Postmodernism is the idea that individuals have both the intelligence and the right to decide for themselves what truth is. In the past, truth was a clearly defined fact that was generally accepted by each generation. Postmodern individuals see the definition of truth as less clear. As postmodern people search for truth, they base their conclusions on their own research, individual experiences, and personal relationships instead of on the truth accepted by their parents, government or church. This does not mean that postmodernists do not believe in truth; it just means they define truth for themselves. For most postmodern people, the concept of absolute truth does not exist. It has been replaced by a more personalized sense of truth that may vary from person to person. Even though much of the information collected may be accurate, it still possible to question the validity of what others have told them.
Postmodernity as a reaction against modernity, as Lyotard observes, is grounded in the Enlightenment, with its confidence in the faculty of reason to ascertain philosophical “truths” and its dedication to the progress of science and technology to enhance and improve the human condition. The content of knowledge we presently possess is continually being transformed by technology and according to Lyotard: “the nature of knowledge cannot survive unchanged within this context of general information.” Culture, as it pertains to postmodernism, is more than a repository of data; it is the activity that shapes and gives meaning to the world, constructing reality rather than presenting it. There is debate whether postmodern culture is a new condition, or just an accomplice to late capitalism and conservative ideology. Many social theorists see postmodern culture as a symptom of global capitalist ideology – in which commodities and consumers enter into rapid, undifferentiated exchange in ever increasing and diversified markets.
Nearly 250 years ago, the economist and philosopher Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, in which he described the birth of a new form of human activity: industrial capitalism. It would lead to the accumulation of wealth beyond anything that he and his contemporaries could have imagined. Capitalism has fuelled the industrial, technological and green revolutions, reshaped the natural world and transformed the role of the state in relation to society. It has lifted innumerable people out of poverty over the last two centuries, significantly increased standards of living, and resulted in innovations that have radically improved human well-being, as well as making it possible to go to the Moon and read this article on the internet. When Adam Smith was observing nascent industrial capitalism in 1776, he could not foresee just how much it would evolve and transform our societies today.
Perhaps most significantly, in many developed nations late-20th Century capitalism has contributed to a significant gap between the wealth of the richest and poorest people, as measured by the Gini Index. And in some countries, that gap is growing ever-wider. It’s particularly stark in the US, where the poorest individuals have seen no real income growth since 1980, while the ultra-rich at the top have seen their income grow by around 6% per year. Even if the economy is growing, income inequality and stagnant wages can make people feel less secure as their relative status in the economy diminishes. Behavioural economists have shown that our status compared to other people, our happiness, is derived more by relative measures and distribution than by absolute measures. “If that’s true then capitalism has a problem,” says Stanley. As a result of rising inequality, “people have less trust in institutions and experience a sense of injustice”.
Globalization was to bring increased prosperity in the community. This dogmatic belief purports that markets tend towards natural equilibrium, and the best interests in a given society are achieved by allowing its participants to pursue their own financial interests with little or no restraint on regulatory oversight. This faith in free market fundamentalism establishes a rigid framework for thinking. The 2008 crisis was brought on by excessive deregulation, and hit the working class in developed nations particularly hard. The subsequent bailouts of big banks led to resentment and helped fuel the rise of the ‘polarized politics’ we’ve seen over the last election cycle. And in the US, the political movement which spawned Trumpism is arguably fueled by economic inequality just as much as ideology. Among voters who have lost out due to globalization, the Trump administration won widespread political support for its more closed approaches to global trade, including withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and retaliatory tariffs on goods and services imported into the US.
Postmodernist philosophers in general argue that truth is always contingent on historical and social context rather than being absolute and universal and that truth is always partial and “at issue” rather than being complete and certain. The critic Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), asserts that one can never be sure that what one knows corresponds with what is. Since human beings participate in only an infinitesimal part of the whole, they are unable to grasp anything with certainty, and absolutes are merely “fictional forms.” For Derrida modern men and women have a duty “to deconstruct the opposition … to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment.” Capitalism today is a system of cruelty – a cruelty so subtle that people don’t know how much they are being manipulated. Technology which was predicted to shorten the work week has in fact been used to devise ways to make us work even harder.
When it comes to health, there are many factors that influence how long and how well people will live, from the quality of their education to the cleanliness of their environment. But of all social determinants of health, however, the one that is perhaps the most influential: income. Science consistently shows that low incomes are a significant risk factor in disease incidence and severity as well as life expectancy. Income security is the most important social determinant of health. Level of income shapes overall living conditions, affects psychological functioning, and influences health related behaviors such as quality of diet, extent of physical activity, tobacco use, and excessive alcohol use. Societies with greater income inequality have fewer collective resources to invest in the educational, medical, and cultural infrastructure, which in turn hurts health and stretches the social fabric. Those whose social determinants of health needs are left to the whims of the employment market, in general, suffer negative health consequences as a result.
Joseph Schumpeter wrote in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, published in 1942, capitalism has at its heart creative destruction, and that creates pain; it creates losers. This is the normal state of affairs, in late capitalism. Let us deconstruct the health effects of globalization and financialization, the harbingers of part-time work and the minimum wage. Late Capitalism and the Crisis of Pain is a new online initiative that seeks to examine the social, economic and political origins of the mental health crisis through the lens of contemporary visual culture. They charge that inequality, stagnant wages, immobility, job loss – the four horsemen of the neoliberalism endgame – have generated a massive surge in “deaths of despair,” especially from overdoses of opioid drugs. Mark Fisher encouraged us to see the connection between the dehumanizing machinations of capitalism and quotidian mental ailments like depression, social anxiety, narcissism, hyperactivity, chronic fatigue and insomnia.
What are the answers to counter the cruelty of late capitalism? First proposed by philosophers in the 16th century, the idea of an income delivered directly by the state has been seen in many quarters as a balm for all kinds of social ills. Progressives argue that a universal basic income (UBI) has the potential to lift communities out of poverty. Some conservatives and libertarians, meanwhile, see universal basic income as a cost-effective alternative to reduce pressure on hospitals and police departments. COVID-19 debates include political and economic ideas seriously discussed that had previously been dismissed as fanciful or utterly unacceptable: universal basic income (UBI), government intervention to house the homeless, and addressing the environmental crisis. There is a need to address stagnant wages accompanying increased inflation that troubles many workers today as the labor-market changes. The UBI approach buys time for progressives to reform neoliberal capitalism.
Under late capitalism, lies become an accepted feature of political leadership. The goal is purely to instrumentalize democratic legitimacy, in order to gain the power to make the necessary decisions that ordinary people can never understand or be persuaded of. We are being manipulated by a deluded group of powerful people who think they benefit from it – because they buy into the basic illusion that their own well-being is separate from that of other people. They too are victims of their own propaganda, caught up in the webs of collective delusion that infects virtually all of us, by a poison – ignorance. In sum, it may be time to reconsider the social contract for capitalism, so that it becomes more inclusive of a broader set of interests beyond individual rights and liberties. This is not impossible. Capitalism has evolved before, and if it is to continue into the longer-term future, it can evolve again.