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t h e n e o - c o m i n t e r n e l e c t r o n i c m a g z i n e
I n s t a l l m e n t N u m b e r 1 7 0
We Are the New International
September 16th, 2001
Editor: BMC
Writers:
BMC
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;P Featured in this installment .b
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$ Capitalism, the Media, and Us - BMC $
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EDITOR'S NOTE
(please do not read the following)
I couldn't decide whether to save it or destroy it. Know the
feeling? I have heard several N-Com readers express this sentiment about
society, humankind, etc., so I know you know (and I know that you know
that I know you know, I think).
Maybe it's just sentimentality - maybe it's ALWAYS sentimentality,
but this article means something more. What it lacks in style it more
than makes up for in terms of intent and honesty.
Now read on, forget the whirlwind of capitalist propaganda cast
about you by the mainstream media, and take refuge within these words.
They speak for you.
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;P CAPITALISM, THE MEDIA, AND US .b
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Capitalism - according to my dictionary, it is "a system based on
the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and
exchange." This definition does not contain the words "evil" or
"exploitation," but I assure you, if the dictionary was produced by
non-capitalists, that might be the case. My definition of capitalism
might read something like this: "An evil system of private ownership
where corporate bosses exploit the labour of the workers, underpaying
them and controlling their lives to the point where such words as
`freedom' and 'dignity' are no longer applicable."
Here is a brief clarification of the term "means of production"
(also referred to as "property"). In agricultural societies, `means of
production' is a term used to describe ownership of land. The land
allows the owner to produce crops. In agricultural societies, land is
the most important asset. If you own it, you can do what you like with
it - and that means hiring a bunch of peasants to farm your land for you
and rewarding them with payment - they are allowed to live on your land
and usually have enough food to eat. In return, you sit back in your
castle with a cold Coors 16 ouncer and roll around in your hoardes of
gold and pricey gems. They do all the work, and you make all of the
money because you own the means of production. In an industrial society,
the factories are the means of production. If you own a hubcap-making
plant, the workers create hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
hubcaps every day, but the amount you pay out in wages is only a fraction
of that. Because you own the means, you decide how much the workers get
paid (hint: it isn't going to be a fair wage, because then you will not
make as much money). In a post-industrial society such as ours, we have
all kinds of businesses and none of them really seem to produce anything.
However, owning the means of production in our society is to own the
means of producing money. Those who don't own property have to resort to
selling their services in order to make whatever small amount of money the
property owners decide to give to them.
Capitalism is an economic designed to promote individual success at
any expense. As long as it's legal - or if you can find your way around
the law - you can screw people over by giving them less than what they
deserve. When one person receives more than they deserve and the other
receives less than they deserve, this is called an "unjust transfer."
Unjust transfers are the basis of capitalism and capitalist success - it
is the only way that you can get ahead in this society.
There are all kinds of unjust transfers such as theft, and fraud,
that are against the law - however, the kind that I am interested in
discussing is the legal kind of unjust transfer. There are two major
kinds of unjust transfers that I believe make the capitalist system
inherently evil - these are 1) exploitation of the working class by those
who own the means of production and 2) inheritance. I have already
discussed the exploitation of the working class somewhat in my
description of the means of production, so I will leave that for now -
however, I could stand to write a few words on the topic of inheritance.
Inheritance - this phenomenon earns its place as one of the most
evil things about the system of capitalism. If there is anything that
makes it absolutely impossible for the average person to be competitive
in the world of capitalism, it is inheritance. This is the device that
ensures that you will never ever be rich as long as you live, no matter
how hard you work or how smart you are. Richness is something that can
only be achieved by right of birth. Consider a child of a member of the
working class as compared to the child of a corporation owner. The child
of the worker can do everything in their power to get ahead, and yet they
will never be as financially successful as the corporate owner's child.
In fact, even at the fetal stage, this corporate child is more wealthy
than the worker's child will ever be. Even if the rich child has no
strength, intelligence, ambition, or work ethic, inheritance ensures that
the working class child cannot ever compete.
But if it were only so simple as the struggle to be filthy stinking
evil rich. Not everyone needs to own a corporation in order to validate
their existence. This is illustrated by all of the people who do not own
corporations and yet are happy and somewhat financially successful. The
real problem is that corporate owners are maximizing their own profits,
not simply by keeping us from owning or own multi-billion dollar
businesses, but by sucking every penny out of us, giving us the option of
being paid poorly or being unemployed. Given these choices, many of us
work at minimum wage because it is our only option. Much of the working
class lives from paycheque to paycheque without economic security -
without the guarantee that they will be able to pay their bills next
month.
Marx said that the slave has something over the worker - job
security. I always considered this idea to be somewhat funny until I
understood the sentiment behind it. A slave's master is genuinely
concerned that the slave continues to retain good health - this is
because a slave is purchased and must be maintained by their owner. A
corporation owner has no such concern. Today's worker can be replaced at
a moment's notice. There are plenty more potential workers for a boss to
choose from - compare the current unemployment statistics to the stats of
unemployment among slaves in ancient Greece or the 18th century British
Colonies. One might argue that living conditions are better for
contemporary workers, but it would be quite another thing to claim that
today's wages are fair. Consider, for example, the following statistics:
In 1995, 5.2 million women, children, and men - 18 percent
of the population - lived below the poverty line in Canada. Of a
nation's seven million children under the age of eighteen, almost
one-and-a-half million - or one child in five - lived in poverty
in 1995. (statistical findings of Battle and Laxer)
The average income for the richest 10 percent of Canadian
families in 1971 was $107,000 - 21 times that of the poorest 10
percent. By 1996 Canada's richest were making 314 times the
average income of the poorest. (statistical findings of The Globe
and Mail)
In 1992, the OECD reported that the top one per cent of the
Canadian population owned twenty five per cent of the country's
assets. (Compared with 18 per cent in Britain and 42 per cent in
the US).
Wealth exists in our society, but as individuals we have no access
to it. The working class makes up the biggest percentage of our society,
so it may seem surprising that we have no power. I agree - it is
ridiculous that we, the source of power for the machinery of capitalism,
are unable to use our power for our own purposes, but only for the
purposes of helping the rich become richer as we become poorer.
Sometimes I don't understand what is holding the working class back, but
at those times I'm assuming that the working class is a united group -
that we share common goals - when this is not the case. Of course we all
have our own goals. Some of us even buy into the system of capitalism
and have hopes that someday we will be "rich" and "successful." But what
do you expect from a society that is fragmented and brainwashed? It
sounds like a harsh criticism at first, but I assure you that
fragmentation and brainwashing are two of the things that keep capitalism
going.
Capitalists often discuss the nuclear family (mother, father,
children) as being the foundation for a successful society. At the same
time, they attempt to blame society's problems on the nuclear family and
the disintegration of this unit. Now here is the important part - the
reason that capitalists appreciate the nuclear family is because it is a
perfectly fragmented unit. It is so small that it is practically no
bigger than a single person, and yet it gives the appearance of being
something more (but zero power plus zero power still equals zero power).
When divided into little family groups, people are more isolated from one
another than in a culture where clans or strong unions exist. This is
crucial to the maintenance of capitalism - if the working class were to
join together to attempt to achieve a common goal, they would be
unstoppable(!), and this is the last thing capitalists want. They want
the struggle to continue being waged on an individual basis, because, as
individuals, they have power, and they will continue to have power as
long as the rich are allowed to have a monopoly ownership of the means of
production.
The nuclear family is a tool used by the ruling class to disable
the solidarity of the working class, and, as if that's not enough, the
convention of the nuclear family allows capitalists to brainwash the
working class and convince them that capitalism is not bad and that, in
fact, it works in their favour! In a recent issue of the Christian
publication Focus on the Family, James Dobson, a Doctor of Christianity,
suggests that the breakdown of the nuclear family is a huge problem
because, "It comes down to this indisputable fact: The family is critical
to the propagation of the faith." In other words, he wants the Christian
faith to be able to socialize (brainwash) people on a family-by-family
level because families are the most susceptible to propaganda. It is
interesting that he promotes the nuclear family even though it is clearly
a reason why the working class remains so poor. Does this mean that
Christianity and capitalism may have a common thread? While this remains
uncertain, he ends the article by saying, "We will need to make the
financial sacrifices necessary to slow the pace of living." (Why do I get
the feeling that "we" doesn't include James Dobson?)
It is clear that the nuclear family can be, and is, exploited
through fragmentation and brainwashing by media propaganda. Now I will
discuss how the media is used to trick its unsuspecting audience. Be
warned - you may never be able to enjoy watching the news again after
reading the following section.
The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages
and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to
amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with
the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate
them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In
a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class
interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.
(Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent)
Media represent the primary, and often the only source of
information about many important events and topics... the media
define for the majority of the population what significant events
are taking place, but, also, they offer powerful interpretations
of how to understand these events. (Hall et al, Policing the
Crisis)
As the nuclear family is a device designed to strip us of power,
the media is a device designed to strip us of knowledge. Isolated and
alienated from society, our only way to receive information is through
media - owned and controlled by the upper class. We are offered one
voice - the voice of the upper class - and alternatives to this voice are
hard-sought. From 1996 to 2000, Conrad Black was in control of sixty
percent of all daily newspaper circulation in Canada. This included all
of the daily papers in Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, and P.E.I., and
two-thirds of the dailies in Ontario. He also owned the Vancouver Sun,
Calgary Herald, Ottawa Citizen, and the Montreal Gazette, among others.
On October 22nd, 2000, CanWest Global announced it was purchasing most of
the newspapers owned by Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. The $3.5 billion
deal included 13 major metro newspapers and hundreds of smaller
publications.
So let's keep in mind that the owners of media are not working
class people like ourselves and that we have no reason to believe they
would represent working class views. In fact, the opposite is true. The
media consists of newspaper corporations, television corporations, radio
corporations, and internet corporations (the key word here being
"corporations"). Any sane corporation owner would not publish
information that is anti-corporate - therefore, corporate-owned media
should be expected to be pro-corporate in nature, and thereby
anti-working-class. In fact, when former Toronto newspaper publisher
John Basset was asked, "Is it true that you use your own newspaper to
push your own political view?", he replied, "Of course, why else would
you own a newspaper?"
As an example of the ways in which media manipulate public opinion
in favour of the political viewpoints of the upper classes, consider the
following statement, made by Tony Clarke:
Perhaps the greatest hoax promoted by the media moguls in
recent years has been the notion that Canada's debt woes were
caused by overspending on social programs. Not only did the
media propagate this myth, but they almost totally ignored the
real causes disclosed by non-business studies (including
Statistics Canada), such as the Bank of Canada's persistently
high interest rate policies and the massive drain on public
revenues due to lower corporate tax rates and high
unemployment. (The Silent Coup)
The media deserves a gigantic share in the blame for the
continuation of capitalism and the disorganization of the working class
because they make a habit of giving us information that is exaggerated,
skewed, or completely falsified. They do this to make capitalism look
good and to blame individuals for their own failure. This makes one
wonder why the people of the working class wouldn't support newspapers
that represent them. But then, flipping through TV channels or surfing
the internet, we are bombarded by these annoying little things that we
continually try to ignore - advertisements.
We all know that advertisements corrupt the media visually, but
they also corrupt it in terms of honesty and integrity (or should I say
further corrupt it?). The media is funded by paid advertisements from
corporations and thus must pander to them in order to keep their
advertising dollars rolling in. When a newspaper chooses to advertise,
it can afford a lower price at the newsstand due to the money made from
advertisements. This increases newspaper sales. With this extra income,
the newspaper can improve on its features, formatting, production, etc.
Therefore, a newspaper without advertising cannot make as much money or
be read by as many people as a newspaper with advertising can.
So a newspaper must get an advertiser at any cost. The problem
with this is that advertisers prefer certain types of magazines, TV
shows, internet sites, etc., over other ones. They're not going to tell
you that your medium needs to be capitalist - it just has to appeal to a
rich audience that happens to only like pro-capitalist media. As Bernard
Schissel says, the "narrowing of opinion may not necessarily reflect
consumer demand in general, but rather the demands of particular
consumers - advertisers and well-heeled audiences who need and prefer a
particular world view and a particular take on social issues." In other
words, if you don't appeal to the rich, they won't read your newspaper.
Advertisers want to advertise to the rich. Therefore, if you want to be
able to be financially competitive, you must convey a pro-capitalist
message. Advertisers don't want to advertise to people who aren't
interested in buying anything.
So for this reason, along with the fact that the media itself is a
corporation, the media actively promotes capitalism and avoids promoting
any alternative viewpoints. An example of this is provided by Tony
Clarke:
The pro-business free trade position promoted by the media,
and the limited coverage given free trade opponents, were largely
determined by those who owned and controlled most of the
newspaper and broadcast media. Similarly, even though the
Chretien government was elected on the promise of jobs! jobs!
jobs!, most of the Canadian media downplayed the rash of
corporate downsizing during the mid-1990's while big business was
making record profits. (Silent Coup)
The media deliberately ignores the problems of the working class,
while simultaneously criticizing the governments of other countries. A
prime example of this is the American (and, to a lesser extent, Canadian)
anticommunist movement. In the last half of the 20th century, communism
was portrayed as the ultimate evil, haunting property owners because it
threatened the root of their class position and their superior status
(corporate owners are not interested in sharing their wealth with the
poor). Communism was used as a scare word to label anyone who supported
the left and labour movements. Anyone who challenged the state of
affairs was considered pro-communist or insufficiently anticommunist.
The government brainwashed the common people into thinking that communism
was a threat to the working class as well as the wealthy, and the
communist scare was born. This was used as a tool to unite the people
against a common enemy, distracting them from the injustices occurring
within their own government.
This is not to say that the media only reports good news. In fact,
there is plenty of bad news, and it is usually blamed on individuals
rather than the conditions created by society. Speaking specifically
about youths, Bernard Schissel says that "the lumping together of
adolescent issues transforms a problem that originates with the structure
of society into one that appears to originate with youth themselves."
Certainly this can also be applied to other marginalized groups, the
working class being one of them.
What is not questioned is our institutions - the economic system,
the education system, and the state of the community. If we are to
believe the adage that you should treat others as you expect to be
treated in return, why should we be surprised when those who are punished
with poverty lash out at society in return? People commit crimes,
especially property crimes, out of desperation. If the needs of
society's members were met, they would not have to satisfy their needs
through illegal means.
We are socialized by the media to believe that problems occur on an
individual basis because of the faults of individuals. Nothing is said
about society's responsibility, because more responsibility means a more
just distribution of wealth and better social programs - the opposite of
what capitalism endorses. So the media blames the individuals, using
them as scapegoats while the crimes of corporate fraud and oppression of
the working class are nowhere to be seen in media. The breakdown of the
nuclear family is often blamed for crime, but we know that the purpose of
the nuclear family is to put the working class at a disadvantage. Yet no
alternatives to the nuclear family are sought. Perhaps the reason that
this is not discussed is because the media needs to keep the nuclear
family in existence in order to keep their control over the working
class. Blaming the nuclear family's failure (while continuing to
brainwash) is a technique used by the upper class further used to confuse
the working class, making them ignorant and apathetic.
An ideal exists that the media is supposed to be unbiased. This is
obviously not the case, but the media continues to perpetuate this myth.
It is surprising that they are allowed to pass their propaganda off as
fact. However, Bernard Schissel informs us that "the [capitalist's]
response to biased news accounts is simply to `let the buyer beware.'
The suggestion is that if people do not like watching, reading, or
listening to partisan accounts of crime and deviance, then they have the
freedom not to." Well there you have it - practically all the freedom in
the world. We lucky Canadians have the choice to either receive biased
news reports that promote capitalism and brainwash us to believe that we
do not have the right to better living conditions - or we can choose not
to receive any news at all! Wow, I'm sold on this system! It's
practically the best thing I've ever heard of! (ps this is sarcasm)
I must apologize for my previous rage - I got a bit carried away.
I have taken a moment to calm down, and I suggest that you do too. If
you are just tuning in, I'm talking about how terrible the media is and
what we can do about it.
While we are being brainwashed by the media, we're not thinking
clearly. We're not thinking about how to make things better. If we're
going to take some responsibility as a society and improve the current
state of affairs, we're going to have to do this by finding alternatives
to mainstream media and create a new social order that is more unified
and less self-centred.
We can work toward social unity and demand social responsibility.
We can gear society so that smaller units can survive and not be at a
disadvantage. In order to do this, we will have to gain a greater
understanding of our society, our rights, and ourselves. This can be
done through the support of education and alternative media that do not
promote a capitalist agenda. These must be endorsed, supported and
demanded. Through education, we can answer several of our questions and
ask many new ones. By thinking about the improvement of society, we can
come up with more ideas about how to improve it. It has been proven that
alternative media can make a difference, and the following quotation
provides an example:
In the first half of the 19th century, a radical press
emerged that reached a national working class audience. This
alternative press was effective in reinforcing class
consciousness: it unified the workers because it fostered an
alternative values system and framework for looking at the world,
and because it 'promoted a greater collective confidence by
repeatedly emphasizing the potential power for working people to
affect social change through the force of 'combination' and
organized action. (Curran and Seaton)
The message doesn't get much simpler than Marx's plea: Workers of
the World, Unite! Unity and social responsibility is our one hope for
eventually stopping the corporations from mowing us over. If we work
together, we can claim the means of production and distribute wealth
fairly, putting an end to poverty and social inequality. The way to get
there is not through immediate revolution, but to unite our minds in this
important cause. This can be achieved through alternative media and
education, and in no other conceivable way. It is crucial that we get
involved and make a difference, so let's get started right now!
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Copyright 2001 by The Neo-Comintern #170-09/16/01
All content is property of The Neo-Comintern.
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