The symbol of capitalism was lately a vampire.
Enter the CEO with nipple clamps.
by Lynn Stuart Parramore
If
the ghost of Ayn Rand were to suddenly manifest in your local
bookstore, the Dominatrix of Capitalism would certainly get a thrill
thumbing through the pages of E.L. James’ blockbuster Fifty Shades of
Grey. Rand, whose own novels bristle with sadomasochist sexy-time and
praise for the male hero’s pursuit of domination, would instantly
approve of Christian Grey, the handsome young billionaire CEO who bends
the universe to his will.
Ingénue Anastasia Steele stumbles into
his world -- literally -- when she trips into his sleek Seattle office
for an interview for the college paper. When she calls him a “control
freak,” the god-like tycoon purrs as if he has received a compliment.
“’Oh,
I exercise control in all things, Miss Steele,’ he says without a trace
of humor in his smile. ‘I employ over forty thousand people…That gives
me a certain responsibility – power, if you will.’”
She
will. Quivering with trepidation, Anastasia decides to become
Christian’s submissive sex partner. Reeled in by his fantastic wealth,
panty-sopping charm, and less-than-convincing promise that the exchange
will be to her ultimate benefit, she surrenders herself to his arbitrary
rules on what to eat, what to wear, and above all, how to please him
sexually. Which frequently involves getting handcuffed and spanked.
“Discipline,” as Christian likes to say.
Quoting industrial tycoon
Andrew Carnegie, Christian justifies his proclivities like an acolyte
of Randian Superman ideology: “A man who acquires the ability to take
possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which
he is justly entitled.” (Rand’s worship of the Superman obliged to
nothing but his intellect is well-known and imbued with dark passions;
she once
expressed her admiration for a child murderer’s credo,
"What is good for me is right," as "the best and strongest expression
of a real man's psychology I have heard” in a 1928 diary.)
Christian
Grey, our kinky CEO, started his literary life as a vampire when Erika
Leonard, the woman behind the pseudonym “E.L. James,” published the
first version of her novel episodically on a Twilight fan site, basing
the story on the relationship between Stephenie Meyers’ love couple
Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. The tale was later reworked and released
in its current form. Gone was Edward the vampire, replaced by Christian
the corporate slave-master.
Drunk on the intoxicants of wealth and
power, Fifty Shades of Grey hints at a sinister cultural shift that is
unfolding in its pages before our eyes. The innocent Anastasias will no
longer merely have their lifeblood slowly drained by capitalist
predators. They’re going to be whipped, humiliated and forced to wear a
butt-plug. The vampire in the night has given way to the dominating
overlord of a hierarchical, sadomasochistic world in which everybody
without money is a helpless submissive.
Welcome to late-stage capitalism.
Invisible Handcuffs
This
has been coming for some time. Ever since the raygun junta, from the
factory to the office tower, the American workplace has been morphing
for many into a tightly-managed torture chamber of exploitation and
domination. Bosses strut about making stupid commands. Employees trapped
by ridiculous bureaucratic procedures censor themselves for fear of
getting a pink slip. Inefficiencies are everywhere. Bad management and
draconian policies prop up the system of command and control where the
boss is God and the workers are so many expendable units in the great
capitalist machine. The iron handmaidens of high unemployment and
economic inequality keep the show going.
How did this happen?
Economists known as “free-market fundamentalists” who claim Adam Smith
as their forefather like to paint a picture of the economy as a
voluntary system magically guided by an “invisible hand” toward outcomes
that are good for most people. They tell us that our economy is a
system of equal exchanges between workers and employers in which
everybody who does her part is respected and comes out ahead.
Something
has obviously gone horribly wrong with the contract. Thieving CEOs get
mega-yachts while hard-working Americans get stagnant wages, crappy
healthcare, climate change, and unrelenting insecurity. Human potential
is wasted, initiative punished and creativity starved.
Much of the
evil stems from the fact that free-market economists who still dominate
the Ivy League and the policy circles have focused on markets at the
expense of those inconvenient encumbrances known as "people." Their
fancy mathematical models make calculations about buying and selling,
but they tend to leave out one important thing: production. In other
words, they don't give a hoot about the labor of those who sustain the
economy. Their perverted religion may have something to say about
unemployment or wages – keeping the former high and the latter low --
but the conditions workers face receive nary a footnote.
Michael
Perelman, one of a small group of heretical economists that questions
this anti-human regime, draws attention to the neglect, abuse and
domination of workers in his aptly named book, The Invisible Handcuffs:
How Market Tyranny Stifles the Economy by Stunting Workers. He reveals
that instead of a system of fair exchanges, we have “one in which the
interests of employees and employers are sharply at odds.” This creates
conditions of festering conflict and employers who have to take
ever-stronger measures to exert control. Hostility among workers
thrives, which results in more punishment. Respect, the free flow of
information, inclusive decision-making – all the things that would make
for a productive work environment -- fly out the window. The word of the
manager is the law, and endless time and energy is expended
rationalizing its essential goodness.
Americans are supposed to be
people who love freedom above everything else. But where is the citizen
less free than in the typical workplace? Workers are
denied bathroom breaks.
They cannot leave to care for a sick child. Downtime and vacations are a
joke. Some – just ask who picked your tomatoes – have been
reduced to slave-like conditions.
In the current climate of more than three years of unemployment over 8
percent, the longest stretch since the Great Depression, the worker has
little choice but to submit. And pretend to like it.
A medieval
peasant had plenty of things to worry about, but the year-round control
of daily life was not one of them. Perelman points out that in
pre-capitalist societies, people toiled relatively few hours over the
course of a year compared to what Americans work now. They labored like
dogs during the harvest, but there was ample free time during the
off-seasons. Holidays were abundant – as many as 200 per year. It was
Karl Marx, in his Theory of Alienation, who saw that modern industrial
production under capitalist conditions would
rob workers
of control of their lives as they lost control of their work. Unlike
the blacksmith or the shoemaker who owned his shop, decided on his own
working conditions, shaped his product, and had a say in how his goods
were bartered or sold, the modern worker would have little autonomy. His
relationships with the people at work would become impersonal and
hollow.
Clearly, the technological wonders of our capitalist
system have not released human beings from the burden of work. They have
brought us more work. They have not brought most of us more freedom,
but less.
Naked domination was not always the law of the land. In
the early 1960s, when unions were stronger and the New Deal’s commitment
to full employment still meant something, a worker subjected to abuse
could bargain with his employer or simply walk. Not so today. The high
unemployment sustained by the Federal Reserve’s corporate-focused
obsession with “fighting inflation” (code for "keeping down wages")
works out well for the sado-capitalist. The unrelenting attack on
government blocks large-scale public works programs that might re-balance
the scale by putting people back on the job. The assault on collective
bargaining robs the worker of any recourse to unfair conditions.
Meanwhile, the tsunami of money in politics drowns the democratic system
of rule by the people. And the redistribution of wealth toward the top
ensures that most of us are scrapping too hard for our daily bread to
fight for anything better. The corporate media cheer.
Turning the Tables
In
the early '70s, the S&M counterculture scene followed the rise of
anti-authoritarian punk rock, providing a form of transgressive release
for people enduring too much control in their daily lives.
Bondage-influenced images hit the mainstream in 1980 -- the year the
union-busting ronny raygun stole the pretendership -- in the form of a
workplace comedy,
9 to 5,
which became one of the highest grossing comedies of all time. 9 to 5
struck a chord with millions of Americans toiling in dead-end jobs ruled
by authoritarian bosses. Audiences howled with joy to see three working
women act out their fantasies of revenge on a workplace tyrant by
suspending him in chains and shutting his mouth with a ball-gag.
More recently, the 2011 film
Horrible Bosses follows
the plot of three friends who decide to murder their respective
domineering, abusive bosses. The film exceeded financial expectations,
raking in over $28 million in the first three days. It went on to become
the highest grossing black comedy film of all time.
The fantasy
of turning the tables on the boss speaks to the deep-seated outrage that
trickle-down policies and the war on workers has wrought. People
naturally want to work in a rational, healthy system that offers them
dignity and a chance to increase their standard of living and develop
their potential. When this doesn’t happen, the social and economic
losses are profound. Today’s workers are caught in Perelman’s “invisible
handcuffs” – both trapped and blinded by the extent to which capitalism
restricts their lives.
The market has become a monster, demanding
that we fit its constraints. As long as we ignore this, the strength of
the U.S. economy will continue to erode. Freedom and equality, those
cornerstones of democracy, will diminish. For now, many working people
have unconsciously accepted the conditions that exist as somehow
natural, unaware of how the machine is constructed and manipulated to
favor elites. Fear and frustration can even make us crave authority. We
collaborate in our own oppression.
Just ask Anastasia Steele, whose slave contract spells out her duties with business-like efficiency:
Does the submissive consent to:
-Bondage with rope
-Bondage with leather cuffs
-Bondage with handcuffs/shackles/manacles
-Bondage with tape
-Bondage with other
Yes!
She consents. The hypnotic consumption Christian offers in a world
replete with fancy dinners and helicopter rides – goodies that will be
revoked if she fails to obey -- overturns her natural desire for free
will. Once Anastasia has signed on the dotted line, her master rewards
her with a telling gift that is often the first “present” an office
employee receives: “I need to be able to contact you at all times…I
figured you needed a BlackBerry.”
Her first note to him on her new gadget asks a question: “Why do you do this?”
“I do this,” Christian answers, “because I can.”
Until we can link ourselves together to change this oppressive system, the Christian Greys will remain fully in control.
