Critique of one-dimensional thought then and now. Confronting two critiques of ideology through a longer view of capitalist platformization

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE
Author/s Daniel Ißl
Publishing Year 2023 Issue 2023/65
Language English Pages 19 P. 90-108 File size 282 KB
DOI 10.3280/SC2023-065006
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

This article examines the often-overlooked critiques of ideology in analyses of current capitalism. Therefor the concept “platform” is adapted to the capitalist market structure itself, allowing to compare different phases of capitalism’s plat-formization and corresponding critiques. Marcuse’s and Zuboff’s analyses serve as case studies. Both examine the triad of capitalism, technology and subjective experience, arguing that technology stabilizes domination. In Zuboff’s version consensus is achieved, not least, through the manipulation carried out by a “new priesthood” that employs “means of behavioral modification”. The article con-cludes that, due to feudalization tendencies, such theory of priestly deception may, to an extent, be justified.

Keywords: Surveillance Capitalism; Critique of Ideology; Platformization; Critical Theory; Conformism; Zuboff.

  1. Adorno T. (1990), Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft? in Tiedemann, R. (ed.) Theodor W. Adorno Soziologische Schriften 1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M.
  2. Adorno T. (2007), Beitrag zur Ideologienlehre, in Tiedemann R. (ed.) Theodor W. Adorno Soziologische Schriften 1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M.
  3. Bell D. (1960), The End of Ideology. On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties, Free Press, New York.
  4. Boltanski L., Chiapello E. (2007), The New Spirit of Capitalism, Verso, London-New York.
  5. Chamayou G. (2019), Die unregierbare Gesellschaft. Eine Genealogie des autoritären Liberalismus, Berlin, Suhrkamp.
  6. Crouch C. (2009), Privatised Keynesianism: An Unacknowledged Policy Regime, in «The British Journal of Politics and International Relations», 11 (3), pp. 382-399
  7. Daub A. (2020), Was das Valley denken nennt. Über die Ideologie der Techbranche, Suhrkamp, Berlin.
  8. Dean J. (2020), Neofeudalism. The End of Capitalism?, in «Los Angeles Review of Books», -- Available at: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/neofeudalism-the-end-of-capitalism/ 16.05.2023
  9. Eagleton T. (1991), Ideology. An Introduction, Verso, London-New York.
  10. Feenberg A. (2023), The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing. Nature and Revolution in Marcuse’s Philosophy of Praxis, Verso, London-New York.
  11. Fraser N. (2016), Expropriation and Exploitation in Racialized Capitalism: A Reply to Michael Dawson, in «Critical Historical Studies», 3 (1) pp. 163 – 178. DOI: 10.1086/685814
  12. Gandesha S. (2018), Totality and Technological Form, in Best, B., Bonefeld, W., O’Kane, C. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, SAGE, Los Angeles-London.
  13. Gilbert J., Williams A. (2022), Hegemony Now! How Big Tech and Wall Street won the World (And how to win it back), Verso, London-New York.
  14. Habermas J. (1970), Toward a Rational Society, Beacon Press, Boston.
  15. Harvey D. (2005), A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York.
  16. Haug W. F. (1986), Critique of Commodity Aesthetics. Appearance, Sexuality and Advertising in Capitalist Society, Polity, Cambridge.
  17. Haug W.F. (1999), Falsches Bewusstsein, in Haug W.F. (ed.) Historisch Kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus. Band 4, Argument, Hamburg.
  18. Horkheimer M., Adorno T. (1947) Dialektik der Aufklärung, Querido Verlag, Amsterdam
  19. Kellner D. (1984), Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, MacMillan, Basingstoke, London.
  20. Lenk K. (1994), Rechts wo die Mitte steht. Studien zur Ideologie. Rechtsextremismus, Nationalsozialismus, Konservatismus, Nomos, Baden-Baden.
  21. Lovink G. (2019), Sad by Design. On Platform Nihilism, Pluto, London.
  22. Marcuse H. (1998), Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, in Kellner, D. (ed.), Herbert Marcuse. Technology, War and Fascism, Routledge, London- New York.
  23. Marcuse H. (2007), One-Dimensional Man. Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society, Routledge, London-New York.
  24. Markard M. (1999), Falsche Bedürfnisse. in Haug W.F. (ed.) Historisch Kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus. Band 4, Argument, Hamburg.
  25. Mau S. (2021), Stummer Zwang. Eine marxistische Analyse der ökonomischen Macht im Kapitalismus, Dietz, Berlin.
  26. Morozov E. (2022), Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason, in «New Left Review». 133, pp. 89-126.
  27. Pistor K. (2019), The Code of Capital. How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
  28. Reckwitz A. (2017), Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Zum Strukturwandel der Moderne, Suhrkamp, Berlin.
  29. Rehmann J. (2008), Einführung in die Ideologietheorie, Argument, Hamburg.
  30. Seymour R. (2019), The Twittering Machine, Indigo, London.
  31. Schnädelbach H. (1969), Was ist Ideologie?, in «Das Argument», 50, pp. 71-92.
  32. Staab P. (2019), Digitaler Kapitalismus. Markt und Herrschaft in der Ökonomie der Unknappheit, Suhrkamp, Berlin.
  33. Umrath B. (2022), Herrschaftskritik und utopische Antizipation – Herbert Marcuses Rezeption der Psychoanalyse, in Stögner K., Colligs A. (eds.), Kritische Theorie und Feminismus, Suhrkamp, Berlin.
  34. van Dijck J., Poell T., de Waal M. (2018), The Platform Society. Public Values in a Connective World, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York.
  35. Wark M. (2019), Capital is Dead. Is this Something Worse? Verso, London-New York.
  36. Wood E. M. (2016), The Origin of Capitalism. A Longer View, Verso, London-New York.
  37. Zuboff S. (2019), The Age for Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Public Affairs, New York.

Daniel Ißl, Critique of one-dimensional thought then and now. Confronting two critiques of ideology through a longer view of capitalist platformization in "SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE " 65/2023, pp 90-108, DOI: 10.3280/SC2023-065006