cha·os
noun
1.
disorder:
a state of complete disorder and confusion
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But as Rousseau puts it soon after, there is a huge distinction between freedom and freedom: men give up their "natural freedom" (bound only by force) to acquire a "civil freedom" (bound by the general will). Same distinction with property: possession is based on force, property is based on a positive title. (Which means that property comes from the "civil state", not the other way around)
No, they don't give up their natural freedom, they loose it. And they don't do it to adquire civil freedom, they just attempt to adquire civil freedom as a substitute from the original natural state wich they can never return to.
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I'll also add that Rousseau's view isn't defended by everyone either.
NO, REALLY??? :p
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All consuming images: "Required reading for anyone interested in how fashion, style and the power of image have developed over the decades." (from the book's description). Errr, yes? Mind developping why it shows the USA isn't the "land of the free"?
Err...didn't you ever heard the "don't judge the book for it's cover"? This one on later chapters develops the concept of consumerist society following the panoptical order, or in other words, makes an argument of modern capitalism being a prision of the mind. And it's a good one, but it took the writer 280 pages to develop, so it's hard to summarise it here.
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Weber: "Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day a powerful and fascinating read. Weber's highly accessible style is just one of many reasons for his continuing popularity. The book contends that the Protestant ethic made possible and encouraged the development of capitalism in the West." Same remark as above. That said, Weber did write that "the State has the monopoly of legal force", but that's for Europe (because in the USA, the people have that power too)
Weber was the first one to use the famous definition of modern capitalism as an "iron cage". It's complicated to explain, but again, he makes some very good points on the critical ideas to capitalism. Although this man is not someone I agree with much, he does a great denounce on modern society.
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Marcuse: I tired to find more about him, and found out he lived in the USA, and was influenced by Marx' writings. And from what I read about him through a review of O'Neil's article based on these ideas, it's highly contestable.
He is contestable. Every thinker is.
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Marx: I find his economics work interesting from a purely hypothetical point of view, but once you look at the reality of the nature of people, it doesn't work. And his own view of people is very limited too. Some situations today might look similar, but that's not the same. Plus, Marx predicted that capitalism would fall apart; I'm still waiting.
Mmm...I gave you the link to the philosophical manuscripts, not to The Capital. Those manuscripts are from his first times, where he was more concentrated on denounce than on the whole historic theory.
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Freud: haven't read it, but from the reviews, while it offers an analysis of the Western civilisation, I haven't seen mentioned the lack of freedom in the USA (/Western world).
Oh, he does, he refers to the repression of the Id, but defends it in a good way. It's not that in fact he attacks western culture that much (well, he does...) but it's the fact that his conclusion easily leads to the follow up by Marcuse in "Eros and Civilization".
But since it's very boring to get me going on in pedantic style on the books, let's make something happier. You know the Marxist theory, right? I don't mean his economic stuff, wich I find terribly boring, I mean his critique to capitalism...
Now the Million Dollar Question:
Is that critique still relevant today?