Adorno/Horkheimer & Ohman Response

After reading both The Culture Industry by Adorno & Horkheimer and Selling Culture by Ohman, I realized that both were centered around the theme of staunch capitalism. Particularly, both articles carried a very contrasting attitude to capitalist theory. Adorno & Horkheimer fiercely oppose the implications of capitalism, whereas Ohman is much more open to capitalism being the dominant economic mechanism of society despite potential pitfalls using several explicit arguments.

Sure, I may be a little biased as a reader simply because I think the benefits outweigh the perils when it comes to capitalism. However, The Culture Industry does not challenge my views primarily because it often uses a similar argument and points out no alternative. Since the article comes from an argumentative and rebellious standpoint, The Culture Industry must explicitly offer an alternative than the status quo. By no means do I think that capitalism is a foolproof theory. In fact, even Selling Culture contains an entire section in which it lists the potential crises of capitalism. The philosophy is plagued by the fact that "...workers experienced every day...[exclusion] from the expansion of leisure...that the growth of the economy might have made available to all." Also, "Business was extraordinarily risky...drew new competitiors to the field..." Capitalist economy then suffered from "...suicidal overproduction of specific goods..." and a phenomenon in which "...profits were falling..."

When each of the quoted crises is examined in isolation, capitalism certainly does not seem to have much supporting it. However, the passage claims that all of these crises work in tandem and cyclize capitalism. Workers would initially suffer from the overwork due to the increase in production ordered by investing capitalists. The success of the capitalists is antithetical to the plight of the workers, and that success brings more capitalists to the field to compete. As a result of competition, every capitalist tries to one-up the other, and this leads to excess production. The subsequent surplus then reduces the capitalists' ability to profit because prices become lower but costs stay unchanged. The lower prices benefit the workers and ultimately help expand a comfortable middle class, something that benefits society. Thus, this article actually praises capitalism while presenting a potential opposing viewpoint with the four crises. Such an opposing viewpoint is not apparent in The Culture Industry, as it only repeatedly refers to capitalism negatively with phrases such as "constant sameness" and "exclusion of the new" without offering a picture of something better. Therefore, Selling Culture is milder and a little easier to accept as true.

Yet it is not to say that The Culture Industry is wrong. At one point, both articles make similar statements about the role of advertising in capitalism. The Culture Industry claims that things, whether technically necessary or not, reach the public consciousness as necessary by exhaustive advertising, something considered "...the trick, the isolated repeatable device..." Therefore, capitalism is seen as highly manipulative of social tendencies. Selling Culture also refers to capitalism as "...the hegemonic process..." but says it is a product of "...widespread, active consent more than force of manipulation." Thus, both articles accurately depict the results of capitalism, but it seems that The Culture Industry is written to a greater degree of extreme thought than Selling Culture because it does not use some form of fresh reasoning to show that capitalism is not the method to follow. Meanwhile, Selling Culture has a stronger argument because it even uses the opposing viewpoint to construct a positive argument for itself. The key difference in both writers' philosophies shows, but Ohman's is more well-supported.