Capitalism

By way of contrast, the ideal of limitlessness consumption serves the modern economy quite well, but it does not serve the person well at all. [2] This ideal imparts to us all a spirit of scarcity that darkens our experience: not enough time, not enough attention, not enough capacity to care. But upon what does this spirit feed? It feeds, in part,

“We consume, as we produce, without any concrete relatedness to the objects with which we deal; We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.”

— Erich Fromm , “The Sane Society”

Love, in this social philosophy, is something far, far beyond what “economic forces” limit us to. It is the great liberating force of the human spirit, which leads to concrete social progress. Under capitalism, I can see you as a producer, or a consumer — or even a slave or a servant — but never really as a human being. I am always just looking for

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome. [[Noam Chomsky]]

Thus, the ads mostly affected the people who were in a “deciding” mindset when those ads ran.

Schlick also understood that his call to playfulness was not a self-help psychological switch that can be turned on and off. It also requires structural change to do away with work that is ‘mechanical, brutalising, degrading’ or work that serves to ‘produce only trash and empty luxury’. This means that capitalism, which subjects workers to severe