, a new class of rulers arises, claiming to serve the people while living in exorbitant luxury. These elites profit from confusion and chaos, as the restoration of order and truth would signal the end of their dominance.
The Perfection of Slavery
The synthesis of these historical and modern economic trends reveals that consumerism functions as *the perfection of slavery.*
In traditional forms of servitude, the slave is conscious of their condition and retains the instinct to rebel. The genius of the consumerist system lies in its ability to mask the nature of the servitude. The populace chooses this existence, brainwashed into believing that the accumulation of goods and the accumulation of debt constitute a meaningful life.
Because the subjects of this system do not perceive themselves as slaves, they never attempt to break their chains. *They remain in a state of permanent competition with one another, incapable of the solidarity required to challenge the elite*.
This dynamic represents the end of history as described by Francis Fukuyama, a state where the prevailing order achieves total hegemony because the masses are unwilling and unable to protest. The system is self-perpetuating, driven by the voluntary participation of those it exploits.
The Separation of Labour and Capital
The ultimate tragedy of this economic order is the artificial separation of the worker from the fruits of their labour and the severance of the social bond.
In a properly ordered society, work serves as the foundation of communal life, acting as the bond that joins all citizens. Differences in occupation or skill should not divide the people into hostile classes.
However, under the dominion of financial capital and consumerism, society is stratified into those who create and those who consume without producing.
The elite, operating through the mechanisms of international finance and the promotion of consumer culture, act as parasites upon the body politic. They amass power by ensuring that the population remains divided, distracted, and indebted.
The intellectual and the worker are set against one another, preventing the unification of brain and hand that could resist the encroachment of the financial oligarchy. This division is maintained through deception, as truth is silenced and corruption parades as virtue.
The evolution of the global economic system from the production-focused consensus of the post-World War II era to the consumer-driven model of the age of Neoliberalism represents a fundamental shift in human relations.
The elevation of the consumer over the worker has atomised society, replacing solidarity with competition and critical thought with economic logic.
This transition mirrors the historical stripping of sovereignty witnessed in the early twentieth century, where nations were reduced to tributaries of international finance.
The resulting structure is a totalising system of control, a perfected slavery where the shackles are forged from the desires of the enslaved, rendering rebellion impossible and securing the perpetual dominance of the elite.