{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","uuid":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","normalized_title":"criticaltheoryofcommunicationnewreadingsoflukácsadornomarcusehonnethandhabermasintheageoftheinternet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","isbns":["9781911534044","9781911534051","9781911534068","9781911534075"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Critical%20Theory%20of%20Communication%20New%20Readings%20of%20Luk%C3%A1cs%2C%20Adorno%2C%20Marcuse%2C%20Honneth%20and%20Habermas%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20the%20Internet","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/search"},"page":{"printed_page":15,"pdf_page":19,"physical_index":19,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"d5472fe79e1029561983c04f54994d97a296f06c4b435ee9ba442f4cee07052f"},"chapter":"C H R I S T I A N F U C H S CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION","content":"1.2.7. Beyond Labour Fetishism and Cultural Fetishism\n\nTraditional Marxism has been grounded in labour fetishism that glorifies toil and wage-labour as long as it is toil and wage-labour in a socialist framework under which the means of production are owned collectively. It has advanced a Protestant celebration of hard labour. Postmodernism has in contrast been based on cultural fetishism: it has dissolved the economy and class into the realm of symbols, culture and signification. I discuss this culturalist tendency with the example of Jean Baudrillard’s works in this book’s section 6.3 (chapter 6).\n\nOrthodox Marxism’s labour fetishism is for example evident in article 12 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution introduced under Stalin:\n\nIn the U.S.S.R., labour is a duty and a matter of honour for every ablebodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat”. The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his labour”.\n\nJan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters (1996) wrote a book called The Death of Class, in which they argue that their analysis brings ‘the good news that class has collapsed and is decomposing. […] [Contemporary society] is based on subscription to lifestyles that form around consumption patterns, information flows, cognitive agreements, aesthetic preferences and value commitments. Material and power phenomena are reducible to these symbolically manifested lifestyle and value phenomena’ (Pakulski and Waters 1996, 7, 155). The death of class has proved to be an illusion in the very realm of culture: there is a high level of precarious freelance labour in the media, cultural and digital industries (Fuchs 2015a). New capital accumulation strategies in the culture industry involve the crowdsourcing of labour to unpaid users on the Internet (Fuchs 2014a). The culture economy is just like other parts of capitalism a realm that is shaped by class and exploitation.\n\n1.2.8. Postmodernism = Stalinism\n\nThese are just prototypical expressions of labourism and culturalism. On the one hand, postmodernism and Stalinism seem to be quite opposed. On the other hand, they have a quite similar logic: they are both reductionist and onedimensional. Whereas labourism reduces life to labour and toil, culturalism reduces the economy and society to culture. One fetishises labour, the other symbols. Both do not have a satisfactory answer to the question of how the economy and culture are related. The imperialism and fetishism of labour has resulted in political totalitarianism and a lack of understanding of the good life. The imperialism and fetishism of culture has completely neglected that there is an economy shaped by class and has resulted in a theoretical cynicism that is preoccupied with postmodern language games, in which the postmodern text is a symbolic fetishism. It is devoid of radical politics or a compelling vision of a good society. Stalinism and postmodernism converge in the logic of reductionism.\n\nIntroduction: Critical Theory of Communication\n\n15","previous_page":14,"next_page":16}