Douglas Rushkoff has stumbled upon the answer that the American Left has been trying to find for years: market capitalism is destroying the world and only far right religious extremism will bail it out.
Okay, Rushkoff might not put his views in quite those terms, but that is essentially what the Rushkoff claims in an article for Adbusters, “The Sabbath Revolt.”
Like a lot of the worst articles and books ever written, Rushkoff invokes memories of an idyllic past where he lived in “modest neighborhood” where everyone “shared one barbecue pit at the end of the block.” Everyone would get together once a week for a neighborhood cook out, and everything was fine with the world. Rushkoff doesn’t tell us whether or not Ward and June Cleaver ever showed up so the Rushkoff’s could play volleyball with the Beaver.
Now that’s all gone thanks to the evils of “market fascism.” Now every weekend families go to malls and other vestiges of capitalism because there is simply nothing left to do in the world that doesn’t require an entrance fee (which leads me to wonder if Rushkoff ever leaves his computer to explore the world).
How did we arrive at this? Simple. Nobody is in control. Rushkoff writes,
Market fascists dismiss such arguments, claiming that we are paranoid leftists, imagining a conspiracy between a group of fictitious marketers and corporate chiefs — that such people do not really exist. In a sense, they are right: In the corporate reality, no one is in charge.
How the hell can a society survive if “no one is in charge”? Obviously, it can’t. We need federal leisure czars and control freaks to make sure that people are getting their recommended weekly allowance of neighborhood cookouts. If not, the rabble just my decide to do their own thing, which simply can’t be tolerated.
And what is Rushkoff’s amazing insight — the world needs more Christians.
The irony here is that religion might actually serve as a last line of defense against this branded cultural imperialism. Adbusters’ annual “Buy Nothing Day” used to occur once a week as a long-forgotten ritual called “Sabbath.” Once every seven days, the Judeo-Christian founders concluded a few millennia ago, people should take a break from the cycle of consumption and production.
Imagine trying to practice Sabbath today. What’s left to do that doesn’t involve paying for admission? Are there any public spaces left other than the mall? Though the Sabbath was widely celebrated even 10 years ago, it now falls outside the imaginable for the market fascists: wouldn’t it throw the economy into a recession?
It is a bit odd for Rushkoff to imply that the market interferes with religious expressions such as the Sabbath since the United States is among the most religious of the Western industrialized countries and large numbers of people still practice keeping the Sabbath holy. Of course those who do are usually attacked by people on the Left such as Noam Chomsky who can’t believe that living, breathing, rational people actually take the Bible literally.
More seriously, though, all Rushkoff is selling here is warmed-over Puritanism. If you travel in the American South, for example, you will find plenty of counties with odd liquor laws. In some areas, for example, you can buy beer, but not wine. In others you can buy any alcohol but not on certain days. If If I read Rushkoff correctly, these blue laws are exactly what the world needs more of — people seizing back power from the out-of-control marketplace.
Down with market fascism where no one is in charge! Up with neo-Puritanism paternalism!
Source:
The Sabbath Revolt: If it’s a free market, why does it cost so much? Douglas Rushkoff, AdBusters, March/April 2001.