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While we once watched television on just a few channels, we now have thousands of movies and shows available on demand. An algorithm that runs behind your favorite streaming platform can help you decide what to watch next by suggesting shows that are similar to others you've watched. But algorithms are also helping with more serious decisions, such as those that come with hiring employees and investing in startups, according to Harvard Business Review, or even identifying cancer, as Nature points out.¶ Just as a robot can handle dull or dangerous tasks in a factory, computers can handle the tedious aspects of decision-making, freeing up humans to use their intuition, creativity and emotional intelligence to innovate. For instance, instead of having a physician search through thousands of CT scans to find early markers of cancer, an algorithm could do the research, giving time back to the physician for more complex decision-making, such as determining the proper course of treatment for their patient.¶ Likewise, mathematical equations are also being used to speed processes, simplify functions and enable greater human innovation in the defense industry.

Latin America faces numerous challenges to achieve inclusive, long-term development with political stability. These are institutional, political, social, cultural, and economic challenges. All are interrelated, but the cornerstone is the economy.¶ The current economic stagnation in the region since 2014, which institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) have defined as the “second lost decade” (2014/2023), has become the turning point for a development model that has reached its ceiling after the end of the boom time (the Golden Decade, 2003-2013). Latin America has been living for ten years amid stagnation or weak economic expansion (2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023) and crisis (2016, 2017 and 2020) with the only exception of 2021, an atypical year due to the rebound effect after the pandemic recession of the previous year. Latin America needs to grow at around 5% to absorb social demands and achieve growth with development and thus avoid the trap of middle-income countries. And that goal is far off at present: the IMF estimates that the average regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Latin America and the Caribbean will grow 2% this year, after 2.3% last year and 2.5% in 2025.¶ Colombian economist José Antonio Ocampo notes, “Average annual growth remained slightly below 0.9% during 2014-2023, worse than the 1.3% rate of the 1980s. However, GDP per capita is projected to be slightly higher in 2023 than in 2013, due to slower population growth. In contrast, it was not until 1994 that the region’s GDP per capita returned to its 1980 level. Latin America therefore has a serious growth problem.”¶ A new lost decade¶ This second lost decade has brought to light a set of structural problems that have been weighing down Latin American countries since 2013 and even earlier: a dysfunctional economic and political model that does not guarantee long-term economic growth, nor sustainable and inclusive development, nor has it been accompanied by an effective state and efficient public administrations when it comes to implementing public policies favorable to vulnerable sectors and capable of channeling the demands of the emerging middle classes.¶ Among the effects of this second lost decade is the increase in the malaise of societies, linked to this weak economic expansion and social deterioration. For instance, increased insecurity, poverty, inequality, and, above all, the vulnerability of the middle classes, which has given rise to a permanent punishment vote for the management of the ruling classes — toward those in power — and, in some cases, has translated into a vote supporting anti-system options.¶ In the last decade, various authors such as the Peruvian Alberto Vergara have tried to reflect on “what” and “why” of what is happening to the citizenry. They agree that the Latin American malaise, which has a long historical tradition, has been exacerbated and has increased. The clash has become more evident: between a citizenry with growing expectations that ends up being disappointed by states that claim to be republican and efficient but that daily disappoint that promise. This is because they are not only inefficient but also far removed from the problems of the citizenry. These are weak democracies with low institutionalization, “half-way republics”.¶ The consequences of stagnation¶ This is a dynamic that feeds back on itself because the new governments are born with a weakness that conditions their capacity for action: their political weakness has been the dominant feature of Latin American executives since 2015, which has prevented them from carrying out indispensable structural reforms to link the countries of the region to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, make regional economies more competitive and channel the frustration of expectations. Moreover, this institutional weakness has been fueled by strong fragmentation and high polarization, which have increased the problems in reaching state agreements.¶ This situation has led to the inability of governments to implement reform processes, and to the growing disaffection of the citizenry, who end up voting as a punishment vote or in favor of elements outside the system at the next ballot box. The parties that win elections usually do so after forming negative coalitions. They gather a more conjunctural and borrowed vote than real adhesions, with little support in fragmented and polarized Parliaments, with reduced capacity to reach consensus. They do not have the patience, very limited, of societies hit by a decade of low or no growth (even decrease), increase in poverty, and deterioration of opportunities for improvement.¶ Peru, which has gone from growing at a Chinese pace to flirting with crisis and stagnation, is an example of this situation. In fact, the rating agency S&P Global Ratings has just downgraded its long-term sovereign rating from “BBB” to “BBB-” due to the political uncertainty that limits economic growth. This downgrade implies a risk for Peru because, in the event of a subsequent downgrade, it would lose its investment grade rating and move to a speculative grade. S&P points out that “a fragmented Congress and the government’s limited political capital” weigh on the confidence of private investors and represent an opportunity cost for growth, which “limits Peru’s ability to rebuild fiscal space”.¶ The challenges of democracy¶ To survive in this third decade of the 21st century, democracies face numerous challenges: the first is to design a new social contract. A new pact that will make states more effective in implementing public policies to solve the most pressing problems of citizens in social (education, health, security, and transportation), economic (investment in human and physical capital), and political (electoral and party reforms, greater citizen representation and participation, streamlining government policies, etc.) areas. Democratic institutionality has lost its appeal because it does not solve the problems closest to the citizenry, who are inclined to vote against governments (“punishment vote for the ruling parties”) or for alternatives that are far removed from respect for democratic institutionality.¶ The current crisis of democracies is due to a long period of paralysis and low growth. As long as the region does not find the path towards a high, sustained and inclusive GDP expansion, democratic institutionality will be delegitimized in the face of a citizenry that prefers to listen to other siren songs. In fact, the breeding ground for this situation is the increase in poverty and, above all, social inequality, which generates social frustration, disaffection toward institutions, and political polarization. As the 2023 Latinobarómetro Report shows, support for authoritarian regimes has increased slightly since 2010, and in particular, indifference to the type of regime has risen by 12 points in line with the worsening of the regional economy and expectations of personal and intergenerational improvement. Support for democracy, on the other hand, has fallen from 63% in 2010 to the current 48%.¶ Without resuming high, long-term, and inclusive growth, the paradise of development is unattainable for Latin American countries. And even worse: the survival of democracy is at stake.

Just as enough tiny droplets of water slowly fill a bucket, the growth of small businesses fills the U.S. economy. Big corporations might get a lot of attention when it comes to creating jobs, but small businesses employ more people and are more resilient when times get tough. Before coming up with something innovative that propelled them into growth, all big businesses once started out small. Not only are small businesses driving the U.S. economy, but they also keep the American dream alive.¶ According to the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA), small businesses of 500 employees or fewer make up 99.9% of all U.S. businesses and 99.7% of firms with paid employees. Of the new jobs created between 1995 and 2020, small businesses accounted for 62%—12.7 million compared to 7.9 million by large enterprises. A 2019 SBA report found that small businesses accounted for 44% of U.S. economic activity. Without small businesses, the American economy and workforce would be a pretty wild landscape to imagine.¶ Not only do small businesses provide more jobs, they also bring careers and opportunities. Successful small businesses put money back into their local community through paychecks and taxes, which can support the creation of new small businesses and improve local public services. No matter how small it starts—one, two, five, 10 employees—within that town, the city or the county, your small business creates new economies where once there was nothing.¶ Small businesses are also better able to focus more energy on their customers and their needs, which can make them more adaptable to change in times of economic uncertainty. A global health crisis may have rocked the economy, but the formation of new U.S. businesses intending to hire employees rose to historic peaks in 2021, with nearly 1.4 million applications by September and over 400,000 more than at the same point in 2019. When tough times for big businesses lead to layoffs, small businesses become an opportunity.¶ To become big, all businesses once started out small. In 1978, when the track-and-field coach and his former student who founded Blue Ribbon Sports by making running shoes with a waffle iron changed their company name to Nike, they never imagined it would become the massive multinational corporation that it is today. The two high school friends and devoted computer tinkerers who ended up founding their own software company in 1975 under the name Microsoft could never have expected how large their once small business venture would soon become.¶ Small businesses grow because they draw innovation, attracting talent that brings inventions or new solutions to old ways of doing business that larger corporations have less flexibility to incorporate. This is why big companies today want to acquire small businesses, for their innovators. Apple and Google may be known for their innovation, but they also buy up small startups with innovative new technology to boost this development.¶ Big businesses and even big government projects depend on small businesses as subcontractors, vendors and customers. Federal bills focusing on new jobs to come out of a recession talk a lot about building bridges and freeways, but less about the small businesses across the country that bid for these contracts and carry them out. No matter where you find significant economic development, small businesses are behind it.¶ Small Businesses: The American Dream¶ The opportunity for people to found, run or work for small businesses is the pathway to achieving the American dream. It creates an environment of mythical energy where desires are fulfilled and innovation is at its peak. Creating small businesses, becoming profitable and hiring people to share in those economic gains is what makes this country free. Foreigners who lack those same opportunities in their own country come to America seeking their own dream—and I should know: I’m one of them.¶ Because of their importance, big business campaigns should consider their ability to support small businesses, therefore encouraging thriving economies. A strong economy supports both big and small businesses, but no society can thrive without the presence of small businesses. Corporations are reliant on small businesses to allow them to continue to succeed. By helping your neighbor, you ultimately are helping yourself (and your business). Businesses, in particular, should consider supporting small businesses by, for example:¶ • Sourcing ingredients for your restaurant from local farmers.¶ • Selling small businesses' products in your storefront.¶ • Sharing social media posts from small businesses.¶ Small businesses are everywhere, but everyone in the U.S. has the right to create their own from the ground up, as well as the necessary access to the technology, investors, loans and government support to help out. This well-developed support system attracts a huge pool of dreamers: immigrants with the hopes of achieving their lifelong goals, creating something new and finding success. For them, arriving here is like diving into a crystal-clear pool of opportunity—they can see it and go after it. Small businesses make this possible.¶ While government aid is necessary to continue supporting small business growth, so is consumer support. Inexpensive products delivered to your home from Amazon are nice, but also consider supporting small businesses. Don’t be so quick to judge and leave negative reviews because of one bad day. Instead, make an effort to put money back into the main drivers of our economy and look to them for employment opportunities to help them keep their doors open. The more we encourage small businesses, the longer we keep the American dream alive.

Small businesses face unique challenges when it comes to advertising. With limited resources and fierce competition, it's crucial for them to find effective ways to promote their products or services. Advertising plays a pivotal role in creating brand awareness and reaching target customers, laying the foundation for a successful venture.¶ There are numerous advertising strategies that small businesses can implement to maximize their reach and generate leads. From local marketing techniques to digital channels, the key lies in understanding the target audience and choosing the right platform for promotion. By leveraging innovative tools and resources, small businesses can overcome their constraints and unlock their growth potential.¶ In today's fast-paced digital era, staying current with the latest trends and technologies is essential for small businesses to stay ahead of the curve. By adapting to the ever-changing landscape and constantly refining their advertising strategies, they can foster long-term success and drive sustainable growth in their respective industries.¶ Advertising is a powerful tool that plays a vital role in promoting a small business. It helps create brand awareness, generate leads, and ultimately drive sales and growth. By implementing effective advertising strategies, small businesses can reach their target audience and establish a strong market presence.¶ One key aspect of successful advertising is understanding the customer journey. This involves knowing when and where to engage potential customers, as well as tailoring your messaging to their needs and preferences. Creating a customer-centric approach can greatly improve the impact of your advertising campaigns.¶ There are various advertising channels to choose from, each with its own unique set of benefits and drawbacks. Examples include digital ads, like using Amazon Ads for increased visibility and traction, and traditional forms of advertising, such as print, radio, and television ads. It's essential to test different channels and methods to determine what works best for your unique business objectives.¶ An integral component of effective advertising is crafting a strong message that resonates with your audience. This includes having a clear call to action, like asking potential customers to sign up for a newsletter or visit a specific webpage. Further, it's important to be consistent in your branding and messaging to establish a cohesive identity across all advertising channels.¶ Another valuable strategy for small businesses is utilizing cold-email outreach to showcase your work, land clients, and boost profits. As illustrated by successful entrepreneurs, well-crafted cold-emails can help your business stand out and make lasting connections.¶ In short, understanding the principles of advertising is crucial for small businesses looking to make a mark in their respective industries. By focusing on customer needs, choosing the right channels, crafting compelling messages, and maintaining brand consistency, your advertising efforts are more likely to yield positive results.¶

Terms like “capitalist hellscape” and “end-stage capitalism” have become so commonplace in discourse that they’re even used by people for whom the current economy is anything but a hellscape. A few months back, when the value of cryptocurrency plummeted, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase responded by abruptly canceling hundreds of job offers. This was big news in the tech space, since Coinbase had been poaching employees from big-name firms like Meta, Amazon, and Google by offering them staggering salaries. The woulda-been hires were understandably upset, and a bunch of them complained to Vice’s Motherboard about their shabby treatment: One hire said he had been offered more than $300,000—double what he was making at his current company, and an amount he described as “life-changing money.” He felt he couldn’t turn it down. “We just live in this fun capitalist hellscape where you kind of have to say yes,” he said. Have to? Or want to? If you are pulling in six figures for a job that consists of doing whatever in front of a computer, and someone offers you even more money to do the same thing, you aren’t being forced into bondage. The Coinbase guys are not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to eat the catered lunch they bring in every Friday. You aren’t one of those workers of the world who are being told to unite and cast off their chains, because you don’t have chains. You’re living a life of luxury unimaginable to the vast majority of humans who have ever been born. But us highly educated white-collar types can’t admit that life is sweet, at least not publicly, and maybe not even to ourselves. We’re expected to feel a certain amount of existential dread over climate change or the general state of the world. If you don’t profess at least a low level sense of anxiety every waking minute of your doomscrolling life, you’re either heartless or brainwashed. It used to be that you were supposed to feel guilty because you were a sinner, but while sin (and religion in general) is out, guilt is very very much still in—only it’s the kind of guilt that doesn’t compel you to pay any price. You just have to feel a bit bad for a little while, then you can go back to taking pics of that locally sourced tasting menu you are doing for your friend’s birthday. It’s a pretty good deal, once you think about it. What has emerged from this directionless, meaningless guilt is a knee-jerk style of anti-capitalism. It’s not quite what I would call political, although it’s sometimes linked to socialist-ish politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. You’ve probably seen examples of it in your feeds, in articles from lefty news outlets, and maybe in real life. It’s not so much a coherent ideology as a feeling that great faceless forces are pushing down upon us all the time. This feeling isn’t wrong. The particular strain of capitalism we’re living under is absurd and vicious. Power has been concentrated in a handful of monopolistic corporations, which in turn pass the majority of their profits to an ultra-elite class of CEOs and investors. These vultures overheat the planet, degrade the environment, exploit workers, crack down on labor unions, and bend governments to their will, all in the name of maximizing shareholder value. But scratch a self-professed “anti-capitalist” and often what you find is not revolutionary fervor but something more mundane. When someone says I am being ground between the gears of the capitalist machine, they sometimes mean “I don’t like my job.” That’s basically what the Zoomer “anti-work ethos” comes down to, described in this Vox article as not a rejection of capitalism or work but a rejection of lousy jobs. For all the talk about waves of employees quitting during “the Great Resignation,” people were mostly just moving on to jobs with better hours and pay, taking advantage of the leverage workers have over employers in this time of low unemployment. And don’t get me started on “quiet quitting,” which is apparently a term Generation Z uses because it believes it has invented “slacking off at work.” Sometimes, anti-capitalism is just a stand-in for wanting different consumer choices. A Refinery29 article titled “Is It Possible To Be Anti-Capitalist And Love Fashion? It’s Complicated” eventually comes around to describing a trend of small businesses making high-quality, long-lasting clothes. One such brand, Selkie, sells dresses for upward of $300—which sounds more like a subset of consumers choosing to spend their money in different ways, rather than a rebellion against capitalism. I should emphasize that all of this is fine. It’s fine to buy expensive clothes that will last a long time. It’s fine to spend money at union businesses or Black-owned businesses or local non-chain stores as an expression of your values. It’s fine to quit your job because you hate it. It’s fine to not try super hard. It’s fine (if not great) to make $300,000 a year doing God knows what for Coinbase. But none of this amounts to radical politics, or really any kind of politics. Articles about anti-capitalism inevitably gesture toward how phony a lot of this stuff is. In the middle of a piece about the commodification of anti-capitalism, this Refinery29 author pauses to admit her own complicity in (waves hands vaguely) this whole thing: “As a Kiwi who’s currently living in London, I’m not proud to admit that during the city’s four-month lockdown, I personally contributed to Jeff Bezos’ wealth by paying £7.99 a month to have products delivered to my doorstep via Amazon Prime. I also had meals delivered via Deliveroo, for which I paid a further £7.99 per month to have the delivery fee wiped. It seems millennials like me want to change the world without changing anything about the way we live our lives.” The piece should have ended there, but maybe out of a desire to not call out the readers as hypocrites, the writer continues: “But living in a consumeristic, individualistic culture means living with contradictions.” To which I say, sure, whatever gets you through the day. But also, if you find Amazon Prime and Deliveroo to be such useful services that you’re paying for them despite sorta hating yourself, maybe the takeaway is that modern capitalism is working out pretty well for you and you are not any kind of anti-capitalist at all? It’s worth thinking about what a genuine rejection of capitalism would look like. It could mean working on behalf of a radical left-wing political candidate or organization. It could mean living on a commune or practicing freeganism. It would probably mean giving up some of the comforts that modern capitalism affords the upper classes, which is why not a lot of us in practice choose to reject capitalism. It’s much, much easier to bemoan the capitalist hellscape than to look in the mirror and find the hellscape looking back at you.

Many critics of capitalism have given up trying to claim capitalism makes people poorer. Faced with so many obvious gains in the standard of living, and in reducing poverty worldwide, markets have won the economic debate over whether or not capitalism is the path to material riches. But the doctrinaire anti-capitalists have other strategies. They’ve now branched out into blaming capitalism for a host of other social, ecological, and psychological ills. Sometimes, the tactic is to blame capitalism for destroying the earth. Other times, it’s to claim that capitalism, in spite of the material plenty it delivers, makes us miserable. For example, George Monbiot, columnist at The Guardian blames pro-capitalist ideology for making people, sad, lonely, and unhealthy. Writers cite polls claiming people in richer countries — i.e., more capitalistic ones — are more miserable than people elsewhere. Holly Baxter at The Independent suggests capitalism is the reason elderly people are now so lonely and isolated: capitalism makes us more concerned with buying things than with visiting poor, dying Aunt Ethel. Claim: Capitalism Wants Us to Be Sad, Needy Consumers And it’s all by design, it seems. According to Monbiot and other critics of “neoliberalism” — by which they just mean anything resembling a market system — the capitalist ideology is designed to isolate us, and turn us into soulless consumers. This then paves the way for an endless cycle of misery and consumption. For a more academic phrasing of this idea, we could consult Ankita Singh’s article “Capitalism, Consumerism, and Popular Culture” which examines how capitalism creates a downward cycle of despair. This persistent unhappiness, Singh explains, “is caused [by] the sense of alienation one feels in today’s urban corporate culture.” Consequently, consumers attempt to “compensate” for their capitalism-caused “emptiness” by “indulg[ing] in inanimate objects offered by the consumerist culture.” At this point, all that is left for the capitalists to do is to tell us what products to buy. And fortunately for the capitalists, Singh tells us: “The power of advertising is such that it can create a demand where none exists, of a commodity which is not needed.”1 Much of this general concept can be traced back to Marxist psychologist Erich Fromm, who in Escape from Freedom (1941) wrote: In capitalism economic activity, success, material gains, become ends in themselves. It becomes man’s fate to contribute to the growth of the economic system, to amass capital, not for purposes of his own happiness or salvation, but as an end in itself. That is, through capitalism and its propagandists (i.e., advertisers) human beings are reduced to “a cog in the vast economic machine” who no longer pursues his own happiness, but only serves the interests of “capitalism.” There are a couple of problems with this theory, though. One is that a capitalist economy does not rely on endless consumption to sustain itself. The second is that advertising doesn’t work the way many assume it does. Capitalism Doesn’t Cause Consumerism For starters, it is not the case that the capitalist system is built on consumption or that it requires us to mortgage our future in order to buy ever-larger amounts of consumer goods. After all, it is for a good reason that capitalism has historically been much associated with misers — the quintessential literary example being Ebenezer Scrooge — who shunned consumerism. Saving (i.e., deferred spending) is every bit as essential to capitalism as is consumption. It is governments and their central banks, not markets, that seek to maximize consumption always and everywhere. Moreover, saving and investment are key ingredients in increasing wages, growing the capital stock, and increasing future consumption. In a market economy, many firms, such as retirement funds and banks, directly profit from more saving and investment. Spending every last dime on another trinket or bauble is not a recipe for robust capitalism. How Advertisers Are Supposedly Making Us Miserable At this point, the purveyor of the capitalism-makes-you-sad theory could still insist: “sure, maybe capitalism overall doesn’t require us to relentlessly consume. But certainly there’s a portion of the capitalist system, such as toy sellers and auto makers, who need us to consume. And to get us to do so, they use advertising designed to keep us hoping we can fill that hole in our souls with just one more trip to the mall.” There’s a (small) kernel of truth to this. Many capitalists do indeed want us to buy consumer goods, without much regard to the consequences to each consumer personally. In hopes of getting us to spend, they employ advertising. And advertising often promotes feelings of inadequacy to get us to consume more. This particular kind of advertising was developed at least as early as the nineteenth century. It was then perfected in the 1920s. Typical examples of the formula include: Why be ugly ... when you can use Zenith Cold Cream? Why be fat ... when you can take Acme Diet Pills? This formula was so widespread by the 1920s and 1930s, in fact, that Sigmund Freud joked the “boldest and most successful piece of American publicity” would be an ad using the phrase “Why live if you can be buried for ten dollars?”2 Nowadays, a lot of modern advertising is more nuanced and less in-your-face than this formula. Modern advertising often appeals to humor. Nevertheless, advertisers nowadays still rely on the strategy of presenting consumption as a sort of self-improvement. They offer a glimpse of a life of better looking people, more luxurious cars, and more fulfilling friendships. It’s the life you might have if you only consume the right products and services. But do people actually believe what advertisers tell them? Clearly, people don’t buy everything advertisers tell them to. If they did, as Ludwig von Mises noted, candle makers could convince us to abandon light bulbs with a few ad campaigns. Indeed, studies conducted to determine the effectiveness of ads have never been conclusive. A 1931 consumer survey revealed the “only 5 percent of the public believed any of the more obviously outrageous claims made by ads.” Only 37 percent believed any ads at all.3 A 2013 survey concluded only 21 percent of consumers agreed “ads are somewhat accurate.” 21 percent also said they will even “refuse to purchase products due to brand advertising.” Some might claim this is only survey data, and thus questionable. But then there are countless cases in which ad campaigns failed to achieve results. A 2015 study from the University of Texas, for example, showed alcohol ads have increased 400 percent over the past forty years. Meanwhile, per capita alcohol consumption has gone down. Yes, advertising can be helpful in promoting a certain brand. But it hasn’t been shown to increase a person’s overall spending. So, it seems people don’t spend more just because capitalists tell them to. And its unclear that many even believe what ads have to say. If this is the case, it’s hard to see how “capitalism” has succeeded in its nefarious plan to make us miserable consumers, assuaging our loneliness with another round of mindless spending. Are We More Miserable than Our Forebears? In spite of the unconvincing reasoning behind the capitalism-makes-you-sad narrative, many continue to find it plausible. This is largely because many people remain convinced that people were happier — or at least had an easier time — in the past. Certainly, there’s no statistical data to support this. Those happiness measurements we sometimes read about in the popular media (such as this one) are usually based on totally subjective self-reported survey data and offer absolutely no means of comparing the present with the past. Attempts to systematically asses “happiness” in the past were virtually nonexistent. Quality-of-life indicators reconstructed from the past (such as working hours, living space, life expectancy, and homicide rates) don’t often make the era of our grandparents or great-grandparents look especially wonderful. The nineteenth century — an era before modern methods of mass marketing and mass consumption — wasn’t an era of carefree indifference to the requirements of daily work and toil. The poverty of the “good old days” was not exactly a source of personal fulfillment and contentment. But perhaps we need to look deeper into the past? On this, Murray Rothbard suggests the imagined Golden Age before capitalism existed. It was, according to the myth, an era of “Happy Craftsmen and Happy Peasants” who had a “sense of belonging” and all were “sure of his station in life.” No one suspected he ought to be buying a new car or a new bedroom set. No such options were available at all. Was living in poverty with no access to advertisements or capitalism the real key to happiness? Rothbard is skeptical and notes that people — should they really want to flee capitalism — are largely free to pursue this supposedly happier type of living in communes like the utopians or hippies of old. He concludes: Not only has almost no one abandoned modern society to return to a happy, integrated life of fixed poverty, but those few intellectuals who did form communal Utopias of one sort or another during the nineteenth century abandoned these attempts very quickly. And perhaps the most conspicuous non withdrawers from society are those very critics who use our modern “alienated” mass communications to denounce modern society. It’s comforting to think there is some time or place in which human beings were not troubled by feelings of unhappiness, emptiness, or inadequacy. It’s unclear, however, where or when this place has existed. In the mean time, few seem willing to give up their modern amenities to investigate first-hand.

Neuroplasticity describes the ability of human and animal brains to reorganize themselves continuously throughout the lifespan. In addition to the genetic information that is accumulated during evolution to secure the survival of an organism, neuroplasticity serves as a mechanism to cope successfully with ongoing changes of environmental conditions that are not specified by genetic constraints. While prima facie, huge plastic capacities appear desirable, brains require substantial stability to maintain proper functioning. Therefore, neuroplasticity constitutes a trade-off between modifiability and stability. The present chapter, focused on human neuroplasticity, has two parts: first, rules and basic characteristics of neuroplastic changes are introduced; the second part recapitulates milestones and very recent developments and illustrates the current status of neuroplasticity research in humans. Major factors that modify brains and, by that perception, behavior and cognition, are development and aging as well as changes following brain injuries. Other sources imposing plastic changes come from constraints arising under everyday life conditions. Examples are particularities of occupation including life style and prolonged episodes of heavy schedule of sensory stimulation as exemplarily present in blind Braille readers or musicians. While it takes several 10,000 hours of intense practicing to develop musical skills found in professional musicians, short periods of only a few minutes of practicing can induce neuroplastic changes leading to significant gains in perception and behavior. Accordingly, neuroplasticity is not a unitary process, but numerous mechanisms enable the emergence of different forms of plasticity. The recent development of non-invasive imaging techniques allows you study the impact of neuroplasticity in human brains. This approach confirmed previous findings from animal studies and demonstrated that any possible aspect of brain processing and functioning is altered by plastic reorganization. Large reorganizational changes correlate with large perceptual and behavioral gains and vice versa, indicating that interindividual differences of the outcome of plastic changes have a neural substrate in the amount of plastic capabilities. During the last years, a new and fascinating discipline evolved, where neuroscientists successfully design stimulation conditions based on neuroplasticity mechanisms that do not rely on the conventional modification of use, training, and practicing. By targeting defined brain regions, either through sensory or through direct stimulation of the brain from the outside, plasticity can be induced without any explicit task training. Furthermore, the long-held view that external events are required to drive neuroplasticity has been challenged by observations where the induction of plastic changes is possible by mere mental events without the presence of physical stimuli. From a practical side, understanding the conditions that either facilitate or impede the emergence of neuroplastic changes is a prerequisite for a large scale application of neuroplasticity principles in education as well as in intervention and rehabilitation. However, as neuroplasticity is a rather novel discipline, our current knowledge must necessarily be limited, with many facets of brain changes been overseen due to inappropriate technologies and concepts. Extrapolating from our current knowledge, neuroplasticity will almost certainly offer unimaginable ways of interfering with brains leading to implications unforeseen.

Ever since the initial emergence of the capitalist merchant, the productive “waiting period” discussed by Polanyi has undergone dramatic changes. It is now characterized by ceaseless improvements in manufacturing processes and technologically ever more sophisticated efforts to replace human labor. The activities of the “waiting period” are supported by a multitude of social trends and political measures that effectively reduce the price of human labor. Polanyi never shone an analytical spotlight on the inner pro-cesses that occur during this waiting period. For Marx, however, this is the point at which many very different actions for increasing absolute and relative added value are consum-mated. Herein lies the motor of permanent change in productive forces, which he under-stands to be an interconnected economic and societal arrangement.

Digitalization is without question an increasingly dominant part of current develop-ments in productive forces. What makes it new (also in contrast to the precursor phase of “informatization”) is the promise that purchasing (i.e., the acquisition of raw materials and labor), production (i.e., the “waiting period” when value is generated), and sales7 (i.e., the realization of value) all become possible without interruption and without hav-ing to take local, personal, or material realities into account. It is the promise of maxi-mum flexibility and exact calculability. This uncoupling from the constraints of material reality had begun already in Polanyi’s commercial society, but with the new pos-sibilities of digitalization it is taking a giant leap forward.

A first finding concerns the professed normative beliefs of digital elites themselves. Figure 1 shows which normative ideas – operationalized as orders of worth – these elites most often refer to in their public speeches and interviews. It clearly shows that solutionist ideas are a central normative reference point for digital elites. Around a quarter of normative references digital elites make are about the ability of technology to address central problems humanity faces. In addition, normative references that express a faith in the blessings of the market and the value of efficiency are also very common. References to green polity, by contrast, are remarkably absent. This, however, is not entirely surprising. Reminiscent of older discussion on applying knowledge and engineering to managing the environment in the Anthropocene (e.g. Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000: 485), Silicon Valley’s emerging ‘green brand of capitalism’ (Bialy et al., 2022) views ecological problems largely through the normative lens of solutionism. That is, it views them as problems to be solved with technology, rather than through a stronger emphasis on the green polity’s values of sustainability and sufficiency. Overall, these findings chime well not just with what we might expect, but also with other quantitative and qualitative research on tech elites.

[[Figure Omitted]]

The inattention is not surprising. The mention of intellectual property can cause even the brightest eyes to glaze over. It is one of many issues deliberately made to seem abstruse, overly technical, legalistic, and irrelevant for the crises we face. One should not need a law degree to understand the terms upon which their creativity enters the economy. Freeing IP from its legalistic scaffolding, and waking up to its power, reveals that it is a uniquely vulnerable regime.

Here is the vital loophole: crucially, ownership and control of IP always belongs, in the first instance, to the artists, inventors, academics and creators who made it. Currently, this power lies dormant. Most IP producers uncompromisingly surrender their IP to corporations (both for profit and not-for-profit) through employment contracts, click-wrap terms and conditions, and IP licences that allow these institutions free rein to commercialise the IP in exploitative and oppressive supply chains. Others simply give their power away by using Creative Commons or Open-Source licences, but again do nothing to stop corporations from then aggressively and oppressively commercialising IP.

Viewed through this prism, intellectual property law is no different. It creates boundaries that enfranchise certain types of speech at the expense of others. And, in doing so, it enables certain types of legal and illegal dissent, conferring legitimacy on some types of speech through the prism of fair use, but often excluding other types of expression from protection. Drawing on insights both from media and semiotic theory, I argue that intellectual property law tends only to protect appropriative expression that occupies the extreme poles of audience interpretation—works that either adopt, oppose, or completely transform the cultural meaning of an original commodity. Because the law fails to protect appropriative works that fall short of these poles, the marketplace of speech remains locked in a perpetual dance of opposites rather than protecting true expressive diversity. Rather than expanding the marketplace of protected speech, as the First Amendment attempts to do, intellectual property law tends to narrow its boundaries, thereby expanding the boundaries of the prohibited marketplace of speech instead.

This will mean continuing to produce academic scholarship; it will also mean actively pursuing opportunities to circulate our arguments and insights among those in and beyond the legal profession. We may involve ourselves with organizations such as Creative Commons and the Stanford Fair Use Project, for instance, whose work shuttles between law and culture. We may add our voices to pertinent litigation, as in the amicus brief a contingent of media professors filed in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. et al. v. Grokster, Ltd. et al., the landmark peer-to-peer file-sharing case heard before the United States Supreme Court (Liebman, ). Closer to home, we may offer advice to university committees responsible for formulating file sharing and intellectual property policies. It is also worth noting that the National Communication Association lags far behind peer organizations, such as the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, in terms of formulating best practices statements for the use of copyrighted materials in publications and teaching (see Society for Cinema and Media Studies, ; Thompson, ). Should we really defer the matter of how to use popular artifacts in scholarly contexts to the likes of Scholastic and Warner Bros.?

In Harry Potter's world, the wizarding public lives in fear of mentioning the evil Lord Voldemort's name. It is cursed, they believe, and uttering it will hasten the loathsome sorcerer's return to power. In our world, many feel compelled to tread lightly around words and images associated with the name, Harry Potter. It too is cursed, in a way, owing to the strange incantations of intellectual property law and the power it has conferred on the boy wizard's rights holders. Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, we Muggles truly are a magical people after all.

In the operaist and autonomist traditions, the general intellect has the potential to act as a revolutionary force, as it is the foundation of economic life, embodied in the skills, knowledge, social relations and general know-how of the working class, or, following the later Negri, “the multitude”. This encompasses not only intellectual activity but also general social relations, which today’s “Human Resources” department might refer to as “soft skills7”. Similarly for the Marx of the Grundrisse, the notion of a general intel- lect is the belief that an understanding of civil society and the development of capital within that society rests on a foundation of its shared history, knowledge and practices. The mid-19th century, writes Marx, is “the epoch which produces this standpoint, that of the isolated individual, is also precisely that of the hitherto most developed social (from this standpoint, general) relations8”. As such, the general intellect is a very human-centered view of economic relations and productivity: the capitalist is utterly reliant on the general intellect in order to achieve economic growth and extract profit. But because ultimately the general intellect is so bound up in the human, it retains revolutionary possibilities:

According to Berardi, the primary reason for the contemporary condition of crisis is the change over the last 50 years from industrial capitalism to finance- and semio-capitalism. One of the most crucial events in this regard was Nixon’s 1971 abolition of the gold standard and the Bretton Woods agreement,11 which Berardi describes as actions of dereferencialization, since the value of the dollar lost its connection to a physical reality.12 This may appear as an excessive conclusion, but it nevertheless aligns with other theoreticians in and outside the field, including Marazzi,13 MacKenzie14 and Appadurai.15, as it stresses the performative and immaterial character of finance capitalism. Berardi refers to this self-referential economic paradigm as semio-capitalism, since the primary production is not based on physical things but rather the exchange of semia—signs: “There are no longer material things, but signs; no longer the production of things which are tangible visible materials, but the production of something that is essentially semiotic.”16 Following this argumentation, in the present age of digital semio-capitalism the spheres of production and language would seem to coincide, resulting in the abstraction of work which is increasingly based on cognitive labour and the immaterial exchange of information. These accelerating processes alienate— whom he designates as—‘the cognitive workers’ from their social, perceptive and affective bodies. Furthermore, in his 2015 book AND. Phenomenology of the End - Sensibility and Connective Mutation Berardi states that “the infosphere acts directly on the nervous system of society, affecting the psychosphere and affecting sensibility in particular,”17 emphasizing how the accelerating infosphere, the dimension of intentional signs surrounding the sensitive organism, affects sensibility.18 As stated above, Berardi conceptualizes this sensibility as the surface of contact between the human being and the world; a sensuous, affective and linguistic attentiveness, receptiveness and capacity for interpretation and comprehension crucial for the social organism to interact with itself and the surrounding world.19 However, this sensibility is inhibited by the semio- capitalist rationalization of language, which becomes operational, standardized and thus exchangeable, so to minimize friction in the still accelerating exchange of information and immaterial value.20 For him, this paradigm of semio-capitalism pervades all spheres of human life, and thus inhibits the ability to understand, express, imagine and create different relations and conjunctions— or alternative futures, if you like.

Since the 1980s postoperaist scholars have further developed Debord’s conceptual link between capitalism and the power of images by investigating the connection between the financial deregulation so characteristic of our time and the free-floating proliferation of iconic values and meanings.3 The emergence of the society of the spectacle in conjunction with neoliberalism’s financial system resulted in the rise of semiocapitalism, a term deployed by scholars such as Jean Baudrillard and later Franco Berardi.4 It designates a late stage of capitalism in which information technologies such as digital trading make it possible to merge the productive use of signs and information with capital valorization. In this regard, economies that capitalize on our attentive time – for instance TV series, social media, online games, advertising, etc. – which are framed as lifestyles and consumer preferences, have partially replaced the production of goods. Producing ideas in the form of visual signs and making people pay for them with their attentive time is the main way to grow profit in the “attention economy,” which leads to what Bernard Stiegler has termed “hyperattention,” an inevitable over-exploitation of that time. Hyperattention is understood as the current way put in place in accumulating capital.5 Stiegler describes a historical moment that is characteristic for a global simultaneity of events and attitudes. This was identified by Peter Osborne as the “contemporary,” a designation not only of the art of our time in which “the apparent closure of the historical horizon of the avant-garde” took place, but also a different understanding of temporality, sensed as a state of perpetual presentness.6

Is it only in the contemporary era, as described by Debord, that images have become synonymous with the valorization of time (the classical notion of capital), or have they always been essential to economy’s foundational principles? And if images are capital, as Debord maintains, how does this thesis relate to the historical a priori that grounds the knowledge/power regimes which construct contemporary viewers and capitalist consumers? When Debord criticizes his epoch, does he not look back and fantasize about a novel avant-garde which is characterized by radical aesthetic ruptures with the past, and the initial unacceptability of its art to the public? What is the relation of classical or historical avant-gardes to the values of contemporary art? Also, how do they both relate to the valorization of images that sustains the spectacle of late capitalism, so gloriously projected in the global art of our time? And in what ways does this spectacle relate to the premodern predecessors of knowledge/power regimes?

The mechanisation and technicisation of human lives are mirrored in the fact that free time is spent in the mechanical flux of news – today augmented by the semiotic fluxes of capital (from advertising to social media) – and where everything presented as ‘new’ is, in fact, a zombified repetition of the same. Vision, visuality and imagination in the contemporary condition are codified by the logic of the return of the same. As an insurrection occurring in time and place, Trocchi believed that sigma could only insert itself into the capillaries of repeated uncreative time, in the undergrounds of the urban centres and in such a way that it would change time and space from within. This is the reason why sigma could not be a revolutionary, momentous change in time-space – an event that dies immediately as it comes into existence. This is also why it could not occur democratically as a movement of forces through existing space-time: the democratic choice does not exist yet because it cannot be imagined and visualised yet. sigma is not a coup d’etat, in the manner in which Lenin and Trotsky understood it. It is rather a coup de monde, ‘more gradual, less spectacular’ – an eminently cultural virology, which begins by intelligence becoming self-conscious. Trocchi appears to believe in a kind of dialectic of historical violence, where ‘revolution follows repression and is followed by repression’ (GEN: 2). Thus instead of arguing for a revolutionary coup d’etat that would be swiftly and violently repressed, Trocchi envisioned an invisible insurrection fuelled by ‘the powerhouse of the mind’ (INV: 1). The enemy, writes Trocchi, is never personal: the real enemy is ‘spiritual ignorance breeding fear, hysteria, schizophrenia’ (GEN: 2). As the state is ultimately comprised of individuals, it is simply ignorance against what one must operate upon. Even war and violence exerted by the state appears to originate in thought. Therefore, the change in the consciousness of individuals is all that is required for a sigmatic rupture of the world.5 ‘What must occur . . . is a revelation’, which includes the perception of ‘the forces that are at work in the world’; then, calmly, without indignation, by a kind of mental ju-jitsu that is ours by virtue of intelligence, of modifying, correcting, polluting, deflecting, corrupting, eroding, outflanking . . . inspiring what we might call the invisible insurrection. (INV: 2) The metaphor of the ‘mental ju-jitsu’ here is borrowed from the Japanese martial arts: it is the art of defeating an armed opponent without the use of a weapon. It suggests hard work, self-discipline and a vigorous mind taking hold of itself, understanding its relation to the forces influencing the world – but also performing a creative and imaginative leap of faith that seems to be based on nothing but itself. A mental ju-jitsu is not a figure of aggression, though it is a figure of combat. It suggests the idea of a sigmatic insurrection taking place without aggressive weapons and only through the superiority of mental discipline. And, just like in the case of ju-jitsu, the awakening of these mental forces is available to everybody. The trick here is to give oneself time: the time freed by the gesture of rupturing fluxes of (fake) news or the time to see oneself as part of the nexus of social relations or even the time of a spiritual voyage, which may or may not be induced by drugs. sigma is precisely the opening of time when time only promises to come to an end.

On a larger scale, manufacturing has been exported from the First World to the Third World for the same reason: to maintain the rate of profit. Yes, it is much cheaper to manufacture goods in the low-wage regions of the Third World, but those cost savings are rarely passed on to the consumer. More usually, they¶ are passed directly to the company directors and shareholders in the form of dividends and an enhanced capitalization of their stock. The tendency towards a falling rate of profit is a continually recurring 'crisis' for capitalism, but not one it has any interest in overcoming. In fact, it is the principal motor powering the system, giving it its restless energy (Buchanan 1998, 110).¶ So, what is the revolutionary path? What is the solution? Deleuze and Guattari outlined three tasks - one negative and two positive - that will better position us to become revolutionaries in relation to neoliberalism. According to Deleuze and Guattari, the very first task is a negative one; it is to destroy, destroy. The task of schizoanalysis goes by way of destruction - a whole scouring of the unconscious, a complete curettage (AO 342/371). The object that is to be destroyed is the Oedipus, and to do so, we must neither retreat to a pre-Oedipal phase nor project a post-Oedipal phase as a means of escaping the Oedipal trap. We must rediscover the operation of desire - a desiring-production that lies hidden behind and beneath Oedipal representations. Destruction is essentially a practical matter of undoing the complex set of illusions such as political and national territories by means of which we give structure and purpose to our lives. It is to deterritorialize them (Buchanan 1998, 117). This includes the task of eliminating reterritorialization, as it is constantly a threat (120). This is why the second task is a positive one; it consists of discovering in a subject the nature, the formation, or the functioning of his desiring-machines, independently of any interpretations.¶ What are your desiring-machines, what do you put into these machines, what is the output, how does it work, what are your nonhuman sexes?' (AO 354/384). In order to reach the point of being able to answer these questions, the investigation must push beyond the interpretative realm - the realm in which the question¶ 'what does it mean?' still applies - into what Deleuze and Guattari specify as the functional or machinic realm (Buchanan 1998, 121). Finally, the third task is also a positive one for schizoanalysis; it consists of reaching the investments of unconscious desire of the social field, insofar as they are differentiated from the preconscious investments of interest, and insofar as they are not merely capable of counteracting them, but also of coexisting with them in opposite modes (AO 383/419) (Buchanan 1998, 123). It goes without saying that the answer to this question becomes more apparent in Deleuze and Guattaris last major collaborative work, What Is Philosophy? In this text, we are called to maintain the revolutionary potential of philosophy as a discipline that involves the creation of new concepts (Deleuze 1988, 16). In What Is Philosophy?, philosophy is a critique of the present and with the aim of calling for a future form, for a new earth and people that do not yet exist' (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 108).

While similarly drawing on (both to embrace and move beyond) the work of Antonio Negri as well as the radical thought of others in the 1960s and 1970s Italian Workerist (Operaismo), Autonomist and Compositionist movements, Franco “Bifo” Berardi resists a rhetoric of productivism and questions the political potency of the concept of the multitude. In both The Soul at Work and After the Future, Berardi explores the affectual effects of post-Fordist modes of production and communication (SemioCapitalism) on our individual and social psyches. In doing so he not only diagnoses the toxic effects of neoliberalism, but also elaborates a politics and poetics of the refusal of work. The unproductivity on offer by Berardi exposes the affectual and ethical issues raised when we remain within the logic of productivism, even that which claims a revolutionary and counter-imperial stance. According to Berardi (2009: 21), SemioCapitalism “takes the mind, language and creativity as its primary tools for the production of value”. Under SemioCapitalism the soul is not left out of work, but rather becomes the very mode of production and thus the tool of its own estrangement. Hence, while the resistance to alienation through the reassertion of the importance of one’s mind and soul was at the heart of organizing workers on the factory floor, under post-Fordism acts of resistance must take on a different character. The goal of autonomy or what Berardi rewrites as out-onomy becomes not how to overcome alienation, but rather how to increase the estrangement between the soul and capitalist labour relations. As Berardi notes:¶ The working class is no longer conceived as a passive object of alienation, but instead as the active subject of a refusal capable of building a community starting out from its estrangement from the interests of capitalistic society … Alienation is then considered not as the loss of human authenticity, but as estrangement from capitalistic interest, and therefore as a necessary condition for the construction—in a space estranged from and hostile to labor relations—of an ultimately human relationship.(Berardi, 2009: 23)¶ To become increasingly estranged from labour relations involves for Berardi a multistep process: first, we must understand the way in which SemioCapitalism has redefined value; second, we must identify the affectual effects of SemioCapitalism on our individual and social psyches (effects that Berardi names as exhaustion and depression in After the Future and the panic-depression cycle in The Soul at Work); and third we must engage Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis as a political therapy that helps us to reorient the field of desire and thus reframes the concept of wealth, re-engaging us in authentic human relationships. Each of these steps happens not through reasserting our productive capacity, but rather through refusing to participate in the systems of production on offer by SemioCapitalism’s labour relations.¶ Under SemioCapitalism value has been divorced from all referent points. When Richard Nixon cancelled the direct convertibility of the US dollar to gold the referential logic of value was discarded in favour of what Berardi (2009: 148) calls “generalized indeterminacy”. From a radical theological point of view a sense of generalized indeterminacy may sound ideal in that, like radical theology, it denies a determinate telos. It might resonate, for instance, with Robbins’s call for a radical democratic resistance to all forms of hegemony that will come by way of an immanent exodus, one that, Robbins notes quoting Negri, is an “exodus from obedience, that is to say, from participation in measure, i.e., as the opening to the immeasurable” (Robbins, 2013: 191). Or it might resonate with the indefinite or infinite eschatology proposed by Crockett (2011: 102). Yet as Berardi notes, the indeterminacy of value and the process of economic deregulation brought on by SemioCapitalism did not result in anarchic freedom. It remains tamed and obedient to a certain eschatological vision: “Deregulation does not mean that society is freed from all rules, not at all: it is instead the imposition of monetary rule on all domains of human action. And monetary rules are in fact the sign of a relationship based on power, violence and military abuse” (Berardi, 2009: 148). In other words, as Philip Goodchild (2009: 188) has noted, neoliberal deregulation has trapped us in the eschatological shadow of money, within which spending time is subordinated to saving it. While this eschatological promise may be indeterminate because money no longer refers to a stable referent, it serves not as a source of freedom, but rather as one of entrapment. To counter this mode of violent entrapment Berardi (2009: 140) redefines wealth as time (or in Goodchild’s framing, spending time): “time for pleasure and enjoyment”, which includes time to travel, learn and make love. This wealthy time is not a time that asks, “What have you done for me lately?” Rather it is unproductive time, it is a time to be lazy, to be pleasured, to just be. It is not discipleship in action; it is not worth in productivity; it is not a man who is a worker or nothing at all; rather, it is a soul who is wealthy because she is much more and much less than her labour. To be sure, there is political work to be done to democratize the availability of this wealth of time,6 but by reorienting wealth and worth away from work, indeed in finding it in the refusal of work, Berardi rejects hegemonic structures of value.¶ Both SemioCapitalism’s rejection of wealth as time and its degradation of unproductive time lead to a mental and soulful breakdown in individual and social psyches. Berardi diagnoses this breakdown as a panic-depressive cycle (Berardi, 2009) and exhaustion and depression (Berardi, 2011). Acknowledging Baudrillard’s prescience, Berardi (2009: 179) further notes that “The dominant pathology of the future will not be produced by repression, but instead by the injunction to express, which will become a generalized obligation”. The constant demands to be expressive and productive combined with the overwhelming flow of information and signs without stable referents lead to panic, which eventually leads to depression. Elsewhere, Berardi (2011: 135–138) marks the panic-depression cycle with Baudrillard’s concept of exhaustion. Exhaustion sets in because, “In semiocapitalist hyperreality, the brain is the market. And the brain is not limitless, the brain cannot accelerate indefinitely” (Berardi, 2011: 136). Rather than, or perhaps as both counter and supplement to, an emphasis on the plasticity of the brain (an emphasis embraced by followers of Catherine Malabou),Footnote4 Berardi asks us to look to the limits of the brain—to our exhaustion—for the rethinking of how we might come to be differently.

The US Supreme Court in both Golan v. Holder and Eldred v. Ashcroft held ‘the “traditional contours” of copyright protection, i.e. the “idea/expression dichotomy” and the “fair use” defense … are recognized in our jurisprudence as “built-in First Amendment accommodations” ’. In particular, the fair use defense as codified in 17 U.S.C. § 107 ‘allows the public to use not only facts and ideas contained in a copyrighted work, but also [the author’s] expression itself in certain circumstances’. It is unsurprising that in the context of a robust free speech culture emboldened by the First Amendment, US courts have interpreted the notion of transformative use liberally—and consequentially the fair use defense—when the freedom of speech would be unduly constrained by enforcement of the rights of copyright or trademark owners. One of the most significant contributions semiotics can bring to copyright law is in the analysis of fair use. In copyright fair use, the pertinent inquiry is whether the secondary work ‘adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message’. Brian Holland postulates that ‘the prevailing conception of transformativeness [in copyright fair use] is one of romantic authorship, evidenced by a defendant’s authorial purpose or activity’ and proposes an approach ‘grounded in social semiotic theory [that] attempts to account for the multiple and divergent meanings created as various interpretive communities engage a particular work’. However, contrary to Holland’s observations that the US courts currently focus on the degree to which a defendant has engaged in authorial activity in the fair use analysis, the current approach of the US Second and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals appear to accommodate the shifting of the transformativeness inquiry from locating an authorial presence or authorial activity, to one of reader interpretation, i.e. whether one might reasonably perceive the creation of ‘new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings’. As Laura Heymann points out, ultimately, the question is whether the resulting work ‘is transformative in its meaning—that is, whether the reader perceives the second copy as signifying something different from the first’. Potentially when one analyses a work of copyright, one can read it semiotically as embodying a unity of modern cultural meanings capable of being opposed or resisted (through ‘countercultural’ means such as parody), or one can regard it as possessing polysemous qualities which may be contested or disrupted (through ‘subcultural’ practice such as bricolage or pastiche). A countercultural or counterpublic agenda may be best communicated to mainstream society through the use of widely recognized semiotic signs to which the public have ascribed particular representative values or characteristics. Parodies, fan fiction, and appropriation art are the best examples of trans-coding practices where an irreverent portrayal of an iconic literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work has recoded its semiotic meanings to express a different or counter-viewpoint creating new insights and understandings, thus rendering the secondary use ‘transformative’ in nature. Rebecca Tushnet explains that ‘[t]ransformativeness in fanworks takes many forms, from critique to celebration to reworking a text so that it better addresses the concerns of a specific audience’. Courts may find ‘a legitimate transformation exists when the new work makes overt that which was present in the original text covertly … transformative fair uses make subtext text’. The use of semiotics to discern a different ‘purpose or character’ a recoded or subverted sign offers is undoubtedly valuable to the transformative use inquiry in copyright fair use. Research materials for the study of works of copyright as culturally coded signs may be found in scholarly literature published in the fields of cultural studies, media studies, film studies, and fine art critical studies.

To be sure, many consumers do extend their care for other consumers beyond their family members. They often form brand communities (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001), subcultures of consumption “ (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995) or “tribes” (e.g. Cova, Kozinets and Shankar, 2007; Cova and White, 2010) that sustain a certain extent of sociality and help them cultivate ties on the basis of shared interests in brands, products, leisure activities and consumption practices. Sometimes they also mobilise themselves against powerful actors to reclaim a sense of agency and control over their environment (e.g. anti-Starbucks communities; Thompson and Arsel, 2004). Not surprisingly then, some have suggested (e.g. Streeck, 2012) that commercialisation has created opportunities and apparently quite attractive ones, for a new type of what Simmel called Vergesellschaftung or “sociation” – i.e. a way for individuals to link up to others and thereby help define their place in the world.¶ Yet the idea of market-mediated communities or communities of consumption is in many ways inadequate. To begin with, such communities are more often than not ephemeral, loosely connected and rather superficial. Steve Miles (2010), for instance, talks of “complicit communality”, referring to the observation that we as consumers are complicit in partly reviving a bygone community ethos in commoditised spaces that we know are not communal enough. That is, we are habituated into the comforts and pleasures offered by consumer[…]”¶ “infrastructures that are really needed for radically enlarging our commons and making them more genuinely caring: from community libraries and libraries of things to shared urban spaces, parks, local arts centres, as well as for more democratic ways of local governance (e.g. radical municipalism; The Care Collective, 2020).¶ Importantly, such communities also stubbornly remain organised around common (consumer) identities and interests. In doing so, they run the risk of building upon logics of individualism rather than collectivism: consumers continue to exist within them as individuals not as part of collectives that can be (and do) bigger than the sum of their parts (Gilbert, 2013). Their underlying ideologies of care foreground notions of proximity and sameness. Conspicuously absent are more radical ways of caring for one another that extend across difference and beyond the market. A good example here would be the various welcome centres that were formed in response to the European refugee crisis. City Plaza, for instance, was a hotel in the centre of Athens, Greece, that was squatted between April 2016 and July 2019. It became home to a shifting mix of about 400, mostly Syrian refugees (but also Eritreans, Ghanaians, Iranians, Somalis) and many European “solidarians[…]”¶ “. As a community project, it proceeded through collective cooking initiatives, shared cleaning and maintenance rotas, participation in gifting and solidarity bazaars. Such practices had in common was their embrace of anti- and non-market values of collaboration, sharing, mutuality and co-production; and ideologies of care that stretched beyond individualism and notions of “people like us”.