The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste

In The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste , John Asimakopoulos analyzes the political economy of the spectacle conceptualized by philosophers like Guy Debord through a broad interdisciplinary-nonsectarian approach concluding every society is a caste system legitimized by ideology. The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste 4 Copyright 5 Contents 8 About The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste 10 Foreword 11 Acknowledgements 15 Illustrations 16 Introduction: Busting out of Plato's Cave 18 1 The Symbolic Institution of Society 20 1 Symbolic Interactionism 22 2 Interaction Exchange and Collective Norms 24 3 Critical Theory and Post-Structuralism/Postmodernism 31 3.1 Cornelius Castoriadis 34 3.2 Michel Foucault 38 3.3 Guy Debord 40 3.4 Jean Baudrillard 43 4 Beyond Post-Structuralism/Postmodernism 46 2 The Spectacle 50 1 Audience Segmentation 50 1.1 Sociocultural and Spatial Segmentation 54 1.2 Educational Segmentation 57 1.3 Economic Segmentation 61 1.4 Political Segmentation 63 2 Total Propaganda 64 3 Symbolic Institutions 71 3.1 Educational Institutions 72 3.2 Economic Institutions 75 3.3 Political Institutions 78 3.4 Legal Institutions 84 3.5 Protective Institutions 85 3 It's All Spectacular 90 1 Spectacular History 90 2 Postmodern Spectacles 96 2.1 Doubleplusgood: Spectacular Capitalism 98 2.2 Plusgood: Spectacular Socialism/Communism 105 3 Spectacular Class 107 4 The Quantum Mechanics of Value and Capital 116 4.1 The Relativity of Value 116 4.2 There Is No Spoon: Capital(ism) 119 4 The Monetization of Everything 125 1 Life, Flesh, and Death 126 2 Food, Water, and the Environment 137 3 Cities, Nations, and Culture 141 4 Time and Space 144 5 The Global Spectacle 147 5.1 Finance 148 5.2 Trade 151 5.3 Segmented Labor 153 5 The Structure of Postmodern Caste 155 1 Social Order 155 1.1 Privileges and Disabilities Based on Ascription 156 1.2 Who Pays the Piper? 160 1.3 Extreme Structural Inequality 163 2 Caste Groups 174 2.1 Ruling Caste 176 2.2 Nobles 179 2.3 Privileged Labor 181 2.4 Required Labor 184 2.5 Precarious Labor 186 2.6 Institutional Slaves 189 3 Legitimizing Twenty-First-Century Serfdom 194 3.1 Mr. Baptist Has Been Too Harsh on the Slavers 194 3.2 Teaching the Right Lessons 196 Conclusion: Bakunin's Conundrum 201 Bibliography 206 Index 234 "In The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste, John Asimakopoulos analyzes the political economy of the society of the spectacle, a philosophical concept developed by Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard. Using the analytical tools of social science, while historicizing, Asimakopoulos reveals that all societies in every epoch have been and continue to be caste systems legitimized by various ideologies. He concludes there is no such thing as capitalism (or socialism) -- only a caste system hidden behind capitalist ideology. Key features of the book include its broad interdisciplinary-nonsectarian approach with quantitative and qualitative data. The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste is well-written and clear making it accessible to the informed reader"-- Provided by publisher