Herbert Marcuse "One Dimensional Man" (Routledge)
Written before the outbreak of 1960s student radicalism, this book highlights the failings and controls of 'advanced industrial capitalism' comprehensively and manages to undermine opposition to his earlier theses of Freudian liberation, alienation and Marxist revisionism.
The premise of the book is a revisionist Marxist approach to why no revolution had occurred in society. It is staggering in it's response. It argues that the artificial production of false needs generates a false idea of freedom and liberation and this is reinforced by the technological apparatus of capitalism and social control and reinforcement. Whilst many Marxist books are fairly bland rhetoric, this book is superbly subtle, cutting and mind-expanding in it's arguments about the shaping of modern American and Western society as a totalitarian parallel. There's a phenomenal section where Marcuse argues along the lines of 'in Soviet Russia, the party controls all aspects of life, making it totalitarian, in capitalist America, the capitalist system and hierarchy controls every aspect of life through artificial manufacturing of happiness and satisfaction through production and consumption of needs.
In terms of radical or revolutionary politics, this book is one of the essential counter-culture revolutionary books of at least the last 50 years, and in particular, seems more relevant than before.
Although a little clunky and sometimes drenched in complex terms, I read this book whilst doing the philosophy section of my O.U course in the humanities way back in the late seventies / early eighties. Don't be put off, this book is absolutely seminal. I cannot recommend it enough!
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