The Absorption of Anti-Consumer Discourse by Capitalist Politics

Introduction. The purpose of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of absorption of anti-consumer discourse by capitalist policy. Contemporary consumer culture demonstrates the ability to absorb anti-consumer discourse and to transform it into something “of its own”. Similarly, capitalist politics finds ways to integrate anti-capitalist discursive practices. Methodology and sources. The article uses various data from research works of domestic and foreign authors. The sources include both classical works and texts of modern authors. By means of the neo-Marxist approach, it was possible to explicate the models of absorption of anti-consumer discourse by capital. Through a philosophical and cultural approach, we examined this problem as related to the peculiarities of the functioning of consumer culture. The philosophical and political approach identifies the political aspects of capital's appropriation of anti-capitalist sentiments among the masses. The philosophical and historical approach traces the absorption of socialist ideas in a historical context, with fascism as a case study. The methodological basis was provided by the philosophical concepts of H. Marcuse, the theory of the “society of the spectacle” by G. Debord, and the ideas of G. Lukács. The work uses a number of studies by G. Debord, K. Korsch, G. Lukács, H. Marcuse, and I. Therborn that remain untranslated into Russian. Results and discussion. The article shows various strategems through which capitalism integrates anti-consumer discourse, depriving it of integrity, completeness and content. By adapting anti-capitalist discourse to its needs, capitalism continues its development and partly mitigates the severity of its characteristic crises. Capital also finds new means of increasing profits through the absorption of phenomena that are opposed to it. Scientific achievements are put to the service of manipulating consciousness. Irrationality is created, verified, and given its most effective form of manipulation through scientific rationality. Protest against capitalism becomes capitalized, and rebellion against consumerism becomes consumerized. Even fascism successfully appropriated oppositional, anti-bourgeois discourse for its own benefit. Conclusion. The study concludes that the boundaries between capitalist (consumer) and anti capitalist (anti-consumerist) discourses are becoming very vague. A certain form of cultural imperialism occurs, when the dominant ideology and commercialization attack the “foreign field”. What was once alien or different is reformatted, distorted and becomes one's own. This process effectively works for the expansive capture of a new field by capital, for the neutralization of the ideological (and class) opponent, for the expansion of opportunities for profit

1. Zulyar, Yu.A. (2007), “Ideology and Advertising”, The Bulletin OF Irkutsk State Univ. Series: Political Science and Religion Studies, no. 1, pp. 150–164.

2. Marcuse, H. (1994), One-dimensional man, Transl. by Yudin, A., REFL-book, Moscow, RUS.

3. Marcuse, H. (2007), Art and Liberation. Collected papers of Herbert Marcuse, vol. four, in Kellner, D. (ed.), Routledge, NY, USA.

4. Marcuse, H. (2001), Towards a Critical Theory of Society. Collected papers of Herbert Marcuse, vol. two, in Kellner, D. (ed.), Routledge, NY, USA.

5. Marcuse, H. (1970), Five Lectures. Psychoanalysis, Politics and Utopia, Beacon Press, Boston, USA.

6. Debord, G. (2022). La Société du spectacle, Transl. by Ofertas, S., AST, Moscow, RUS.

7. Debord, G. (n.d.), “The Society of the Spectacle (film soundtrack)”, Bureau of Public Secrets, available at: https://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/spectacle.htm (accessed 21.12.2024).

8. Debord, G. (n.d.), “Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action”, Bureau of Public Secrets, available at: https://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/report.htm#Decomposition:%20The%20Ultimate%20Stage%20of%20Bourgeois%20Thought (accessed 22.12.2024).

9. Debord, G. (2017), Psychogeography, Transl. by Sokolinskaya, A., Ad Marginem Press, Moscow, RUS.

10. Debord, G. (1963), “The Situationists and the New Forms of Action in Art and Politics”, Situationist International Online, available at: https://www.sionline.researche-editions.cddc.vt.edu/si/newforms.html (accessed 20.12.2024).

11. Žižek, S. (2008), The Parallax View, Transl. by Kastal'skii, S., Oleinikov, Α., Rogonyan, G. and Smirnov, Α., Europa, Moscow, RUS.

12. Žižek, S. (2014), The Ticklish Subject: the Absent Centre of Political Ontology, Transl. by Shchukina, S., Delo, RANHiGS, Moscow, RUS.

13. Žižek, S. (2012), The Year of Dreaming Dangerously, Transl. by Savitskii, E., Ozhiganova, A. and Markov, A., Evropa, Moscow, RUS.

14. Beck, U. (2000), Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne, Transl. by Sedelnik, V. and Fedorova, N., Progress-Tradition, Moscow, RUS.

15. Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T. (1997), Dialektik der Aufklaerung. Philosophische Fragmente, Transl. by Kuznetsova, M., Medium, Yuventa, Moscow, SPb., RUS.

16. Lenin, V.I. (2020), “State and Revolution”, Gosudarstvo i revolyutsiya [State and Revolution], AST, Moscow, RUS, pp. 251–390.

17. Trotsky, L.D. (2023), Literatura i revolyutsiya [Literature and Revolution], AST, Moscow, RUS.

18. Korsch, K. (n.d.), “The Fascist Counter-revolution”, Marxists Internet Archive, available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1940/fascist-counterrrevolution.htm (accessed 14.03.2025).

19. Marcuse, H. (1998), Technology, War and Fascism. Collected papers of Herbert Marcuse, vol. one, in Kellner, D. (ed.), Routledge, NY, USA.

20. Therborn, G. (2012), “Class in the 21st Century”, New Left Review, no. 78, available at: https:// newleftreview.org/issues/ii78/articles/goran-therborn-class-in-the-21st-century (accessed 24.02.2025).

21. Lukács, G. (1936), “Fascism and Literary Theory in Germany”, WayBack Machine, available at: https:// web.archive.org/web/20120815080218/http://mesotes.narod.ru/lukacs/ger.html (accessed 02.05.2025).

22. Lukács, G. (1933), “On Fascism”, Marxists Internet Archive, available at: https://www.marxists.org/ archive/lukacs/works/fascism/index.htm (accessed 02.05.2025).

23. Lukács, G. (1931), “The fascist slogan “Liberalism = Marxism””, Marxists Internet Archive, available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1931/liberalism.htm (accessed 05.07.2025).

24. Lukács, G. (1937), “The Real Georg Büchner and his Fascist Misrepresentation”, Marxists Internet Archive, available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/buchner/lukacs.htm (accessed 08.05.2025).

25. Guevara, K. and Yasinsky, O. (2016), “We need to X-ray the Soviet experience”, LIVA, 08.09.2016, available at: http://liva.com.ua/guevara-camilo.html (accessed 18.05.2025).

26.