Kill It to Save It: An Autopsy of Capitalism's Triumph Over Democracy

ISBN-13: 9781447317128 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 320 str.

Corey Dolgon

Opis

For decades now, American voters have been convinced to support public policies that only benefit those in power. But how do the powerful extract consent from citizens whose own self-interest and collective well-being are constantly denied? And why do so many Americans seem to have given up on quality public education, on safe food and safe streets, on living wages--even on democracy itself? Kill It to Save It lays bare the hypocrisy of contemporary US political discourse, documenting the historical and theoretical trajectory of capitalism's triumph over democracy.

Tackling the interconnected issues of globalization, neoliberalism, and declining public institutions, Corey Dolgon argues that American citizens now accept reform policies that destroy the public sector (seemingly in the public interest) and a political culture that embraces what Stephen Colbert calls "truthiness"--a willingness to agree to arguments that feel right "in the gut" regardless of fancy science or messy facts. In a narrative that stretches from the post?Vietnam War era to the present parade of political reality TV and debates over Black Lives Matter, Dolgon dismantles US common-sense cultural discourse. His original, alternative account reveals that this ongoing crisis in US policy will not cease until a critical mass of American citizens recognize what has been lost, and in whose interest.

Spis treści

Introduction: In My Life; Part One: The Strange Life of Kill it to Save it: Origins, Theories and Myths; Part Overview: Why an Autopsy? The Politics of History; The Vietnamization of American; Mourning Again in America; Part Two: Learning American Style: The Life and Death of American Education; Part Overview: History of Learning American Style; How the Knowledge Economy Killed Knowledge, and Other Scary Stories Out of School; The University Burns While the Knowledge Factory Hums; Part Three: Junk Food, Junk Science, and Junk Freedom: Life and Death in America; Part Overview: History of Health in America; Industrialized Food and Industrialized Farmers; Junk Food, Junk Science and a Bad Case of Mad Truth Disease; Junk Freedom, Broken Windows, and Black Lives Matter; Part Four: The Life and Death of America’s Economy and Government; Part Overview: It’s the Political Economy Stupid; Beyond Voodoo Economics: The Myth of Marco Rubio; Shock Doctrines, Disaster Capitalism, and Smart ALECs; The Myth of Common Sense Austerity and the Slow Death of America's Economy; Epilogue: Innocents Abroad; Trouble at Home: Kill it to Save it Goes Global. Postscript.