Systematization and communications
social philosophy
And now let's move on to the main secret of the consumer society in which we live. The productivity of labor in developed countries has increased so much that, with the same length of the working day, a small part of the population is able to produce absolutely everything necessary for the country. Therefore, for the rest of the population, work is created artificially. In modern language, this is called the creation of new jobs. After all, no one puzzled - where to get them from in the communities of ancient farmers or medieval townspeople.
The problem first became noticeable during the Great Depression. The industrial revolution of the 1920s put millions of people out of their usual jobs and led to the first crisis of overproduction. Then it was possible to get out of the crisis thanks to the militarization of the economy, employing extra people in the production of weapons - the more expensive, the better. However, the glut of ever more advanced weapons created the temptation to use them, leading to the bloodiest war in human history.
Having satisfied the basic needs for food, clothing, housing, which previously constituted the sacramental essence of any activity, humanity, by inertia, undertook to invent new ones. Various methods of mass processing of consciousness have helped manufacturers to achieve the emergence of additional needs in cases where they do not add up spontaneously. For example, all glamorous, glossy magazines are an artificially created advertising subculture for the sale of unnecessary accessories for inflated purposes.
Modern pharmacology has also turned from a virtue into a problem. Having exhausted the potential of chemical treatments, drug companies have become busy replicating the same formulas under different names, or pointlessly imposing alternative substances that are no better than the old ones. Given the secrecy of know-how and the power of advertising, manufacturers of fancy pills, potions, and cosmetics manage to inflate prices so much that, in addition to profits, they make the system invincible. Even competition does not prevent you from earning income - it is no coincidence that pharmacies open on every corner in any major city.
Manufacturers of household appliances have created such perfect products that they have ceased to break. As a result, products began to deteriorate, causing failure after the warranty expired, or making all accessories for products expensive and incompatible with others, like cartridges for laser printers that do not refill with cheap toner, but change entirely after it ends.
Similar methods of imposing unnecessary goods and services have penetrated into all spheres of life. In education, textbooks are becoming more complicated, unnecessary reporting is increasing, and meaningless methods are being invented, for the development of which teachers are offered advanced training courses. In public administration, to solve simple problems, crowded departments are created, the existence of which is directly related to the fact that the problem will never be solved. Their vigorous activity does more harm than good, destroying social harmony, causing conflicts of interest and, naturally, increasing the costs of total control and support of law and order. So any problems and undertakings turn into a welcome excuse for using the budget in the interests of a narrow group of people.
As a result, instead of one really necessary circulation of goods and services, several parallel ones arise - not very necessary.
In a socialist state, the problem could be solved by reducing the length of the working day. By the way, that's how it was originally intended. In a capitalist society, fierce competition between enterprises excludes support for such an undertaking. In addition, the puritanical morality of capitalism taught to see a good person working at the limit of his strength. The idea of reducing working hours conjures up the spectacle of an idle crowd of loafers losing their humanity. Sadly, this seems to be true. The man of the consumer society is really degrading, having lost the mechanism of coercion to work and self-development.
However, labor productivity continues to rise. Every year the classical consumer society loses its harmony more and more noticeably and is burdened with a load of marketing illusions. So human civilization has come to a very interesting line, beyond which the consumer society ends and something new begins.
In order to guess the features of a new super-idea that will replace the idea of a consumer society, let's try to find a sphere of human activity in which any investment of forces is justified and never leads to a crisis of overproduction. Only such an industry can save civilization from the problem of further growth in labor productivity.
As already mentioned, at first such a sphere of activity turned out to be the military-industrial complex. The unlimited production of weapons was considered quite reasonable, since it increased the defense capability of the state. But today it has ceased to be justified, having turned into nuclear arsenals, created only to intimidate each other, since they cannot be used without the threat of destroying life on earth. Conventional weapons also periodically lead to conflicts that can escalate into a global catastrophe. Therefore, the world ideology accepts war less and less. Even the unleashing of a war today is justified only by the need to end some other war. This is how the natural instinct of self-preservation of modern mankind manifests itself.
The possibility of further militarization of the economy has been exhausted. However, in return we got something that in recent years has been intensively developing precisely thanks to militarization. I'm talking about fundamental science and the latest science-intensive technologies.
Science is the only sphere of human activity in which the investment of forces is always justified and never leads to a crisis of overproduction. Even unsuccessful scientific projects enrich our experience, while successful ones incredibly enhance our capabilities. And just as President Vladimir Putin once said: “We need a national ideology, and I can offer nothing better than patriotism,” the author of this article can say: a global ideology is needed, and I can offer nothing better than the conscious development of science.
After all, people are waiting for truly terrible crises - environmental ones. It is high time to put an end to the "all against all" war. All free forces and means should be directed to education and science.
Studying history, it is easy to see that the generals, revolutionaries and prophets never improved the world. At best, they only cleared the way for those who are capable of it. Our fate was really facilitated only by inventions and discoveries. They gradually changed the relationship between people. Only scientific knowledge made the world more prosperous, fairer and freer.
We urgently need new energy sources. We need environmentally friendly technologies. We need houses with autonomous electricity and heat, we need cheap and reliable transport that allows us to get anywhere in the world in a few hours. Stop cutting the planet with asphalt roads and entangling it with wires. We need wholesome food, easy to prepare, regardless of climate and weather. A new scientific and technological revolution is long overdue. Without it, we will simply die out - poor and rich, right and wrong, destroying each other in the struggle for the last resources. Knowledge, and not the military-industrial complex, will be in the future beyond the idea, salvation and the main locomotive of the economy after the era of consumption.
News of the global crisis in recent weeks give little cause for optimism. Both from the USA and from Europe there are reports of mass job cuts that have begun or are being prepared, wage cuts, and in some places even street unrest. So, Associated Press reports that a protest rally in the center of the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik, ended with riots and clashes with police, where hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets on Friday to protest the government's policies, which actually brought the country to bankruptcy. The police had to detain one of the demonstrators, and a day later an angry mob decided to storm the police building, trying to break down the doors and demanding the release of their colleague. In response, law enforcement officers fired tear gas and forced the demonstrators to retreat. There are victims, reports RBC.It is quite possible that in a few months other countries are waiting for similar events. Above the relatively prosperous life of Europe for several decades, which in the eyes of Soviet, and therefore already Russian citizens was the standard of social and consumer well-being, clouds of “new poverty” are gathering. It is this term that can now be heard, for example, in reports euronews- about a Belgian mother of many children who barely has enough money to feed her children, and she herself is forced to eat only bread for weeks, or about a Portuguese pensioner who now has no money to pay water bills and, in order to take a shower, he now has to go to a Catholic charity center. And this is not a Soviet television program about the "grin of world imperialism", but the news of a European TV channel in November 2008.
Of course, so far the crisis has affected the most vulnerable Europeans to such an extent - those who live on social benefits. The bulk of the representatives of the European middle class (and the Russian one too) are waiting for a serious decrease in the level of consumption. It would seem that this is an unpleasant, but quite traditional phenomenon for people - there are periods when life is better, and sometimes when you have to tighten your belts. More precisely, it has been traditional at all times, but in the era of postmodernity and consumer society, this situation can lead not only to financial and domestic problems for the “golden billion”, but to much deeper, socio-cultural and ideological problems. Because consumption for a modern person is by no means the satisfaction of material needs. This is a philosophy of life, a system of values, a field of self-realization, in essence - a new religion and ideology.
Consumption is misunderstood by many as only the acquisition of certain things, goods and services. But we live in a world of symbolic consumption, and have long been paying money not for things - but for an image, for signs of self-identification, for a sense of belonging. A world in which (let's imagine for a moment) shopping centers, advertising, and the entertainment industry will disappear will shake the foundations of the universe of the modern layman just as much as the sudden disappearance of all temples and clergy would have shocked a medieval person. “This is impossible and unthinkable,” our distant ancestor would have decided. Modern society thinks the same way. And it is not at all ready for the fact that it will live poorer - this is a purely everyday complexity, but for the fact that the end of the consumer society in its current form is the destruction of the foundations of the world of globalization and neoliberalism. A world that a few years ago proclaimed its complete and final victory on the entire planet, taking another couple of decades to solve "technical" problems - the subjugation of "rogue states" and the development of the resources of "insufficiently globalized" regions. But don't say "hop" until you jump over. Today, dizziness from success is replaced by the understanding that very soon you can not only lose the status of the victorious and only true system, but generally go, as they say, to the dustbin of history. People are much less ready for such large-scale changes in their worldview than they are for having to transfer to a bus from a personal car or switch to a cheaper brand of sausage.
IS A MAN WHAT HE BUYS?
The attitude towards the consumer society in Europe and in modern Russia has significant differences. European philosophical and social thought has long carried out a deep analysis of what consumption is in its current form - fortunately, there was enough time for this. Thus, the work of one of the most prominent European researchers of the phenomenon of consumption, Jean Baudrillard, “Consumer Society: Its Myths and Structures”, appeared back in 1970. European intellectuals of the 20th century traditionally had more or less anti-bourgeois views - precisely because they managed to consider in detail what the world of well-fed inhabitants is like and what vices and total lack of freedom are hidden behind its outwardly pleasant facade. But "from inside" the USSR, everything looked completely different - the inaccessible world of material capitalist prosperity seemed like a paradise, and the "difference between tourism and emigration" the Russians could feel only after years of living under domestic capitalism, which turned out to be a very strange hybrid that absorbed the shortcomings of both Western, and the Soviet systems. And so many eyes opened - it turns out that in a consumer society, goods are not only clothes, cars and technical innovations, but also - oh, horror! - art, health, personal time and social status, and sometimes your own life in the literal sense. But, despite this, a very large part of our fellow citizens sincerely accepted the new system of values. Why?
At first glance, it is obvious that after living in a world of forced material equality, it became possible to work and earn money, which in itself can only be welcomed. However, this is not the only thing. Consumption as a worldview is a very serious competitor to any ideological constructs.
This system has an integrity comparable to the integrity of a religious or philosophical teaching - it tells a person what the goals of his life are (to increase the level of consumption and standard of living), explains how to achieve this (cost-effective career), gives a holistic picture of the world (everything is explained in terms of purchases-sales and profitability-unprofitability) and a chance for individual happiness (we are all building a world where everyone has a chance to succeed). At the same time, the arguments of the system are simple and understandable to everyone. Not everyone is ready to live for the sake of a brighter future, peace in the world, or closer to God. But who doesn't want to live tomorrow better than today? To have a spacious dwelling, beautiful clothes, comfortable things.
It seems that the weakness of the consumer society - in its excessive earthiness - after all, not by bread alone? This mistake is often made by not-so-distant critics of the consumer society, exclaiming: “Oh, the times! Oh morals! The younger generation is not interested in anything but money!” Nothing like that, the consumer society today is mainly a society of the consumption of meanings. Wealth in itself does not matter. Buying expensive cars, visiting a prestigious club and wearing exclusive clothes, a person buys an image and status. Actually, it is the image and sensations, and not the goods themselves, that have long been sold by marketing and PR specialists. Therefore, consumption successfully replaces traditional forms of self-realization. If yesterday, in order to say something to the world, you had to write a novel, play a soulful melody or deliver a fiery speech at a rally, today the label on your purse, the brand of cigarettes and the name of the restaurant you go to will say everything for you. Moreover, you can declare yourself every day in different ways - today you are a glamorous inhabitant of a nightclub, tomorrow you are a sports-equipped traveler, the day after tomorrow you are a business yuppie. In the "society of the spectacle" everyone is both a spectator and an actor. Consumption is also a kind of creativity - because whatever you buy, today you buy not a thing or a service, but a means of self-expression and a lifestyle. Goods and services are individualized and "customized" - you can buy kitchen furniture of a unique configuration that you only need, create a unique design for your credit card, or order pizza in a cafe according to your own recipe. Today a person is what he buys. “Shopping is not just shopping. This is the whole range of human problems and relationships. What you buy speaks volumes about who you are and who you want to be,” said Professor Christopher Moore, who specializes in shopping at a Scottish university. Glasgow Caledonian University. Therefore, self-realization in the world of consumption is no more difficult, but on the contrary, it is much easier than before. Here everyone will be allowed to get their moment of fame, become a creator in the field of their own wardrobe and hairstyles, and have an extreme hobby. Once upon a time, individuality was the result of mind, character and personal effort, now it is easier to buy it. The opportunity to live, playing and asserting oneself, and not at all a primitive cult of material prosperity, make such a life so attractive.
But all this image-building is possible only in a favorable economic climate, or rather, in a very specific situation of a growing service economy with a significant non-productive sector. It is to the economy that is now falling with a "rapid jack" into the funnel of the crisis. No wonder one of the last numbers The Economist came out with a very eloquent cover - a figure on the edge of the abyss and the words "World on the edge" ("World at the edge").
WELFARE SOCIETY
You should not have illusions - no one will voluntarily refuse consumption as a meaning, since it seems that a world where relative prosperity is guaranteed to everyone is the same laissez-faire capitalism , welfare society. It would seem that only the most radical idealists can oppose it. But a consumer society, when looked at more closely, is not at all a scheme where everyone receives a certain set of material goods and lives peacefully, satisfied with his position, and the economy provides this standard of living. Perhaps in theory this should be the case. But in practice, an increase in profits is impossible without an increase in consumption, and hence an increase in needs.
A society where everyone is satisfied with their material wealth and does not want more is a nightmare for any businessman, because no business growth is possible in it. This is precisely the reason for today's problems - if in the field of meanings the consumer has been competently "spurred" to a constant thirst for consumption for many years with the help of a wide variety of advertising and marketing methods, then in practical terms, the population of many countries has been seduced by profitable and cheap loans. For this, the technologies for the production of things that fail immediately after the end of the warranty period and are subject to replacement in a fully functional state due to their unfashionability also work. At the very time when the problems of ecology and the lack of natural resources seem to be on the agenda at the highest level.
“Hooked” thanks to the consumer itch for a life on credit, a person is extremely convenient for the state - he is easy to manipulate, he is dependent, he cannot suddenly change his life, becoming for many years a hostage of his own - seemingly - well-being. Moreover, you cannot tempt the poor man with a luxurious limousine, he knows the limits of his capabilities. But the middle class is very easy to convince to buy on credit a slightly higher class car or a more expensive mobile phone than he could afford to live within his means. “You can afford it” is the main trap that makes you always spend more than you earn. Last year's appeals, for example, by the British authorities to the population - if possible, do not use credit cards that automatically make you a debtor and do not take loans at all unnecessarily, have remained unaddressed. Now the British, and not only them, will have to pay for this scheme of life with unemployment , bankruptcies of industries and a forced decline in living standards.
Consumption also creates the illusion of equality. Indeed, you can go and buy the same thing as a famous artist, TV presenter or athlete. Look at advertising posters with portraits of celebrities, as if inviting a modest layman - come closer to us, we allow you to become like us, even if for a while, like Cinderella at the ball, to be close to princes and princesses. All these are rather ugly games, because they do not cultivate a desire to become better at all, but a sense of their own inferiority.
The Russians (at least those with above-average incomes), unlike the Europeans, are entering a period of crisis at the peak of just such conspicuous consumption. And for some reason, behind the arguments that you can’t forbid living beautifully, no one remembers that the equality that is somewhere next to brotherhood and freedom is not an equal right for everyone to earn extra money and buy a food processor or a new car, and equal right to social opportunities, education, participation in civil institutions. However, it is unlikely that Russian young yuppies, so passionate about their career building, are thinking about a world of equal opportunities. The world of winners and losers looks more tempting in the eyes of those who are sure that they will definitely win. But in the near future, a completely different fate awaits many - and the “losers” of such fortune hunters will be determined not by any left-wing radical patriots, but by the economic system that has become their idol.
NEW ALTERNATIVES
Even if the current crisis does not lead to a radical change in the economic world order, but becomes only a serious shake-up for it, the main thing has already happened - the much-lauded neoliberal economic model will no longer be considered uncontested. What could be the basis of other models?
First of all, a renewed idea of justice will be in demand - not a primitive leveling, but a system where there will be an increased demand for private initiative, but speculative "soap bubbles" are impossible. Secondly, instead of endless consumption, people need other goals. There is an expression beloved by neo-liberals, "Capitalism is what people do, if left alone." But the "developed" consumer society, with its carnival of intangible symbols for sale, confirms just the opposite. If a modern person has enough money, then he begins to deal not with their increase - but with self-realization. Yes, for some, this self-realization becomes business success, for some it happens in a primitive form of buying status. But the very fact that people are willing to pay the most for their image and lifestyle suggests that they do not need things, but a sense of success and fulfillment (by the way, this is also confirmed by the huge popularity of computer games - where a modern person is also looking for self-realization, albeit virtual). And any model of life that offers society a path to such a sense of self, not through overconsumption, may well be in demand. And the new goals can be many things - from the fight against poverty to space exploration or the construction of socialism in the 21st century.
In this sense, the “fooling” that has gripped everyone is not at all accidental - perhaps the new US president will not make any breakthrough in the end, it is important that his election revealed a great desire for change and a dream of a new tomorrow among millions of Americans. Everyone else wants to see a new tomorrow, and the global economic crisis will only exacerbate these aspirations. To give society new guidelines for success and usefulness, new dreams - this is the main task of those who want to move forward towards post-crisis social and economic models.
"Theories and Practices" publishes lecture notes. Andrey Gasilin, post-graduate student of the Department of Analytical Philosophy of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke about how goods manipulate us, what the strategy of the great rejection is, and why the fashion for environmental friendliness prevents us from solving the real problems of the planet.
Fundamentals of consumer culture
Let's start with the iPhone. You probably know that Apple components are manufactured by the Taiwanese company Foxconn. There are at least a million people in its state - Chinese and Taiwanese. In 2010, 10 Foxconn employees committed suicide, usually by throwing men and women from high floors or rooftops. Of course, there was an investigation during which it turned out that the company systematically violates labor standards. Workers, receiving a meager salary, experience fantastic overloads - physical, psychological and, last but not least, intellectual. That is, 10 corpses are the result of a rather cannibalistic and aggressive policy of the employer. In the same year, Apple itself launched an investigation.
An interesting coincidence: in 2010, the first iPad was released, which became a way for Apple to revive its former greatness. A lot of time has passed since the first Macintosh entered the market, and by the end of the 2000s, Apple began to gradually lose its leadership position. The iPad allowed Apple to take the lead again. This was achieved, among other things, at the cost of the lives of these ten unfortunate workers and inhuman loads.
Of course, after that, measures were taken, and the number of suicides began to decline. Do you think Foxconn has humanized the internal routine? Far from it. They put bars on the windows and special nets around the perimeters of the buildings. They also released a wonderful document that equates suicide with an accident. According to this paragraph, now the employer does not have to pay any compensation to the relatives of the deceased and no investigation is envisaged. Thus, the suicide statistics were effectively reduced to zero. As you understand, the situation with loads has not changed fundamentally.
Consumer culture is born where consumers themselves begin to discover and explore this behind the scenes. Where people do not fall for the brand and the beautiful shell, but know the wrong side of the Apple product, Windows, Ubuntu - everyone.
Environmental consciousness
Vinogradov and Dubossarsky. Salute, Spain! 2002
Principles of Minimalism
1. Optimization of consumer habits. If you're thinking about buying something that isn't essential, from a piece of clothing to a new gadget, just put that purchase on hold. If in a month you ask yourself again if you need it, and honestly answer: “Yes”, then it’s probably worth buying it. But with most things, as practice shows, this does not happen.
2. Use of the market of secondary things. A huge number of things end up in a landfill without having exhausted their resources and functionality.
3. Culture of slow life. Corporate culture tells us: “Hurry! Quicker! You won't be able to! You have to try a lot, you have to do a lot, you have to see a lot of places, you have to experience a lot.” And this is said not only to consumers, but also to producers. Slow life - these are the ideas of slow food, slow reading,. Life must be measured in order to enjoy. A fast, too intense life does not allow you to fully feel what is happening.
4. Crowdfunding. This is also a way of confrontation - investing in independent projects. Corporate culture offers a certain choice of device models, but this is an imaginary choice. In crowdfunding, if you like a project, you support it with a ruble. In my opinion, it's just more honest. This is the economic model of the future, and it works.
5. Ecotourism. In our country, it has just begun to develop, in Europe it has existed for a long time, and it is interesting that this concept developed from a kind of human nostalgia for the countryside, for life in the countryside. The first eco-farms appeared in Italy in the 60s of the 20th century: farmers began to invite people from the city to live for a while during the harvest period as assistants. In the future, of course, all this was modified, now farm owners rarely involve guests in work, they simply allocate a house and, of course, charge a certain fee for this.
6. Priority of production over consumption. The main problem of the consumer society is that consumption has a clear priority over production. It is assumed that a person consumes more than he produces, and everything is aimed at ensuring that this happens.
7. Priority of cultural production over industrial production. Production can also be cultural: you can create concepts, impressions, music, paintings. This is more responsible, because this way you will pass something on to the next generations, who will not live in the dump left after your careless consumer life. It is the priority of existence over possession. We need to stop acting like children who endlessly want everything, and be attentive to everything that happens.
Andy Warhol "Campbell's Soup Cans"
Environmental problems
The most obvious problem associated with such a society is environmental. Our planet's resources are not unlimited, nor is its ability to deal with pollution.
The consumer society deliberately provokes a rapid change in fashion for goods. Otherwise, they will not be consumed and there will be a crisis of overproduction - enterprises will stand up because they will not be able to sell the goods they produce, and the people working for them will lose their jobs and will not be able to purchase goods.
Such a society needs to stimulate consumption. The most common means of doing this is to empower consumers and provoke a desire to buy these products. To increase opportunities, lending is most often used, because, since the main goal of manufacturers is still making a profit, it is not profitable for them to increase wages for workers. Lending allows you to shorten the financial cycle, enabling consumers to no longer delay the pleasure of buying and using the product, but to receive it instantly, leaving the payment for it for later and at the same time making it a debtor of the consumption system, forced to pay for the pleasure already received.
Another way to increase the consumption of goods is associated with a rapid change in fashion for them. This allows you to significantly reduce the cycle of using a thing, because it becomes unnecessary not when it becomes unusable, but when the fashion for it passes. As a result, solid, quite useful things are sent to the landfill.
In addition, the rapid change of fashion allows manufacturers to make lower-quality goods in the expectation that, when the demand for this product passes, it will no longer be needed, so that no one expects it to be used for a long time. And the demands on the part of consumers to the product, the service life of which is expected to be short, are significantly less.
Ultimately, a society of excess consumption of goods becomes a society of their excess production, as well as a society of consumption of resources and excess production of garbage.
Labor exploitation
The stimulation of production, characteristic of a consumer society, makes goods more accessible to the general population, at the same time increasing its purchasing power. However, this is achieved by increasing labor productivity. And it is not necessarily associated with the use of new production technologies or improving the quality of logistics. When these measures exhaust themselves, business owners seek to increase productivity by increasing the work of employees. This is usually achieved by increasing their exploitation, greater routinization of work, increasing quantitative indicators, surveillance and pressure on employees. All this causes stress for workers, which they again relieve with the help of consumption.
Another problem associated with the exploitation of labor in a consumer society is that labor that could be used to produce goods and ideas, as well as to improve the quality of people's lives, is redirected to activities related to stimulating the demand for things. We are constantly told that, they say, “factories are standing”, but at the same time, it is somehow forgotten that most of the factories are located in third world countries. The people of the first world, on the other hand, are mainly occupied with two things: the management of production and the sale of goods. The question arises: why would the inhabitants of the first world countries work at all if they produce practically nothing, and if they do not produce anything, why should they engage in overconsumption that stimulates production?
It turns out that such a society functions only to reproduce consumption itself. While increasing production to meet the needs of its members, it is forced to further stimulate consumption in order to prevent crises caused by overproduction.
