Chapter One: The Consumer
Thesis Statement 1:
American culture, and Western culture in general, may be
characterized as the culture of capitalism, or more specifically consumer capitalism, and
American society may be characterized as the society of perpetual growth.
Thesis Statement 2:
The core premise of the culture of consumer capitalism is that
commodity consumption is the source of well-being.
Thesis Statement 3:
The central roles in the culture of capitalism are the consumer,
the laborer, and the capitalist, each operating according to a set of rules orchestrated
and enforced by the nation-state.
Thesis Statement 4:
The culture of capitalism and the society of perpetual growth
require for the their maintenance the exploitation of most of the world's resources and
Thesis Statement 5:
It is central to the successful operation of the culture of
capitalism that the consumer be segregated or masked from the consequences of his or her
lifestyle on the laborer, on the environment, and on the way of life of those whose
degradation makes his or her life possible.
Chapter 2: The Laborer
Thesis Statement 6:
Profit in a capitalist culture comes largely from the
capitalist's control of the surplus value of labor.
Thesis Statement 7:
The whole process of capital investment, making a profit, finding
the cheapest labor, and so on represents what Karl Marx called commodity fetishism in
which the real source of profits and the non-economic consequences of capitalism are
largely hidden from view.
Thesis Statement 8:
Racism and sexism are direct consequences of the process of the
segmentation of labor, and the requirement in the culture of capitalism to provide a ready
source of cheap labor.
Thesis Statement 9:
There is an inherent tendency of laborers to resist the
discipline imposed on them by capitalists.
Thesis Statement 10:
As in the creation of the consumer, children are among the main
victims in the process of the creation of the laborer.
Chapter 3: The Capitalist
Thesis Statement 11:
In the course of the expansion of the culture of capitalism,
there has been a growing concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, a concentration
that is the direct result of the workings of the capitalist economy.
Thesis Statement 12:
In the course of the development of the culture of capitalism,
there has been a marked change in the organization of capital and how it is controlled.
The result is that only a few organizations control vast wealth and are able to dictate
the nature of social, political, economic, and cultural life.
Thesis Statement 13:
One of the dominant historical trends has been the growing
integration of the global economy, to the extent that anything that happens in one area of
the world has repercussions in all others.
Thesis Statement 14:
In the process of providing financial support to stricken
economies, the IMF is essentially reducing the risks of international financial investors,
while, at the same time, transferring the suffering to ordinary citizens of stricken
Thesis Statement 15:
Democracy, as a system of government, has been largely superseded
by the operation of the global economy; the principle of one person, one vote, has largely
been replaced by a system where people vote with their dollars.
Chapter 4: The Nation-State
Thesis Statement 16:
The most important function of the nation-state in the culture of
capitalism is the regulation of trade and commerce within and without its borders, and to
provide for the orderly production, distribution, and sale of commodities.
Thesis Statement 17:
In order to provide the economic integration required for the
smooth functioning of the economy, the modern state must convince its populace that they
share a common culture or destiny. This is accomplished largely through the state control
of mandatory education.
Thesis Statement 18:
Those individuals and groups that call into question the myth of
the nation-state or who refuse to be assimilated into it are generally subject to
extermination; or as Pierre L. van den Berghe said, "The terror and horror of mass
genocidal killing are not aberrations of the modern state; they are in the very nature of
it. We live in an era of routinized holocausts."
Thesis Statement 19:
The nation-state will soon be replaced by new institutions, the
most important being the transnational corporation.
Thesis Statement 20:
The growth in importance of the non-governmental organization
(NGO), or the non-profit sector, is largely the result of the withdrawal of the state from
the provision of services (health, education, welfare, etc.) that it had, traditionally,
Chapter 5 Population
Thesis Statement 21:
"Short of nuclear war itself, population growth is the
gravest issue the world faces. If we do not act, the problem will be solved by famine,
riots, insurrection and war." -Robert McNamara, Former President of the World Bank
Thesis Statement 22:
Most of the problems faced by countries in the periphery, such as
poverty, hunger, and environmental destruction, are the consequences of excessive
Thesis Statement 23:
The specter of population growth is a device used in the culture
of capitalism to shift the blame for global problems to their victims, and to obscure the
real cause, perpetual and uneven economic growth.
Thesis Statement 24:
Family structure and the status of women in society are the prime
determinants of fertility and population growth.
Chapter 6: Poverty and Hunger
Thesis Statement 25:
Since food in the culture of capitalism is simply one of hundreds
of thousands of commodities, hunger is largely a matter of people not having enough money
to purchase it.
Thesis Statement 26:
The evolution of agriculture in the culture of capitalism is
characterized by the steadily increasing concentration of agricultural wealth (land and
factors of production), and the growing dependency of the many on the few.
Thesis Statement 27:
Programs of so-called "food aid" (e.g. Food for Peace
or Public Law 480) are simply ways that the state funnels tax dollars to agribusiness,
increases the influence of food aid organizations, and promotes the ruin of small, local
Thesis Statement 28:
The fact that people are starving to death because they haven't
the money to buy food is obscured by calling starvation "malnutrition," and
treating it as a medical problem.
Thesis Statement 29:
The major solution to hunger is by building entitlements and
focusing on the economic well-being of women.
Chapter 7: Consumption and the
Thesis Statement 30:
There exists a global environmental crisis, and consumption or
consumerism (overdevelopment and the culture of capitalism) is the major, if not the only,
Thesis Statement 31:
Our consumption needs, and even our eating habits, are formed
largely to fill the needs of economic expansion and maintain the society of perpetual
Thesis Statement 32:
It is not only impossible to sustain the culture of capitalism at
its present rate of consumption, but the expansion of that culture and its consumption
habits to other areas of the globe will vastly accelerate environmental collapse.
Thesis Statement 33:
Given the nature of the culture of capitalism, it is impossible
to halt the destruction of the environment.
Chapter 8: Disease
Thesis Statement 34:
Every culture or age has its characteristic illness and disease;
for the culture of capitalism, characteristic diseases are those linked to poverty,
hunger, and environmental devastation, and the increasing disparity in wealth between the
rich and the poor.
Thesis Statement 35:
From a microbial perspective, the culture of capitalism has
created the ideal environment for the development and spread of infectious disease.
Thesis Statement 36:
AIDS, above all illnesses, is the signature disease of the
culture of capitalism.
Thesis Statement 37:
It is likely that within the next two decades, the world will
experience a plague not unlike those that swept Europe in the fourteenth century, and,
perhaps, not unlike that which stuck the New World at the time of European contact.
Chapter 9: Indigenous People and
Thesis Statement 38:
The cultures of indigenous peoples are vulnerable to destruction
from capitalist expansion partially because their way of life differs so significantly
from that in the culture of capitalism.
Thesis Statement 39:
A careful examination of the conditions of indigenous peoples
before and after their incorporation into the world market economy,
leads to the conclusion that their standard of living is lowered,
not raised, by economic progress--and often to a dramatic decline. This is perhaps the
most outstanding and inescapable fact to emerge from the years of research that
anthropologists have devoted to the study of culture change and modernization. (Emphasis
added) John Bodley
If, instead of needy dependents living largely outmoded ways of
life, we appreciate the resemblance between indigenous societies and a modern, socially
responsible corporation that carefully manages its resources, provides well for its
workers, and plans for the long-term rather than the short term, we are better able to
appreciate why indigenous societies can't survive.
Thesis Statement 41:
If we examine cases of purported "ethnic conflict" we
generally find that it involves more than "ancient hatred;" even the
"hatreds" we find are relatively recent, and constructed by those ethnic
entrepreneurs taking political advantage of situations rooted in colonial domination and
fed by neo-colonial exploitation.
Thesis Statement 42:
There are few nation-states in which one group or another is not
striving for greater representation, and few states which are not, in one way or another,
answering those demands with force or the threat of force.
Chapter 10: Peasant Protest
Thesis Statement 43:
Capitalism is revolutionary in the sense that to foster perpetual
growth, it must constantly revolutionize the factors of production, promote ever
increasing consumption, and , consequently, regularly modify patterns of social,
political, and economic relations.
Thesis Statement 44:
In the development of the culture of capitalism, there have been
winners and there have been losers. Among the biggest losers are peasant or small-scale
agriculturists, and, along with them, those dependent on wage labor, most women, most
children, along with other groups who have been deprived of steady and viable employment.
Thesis Statement 45:
The goal of most peasant resistance is not necessarily to
overthrow a system of oppression or domination, but, rather, to survive. The usual goal of
peasants is "working the system to their minimum disadvantage." James Scott
Thesis Statement 46:
Colonial oppressors are apt not to recognize the suffering their
oppression causes, and generally see protest as the illegitimate actions of a few.
Thesis Statement 47:
Given the structure of the modern economy, peasant or small-scale
agriculture cannot survive.
Chapter 11: Antisystemic
Thesis Statement 48:
The various forms of social protest such as workers organizations
and strikes, national liberation, civil rights, feminist, militia, environmental, and
fundamentalist religious movements can all be understood as reactions to the expansion of
the culture of capitalism.
Thesis Statement 49:
Virtually all social protest may be seen as emerging from the two
world revolutions, the one in 1848 and the one in 1968.
Thesis Statement 50:
Labor protest tends to emerge in industries that are marginally
profitable, and that try to squeeze a profit by minimizing wages and scrimping on any
safety measures that require capital expense.
Thesis Statement 51:
The subjugation of women is rooted in the patterns of economic
exploitation endemic to the culture of capitalism.
Thesis Statement 52:
Contrary to Garrett Hardin's thesis of "the tragedy of the
commons," communally held land, especially in the periphery, tends to be better
preserved and regulated than privately owned resources.
Chapter 12: Religious Protest
Thesis Statement 53:
Religious antisystemic movements seek either the removal or
destruction of what they believe is an immoral culture, a withdrawal from it, or the
forceful or voluntary adoption of people of a new way of life.
Thesis Statement 54:
Indigenous religious movements, such as the Zionist movement
among the Tshidi in South Africa, serve as a refuge and emblem for those who are
marginalized by the expansion of capitalist culture
Thesis Statement 55:
The cultures represented by large-scale fundamentalist religious
movements remain the only legitimate challengers to the global domination of capitalist
Thesis Statement 56:
Protestant fundamentalism in Latin America is largely a
conservative reaction to the emergence of Liberation Theology, and its critique of the
culture of capitalism.
Chapter 13: Futuristic Projections
Thesis Statement 57:
The future of capitalism must be marked by the continuing
concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and the growing impoverishment of the many.
Thesis Statement 58:
Since the culture of capitalism must continually destroy the
environment, expand economic hardship, and create continual conflict and resistence, it
must inevitably collapse and be replaced by either a socialist world government or highly
localized, independent, and self-sufficient cultures.