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Consumerism is the Perfection of Slavery - Prof Jiang Xueqin | Prof. Jiang Clips | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Consumerism is the Perfection of Slavery - Prof Jiang Xueqin
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Core Theme
The core theme is that while Karl Marx's prediction of communism's rise in industrialized nations was inaccurate, his underlying principle of prioritizing workers has been adopted and then systematically dismantled by a shift towards consumerism, which benefits elites by fostering competition and preventing collective action.
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All right.
Now, what's amazing about Marx is that
today we say he's wrong, right? Communism
Communism
happened in the Soviet Union. It
happened in China, but it happened in
Europe and in United States where Mark
said it would happen first because
Germany was more industrialized than
Russia or China. Okay, does that make
sense? That's that's that's what we say.
If you think about it deeply, okay, um
um
Marx is right.
After World War II, every society, every
industrial society to some extent adopted
adopted
the ideals of communism.
It doesn't make sense. Okay, we call
this socialism and not communism, but
basically it adhere to the thinking of
Marx, which is to make the worker the
heart and center of your society. And
and why did they do that after World War II?
II?
Exactly. Okay. Because workers create value.
Money doesn't create any value. Money
just creates more money. Okay. It's
speculative. But the workers create
value. They're productive. And
therefore, you have to treat your
workers properly. So in America and in
Europe, workers became the heart and
center of your society. And the workers
through unions could uh demand political
reforms. And so our society was geared
towards making the lives of the middle
class, the working class better. Okay?
That's why you had excellent healthcare,
great great public schools,
Okay, so the 50s and 60s and 70s was
basically the peak
uh of society for the working class.
But in the 80s,
we start to change this. Why?
Why would why would we want to change
the system? It's a great system, right?
Marx is right. Having the worker as the
heart and center of your of your
society, as the central organizing unit
of of society makes a lot more sense
than having money as the heart and
center. Okay? But starting in the 80s,
Yes. Exactly. Okay. So, what happened in
the 80s is something called the revolt
Okay. In other words, the problem with
having a society based on a worker is it
becomes too egalitarian, too equal,
right? But if you're like the elite, you
don't want equality. You want
difference. You want to have power and
money in your hands. Does that make
sense? So the revolted elite happened in
the 80s. And this is what we call in the
United States the re Reagan revolution.
Okay? The Reagan revolution,
the beginning of neoliberalism, free
market capitalism. And in Britain it was
called Thatcherism. Okay? Margaret
Thatcher. the Thatcher revolution.
And so now you need to transition away
from the worker to something else. Okay,
another ideology that allows the elite
to amass power. Okay, so just to show
you how radical this revolution was in
the 1970s, okay, 1970s, if you were a
CEO, the head of a company, okay, you
were making on average $1 million US a
year. That's pretty good, right? That's
really good money.
And that $1 million was more than 20
times the worker. Okay?
Okay?
And that's
pretty reasonable.
Today, the average CEO in United States
makes $20 million a year and that is 200
to 300 times more than the average
worker in the company. Okay, does that
make sense? So,
um in the 80s, inequality start to explode,
explode,
right? And so they're transitioning from
the worker to a new organizing unit
Okay?
So they needed to destroy the the
working class, the middle class. And the
way they did it was by introducing a new
concept called the consumer. Okay? So in
the 50s, 60s and 70s, the government
promised you a good job. If you were a
member of a society, if you were a
citizen, I promise you a good job
that you would have for the rest of your
life. Okay? So in the 80s, the
government said, I promise you that you
have low prices and a wide selection of goods.
goods.
Okay? Does that make sense?
All right. So this sounds like a subtle
shift going from the worker to the
consumer. Okay. But what this meant was
a revolution
in society, a revolution in politics. So
remember that an example of the worker,
the worker has to have political
consciousness in order to protect his or
her rights, in order to organize and and unify
unify
and uh push for favorable political
reforms. Okay, that's what the worker
must do. Okay, but now let's think about
the mentality of the consumer. And to do
this, let's do another thought
experiment. And the thought experiment
experiment is this. Everyone in the
school about 500 people.
I decide to give everyone $1 million US.
Okay? So, everyone in the school has
exactly $1 million US to spend.
What happens now?
Think about this. What happens now? Use
What happens? What's the first thing you do?
What's the first thing you do?
I've given you a million dollars. What
Well, the first thing you do is buy
something, right? What do you want to buy?
buy?
$1 million is a lot of money. What what
You buy a house, right? That's great.
That's a great purchase. Then what do
Okay. First thing is not buys a house.
Then then what does he do?
Excuse me. Buy furniture. Then what does
he do? There's something that he must do
that's very important. What what does he
He wants to take pictures and post on
social media, right? So everyone sees on
social media. Then
you see this now has this huge house in
Beijing with lots of fancy furniture.
What do you do now?
You also want to buy a house. But what
kind of house?
A bigger house, right? And then what do
You also post pictures. Okay. Then how
You you think this is funny, okay? But
this happens all the time. So very
and you Yeah. You all spend your money
and you all go into debt, right?
Because you're in competition with each
other to buy the biggest thing. And $1
million is a lot of money, but it's not
enough to buy everything, right? So, you
go into debt. You borrow more more money
to buy more things. And then what happens?
How do you guys feel about each other?
Do you guys have lunch together? Do you
guys have dinner together? Do you guys
You guys hate each other, right? At the
end of the day, what will happen is you
all go into debt and you all hate each
other, right? So that's consumerism.
This is what what consumerism is.
Consumerism creates a competition
in society for prestige, okay? to see
who can post the nicest social media
or the optimization
of you. Okay? In other words, you are
now unable
to act together. You don't want to
organize. You don't want to act in
solidarity. Okay?
And ultimately this means that
you develop economic logic. Okay? And
what is economic logic? It's to see the
world only through the lens of capital.
Okay? Does it make sense? So when you
when you see someone and you you might
like okay well do I want to date this
person? You don't ask oh is this person
a nice person? You you ask yourself how
much money does this person have? Okay,
you understand? You use economic logic
in order to understand the world and to
reason and analyze the world. Okay, now
let me ask you this question
today. Is this how China works? Is this
how the world works?
The answer is yes. Okay. Are do you are
you like this?
Yes, you are like this. Okay. You've
been brainwashed into thinking thinking
that this is the only way to behave and
to think. You're in school. Why are you
So you can get a good job. Why?
To make money and so you can buy things.
Okay, you understand? That's how you all
think. But there are different ways to
think about school, right? You're like,
I'm in school to learn, to open my mind,
to have an imagination, to think
critically about the world, right? And
that was the way we thought about school
when the workers were dominant. But now
that consumers are dominant, all we
think about is how do I get a good job?
How do I buy a bigger house? Because I
want to post it on social media. Okay.
Okay.
So, if you think about this, what this
really is is the perfection
Okay? Does it make sense?
What does this phrase mean? The
Yeah. Yeah. He becomes a slave of the
money. But but but what why is this perfect?
Yes. Okay. You understand? If you're a
slave, you rebel, right? But you don't
know you're a slave and you like this,
you choose this, then you will never
rebel. Okay. So the consumerism is the perfection
perfection
of slavery. Okay?
Okay?
And that's why Francis Fukoyama thinks
that consumerism is the end of history
because it is a system
that achieves what the elites want and
the masses
are unwilling and unable to protest and
rebel. Okay, does that make sense? It's
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