The Culture of Capitalism and the Business of Intercultural

Capitalism and Consumption: Creating the Consumer

Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution:

Creating the Working Class

• Control means of production taken by peasants craftspeople and workers.

o Land

o Materials

o Tools

o Equipment

• There are 4 characteristics that identify the working class according to Robins.

o Mobility

o Divided by race

o Disciplined

o Resistance

o The consumer culture

o In the 19th century

o In the 20th century

• Luxuries had to be turned into necessities.

o Novel marketing

o Advertising

• In The planned obsolescence of other people: Consumer culture and connections in a precarious age by Allison J. Pugh she researched that individuals used commodified goods and experiences to connect with other people.

• New Middle Class.

Capitalism & Colonialism: Capital Accumulation and the Nation-State

Capitalism, Corporations, and Global Bodies of Governance

• Mercantilism = The Implementation of protectionist policies that exclude foreign goods & subsidize cheap labor in certain industries.

• Slavery played a big role in Europe’s to progress past China & India as having economic dominance in the 16th century.

• Material items locally made were replaced by imported goods.

• Gandhi used nonviolent strategies to help resist the British Empire’s dominance on India.

• Walked over 241 miles in just over 24 days (History).

• After Gandhi’s arrest & eventual release terms were re-negotiated (History).

• In the 20th Century China’s involvement with Africa strikes up debate on whether they’re colonizing, or are successful capitalist (Junbo).

• Factually they are on is consistent with the logic of market capitalism - liberal trade based on fair contracts (Junbo).

• IMF
• World Bank
• World Trade Organization formerly known as General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade.

The Culture of Capitalism

Capitalism, Neoliberalism,

and Globalization

Capitalism 101: The Historical Emergence of The Culture of Capitalism

• Neoliberalism: an economic and political ideology.

o Increased capital, commodities, services, information, and labor.

o Reduce state intervention, regulates the market, privatize public sources, decrease social protection, dismantle labor unions.

o Today, political leaders, capital controllers, and institutions such as the IMF, WB, and WTO give advantages to multinational corporations to reinforce neoliberalism.

• Surplus value: extra profit made by reducing labor cost.

o Big corporations sometimes take advantage of classism, sexism, and racism to build more capital.

• Commodities were made / obtained in Pre-capitalist / Non-capitalist societies

• Commodities = Value

• Pre-Capitalist form of commerce has been a concept that goes far back in human history.

• Exchange Value = Value of commodity determined by the profit it generates through exchange.

Cultural Dimensions of

the Workplace

• Promotes individualism, competitiveness, and the pursuit of personal goals and interest.

• Structured by consumer relations.

• Benefit minus cost equals interpersonal relationships.

• Relationships with people are secondary to relationship with things.

• Normalizes segmentation and stratification of labor and consumers.

• Inequity is masked and rationalized through the rhetoric of “Colorblindness,” “cultural difference,” and logic of capitalism.

• No relationship between consumers and laborers.

• Identities are defined through the things we consume.

• 1960: Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions were conducted for research on employees to understand the differences in national cultures and impact on workplace culture.

History of the Culture of Capitalism

• Individualism- collectivism

o Individual’s interest is placed first before the group.

o Values of the individual are taken as priority.

o Socialized from early age into cohesive.

o Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East are Collectivist.

o European and North America are Individualistic.

• Power Distance

o Less power from an individual on an organization of acceptance on unequal distribution of power.

o Cultures emphasize equality, self- initiative, and consultations for decision making.

o Based on performance an individual is distributed equally for rewards and punishments.

• High Power Distance

o Accept unequal status among members.

o Respect those with high power.

o Expect managers ad authority figures to make decisions.

o Reward based on rank, age, and status.

• Uncertainty Avoidance

o To feel threatened by the unknown and he tendency to guide in such situations.

• High Uncertainty Avoidance

o Innovation is less acceptable.

o Conflict seen as a threat to both effectiveness and harmony group.

o Cultures are more formal and rule oriented.

• Low Uncertainty Avoidance

o Encourage new and creative approaches.

o Cultures are more informal and less structured.

Confucian Dynamism

• Cultural characteristics of East Asian countries.

• Long- term orientation to time.

• Importance of status, thriftiness, and collective face- negotiation strategies.

• Economic growth in the 1990s, in the 21 century is attributed as Confucian values of perseverance, hard work, respect for elders, and hierarchical structures.

• GLOBE Dimensions

• Conducted research to investigate interrelationship among societal culture, organizational culture, and leadership.

• Assertiveness: individuals in organizations or societies are confrontational and assertive.

• Performance Orientation: Organization or society rewards and encourages members for their quality of performance and involvement.

• Humane Orientation: Organization or society rewards people for being generous, kind to others and being fair.

Masculinity- Femininity

• Masculinity: societies that emphasize distinct differences in gender roles between men and women.

• Femininity: cultures where gender roles overlap and gender characteristics are shared.

• Masculine Organizational Cultures

o Focused on work achievements.

o Sensitive to distinct and complementary gender role norms.

o Results are important.

• Feminine Organizational Cultures

o Flexible and interchangeable gender role norms.

o Balance work and life community.

o Environmental issues are important.

Intercultural Communication

at Work

Managing Diversity, Multicultural Teams, and Virtual Teams

A new idea in 1990s to move beyond numbers and quotas for the inclusion of nondominant groups to recognize diversity as a resource.

• The work place in U.S. is diverse and multicultural.

• Intercultural challenges and opportunities are magnified and accelerated.

• Tapping global markets entail intercultural communication.

• Communication barriers in companies form significant challenges.

• Think globally, act locally.

• Not natural as humans to position ourselves in these 3 separate roles.

• Developed over time.

• The culture was created through historical processes which were then normalized.

o Beliefs

o Behaviors

o Values

o Power

• History show that groups who didn’t participate in capitalism were “uncivilized” & “Primitive."

• Capitalism has provided:

o Comfort for large groups

o Advancements in medicine

o Production of food

o Communication / transportation technologies

o Engineered and or Forced global economic integration

• Capitalism is also at the center of:

o Inequality

o Hunger

o Poverty

o Racial & Ethnic conflicts

o Environmental degradation

Multicultural Teams

• Task orientated groups from different national and ethnic groups.
• Impact group effectiveness
• Cultural norms, on how group is structured on how it functions.

o Cultural diversity or the amount of different cultures in group.

o Relative cultural distance or members of group are culturally different from another.

Virtual Teams

• Work groups with members who rely on technology- mediate communication and are geographically dispersed.
• Use a variety of technologies to bridge potentially vast differences and discontinuities.
• The Intercultural Marketplace and Economic Responsibility

Historical Context: Capitalism and Globalization

Key Terms

Commodification of Culture

• Capitalism – Can’t be simplified to solely economic dimensions. Social, cultural, political, ideological, and ethical issues must be taken into account.

• Capitalism – product of historical processes.

• Capitalism – set of relationships; capitalist + laborers + consumers.

• Culture of Capitalism – production & sale of commodities.

• Capitalist – goals are accumulation of profit.

• Laborers – goals are the accumulation of wages

• Consumers – goals are to accumulate goods.

• Journalist Jeremy Rifkin wrote in the Los Angeles Times article in 2001: “...After hundreds of years of converting physical resources into goods, the primary means of generating wealth now involves transforming cultural resources into paid-for personal experiences and entertainments.

• Today culture is a product that is invented packaged and consumed

Intercutural Market and Economic Responsibility

The Culture of Capitalism and the Business of Intercultural Communication

Commodification of Pueblo pottery and Navajo weavings: A Case Study

• Navajo and Pueblo Indian women collect the material for their art from their natural surroundings.

• The art they mold and weave with their hands encapsulate their culture; and the colors and figures adorned on their art tell of their history.

• Before this exotic art from “uncivilized” (the Others) can be coveted, it must first be “safe” to consume.

o In early 20th Century an image of New Mexico culture was crafted to market a “safe” yet “exotic” place to visit for eastern United States tourists.

o This was done through:

o advertisements

o museums exhibits

o scholarship

o idealized view of aesthetic, moral, and spiritual salvation from the depravities of contemporary life.

• The cultural art is contested

o Creative forms are as much a representation of the dominant culture’s notion of the Other as they are representation of the cultures for which they are marketed.

o Creativity can be stifled when cultural artistic artifacts are “frozen” to the expectations of the dominant culture’s idea of what is the Other’s culture.

• Commodification of cultures creates barriers to intercultural communication.

o commodification of symbols represents:

• A freezing of ethnic imagery
• A ethnic imagery becoming artificial and deterministic.

So what steps can we take to prevent economic, political, social and cultural injustice as well as promote the sustainability of the planet?

• Act responsibly based on your knowledge
• Make conscious and responsible consumer choices.
• Transform sites of consumption into sites for intercultural praxis through dialogue.
• Act to challenge inequities in the workplace.

• Observe your consumption
• Keep a journal of the things you purchase
• Note where you shop
• Note where the goods - things, entertainment, and experiences are produced

• Educate yourself about the circumstances and impact
• As a consumer find out:
• the working conditions of manufacturing plant
• while on vacation engage in dialogue with those that provide you with services
• As a laborer:
• Learn about the relationship between owners and workers in your organization/corporation.
• Why is the organization/corporation successful or not successful.
• As a capitalist learn how your money makes money.
• How does your savings account work?
• Where is your money invested in?

Tourism and Intercultural

Communication

• Join others in challenging inequity and injustice
• Consider your spheres of influence.
• Share your decisions with others.
• Seek others who support your values of social and economic responsibility.

Join consumer groups or activist organizations

Economic Responsibility and Intercultural Communication

• Tourism as an opportunity for intercultural engagement

o Learn about the unknown

o Appreciate different ways other people live

o New language, traditions

• Economic impact of tourism

o In 2010, the global travel industry generated over $877 billion.

o Industry projects continued growth of 4% annually through 2019.

o Tourism is one of the world’s largest industries employing more than 258 million people worldwide.

• Many do not take advantage of this opportunity

o According to surveys administered by Halifax Travel Insurance:

• British tourist on vacations spent less than 8 hours a week outside of the hotel.
• 3/4 of the 2,000 surveyed made no effort to learn the local language
• 70% never visited a local attraction
• Western tourists desire and often demand the familiarity of “home”, yet simultaneously, complain that other cultures are too “Americanized,” too “Westernized,” or too much like home.

New Orleans Mardi Gras

Transforming cultural practices

and urban spaces into spectacles

Our current state of capitalism: conspicuous consumption and perpetual growth only started about 70 years ago in the United States.

• An example of conspicuous consumption is Starbuck’s entry into China even though tea is much more common than coffee. Working in favor of the Starbucks expansion is the rise of a moneyed middle class that seeks to flaunt its status with conspicuous consumption of trendy items with Western brand names--including coffee. (an der Velden, Thissen)
• If the stage were in was constructed by our society it can be deconstructed or at the very least adjusted

• Consumption in the United States
• U.S. Americans, 4.6% of the world’s population, account for 33% of the global consumption
• 14% of residents of high income countries consumed more than 80% of the global total.
• 2.3 billion residents of low income countries consumed less than 3%
• More than one fifth of the world’s population lives on the brink of hunger and death.
• Root causes:
• Current culture of capitalism
• The need and desire for perpetual economic growth

Originally a celebration of rich and deeply rooted religious and cultural symbolism, it is now leveraged to expand capitalism, make desires, boost demand and cultivate new needs (Gotham, 2002)

Today, in the “tourist bubbles” (Judd, 1999) and leisure spaces of the changing city, paying sub-standard wages to an urban service proletariat helps to subsidize the production of spectacle and simulations. (Gotham)

While attracting tourism may bring some economic benefit to some, as well as allow some intercultural communication, the spectacle and fetishization of the commodity - Mardi Gras - hides the social impact that govern the production and exchange of the commodity.

• Fetishization - when commodities are endowed with powers such as status, success, fame and identity.
• Spectacle - the domination of media images and consumer society over the individual, which obscures the conditions and effects of capitalism.