Capitalist propaganda

Capitalist propaganda is the promotion of capitalism, often via mass media, education, or other institutions, primarily by the ruling private and political elite. According to critics of capitalism, capitalist propaganda is commonly deployed in capitalist countries to maintain the cultural hegemony of capitalism, by positioning it as the supreme and only valid system, eliminating opposing and dissenting views, and portraying non-capitalist perspectives and countries as comparatively incompetent and inferior, thus reinforcing capitalism as the dominant ideology. Various techniques are employed to employ capitalist propaganda, including idealization of social mobility under capitalism and portraying non-capitalist ideologies negatively. Capitalist propaganda is spread through various means, including mass media, entertainment, television, museums, and the art establishment.

Capitalist propaganda is the promotion of capitalism, often via mass media, education, or other institutions, primarily by the ruling private and political elite.

Michael J. Vavrus uses the term to describe a nearly 150-year-long campaign to "demonize political economy alternatives to the dominance of corporate capitalism." According to critics of capitalism, capitalist propaganda is commonly deployed in capitalist countries to maintain the cultural hegemony of capitalism, by positioning it as the supreme and only valid system, eliminating opposing and dissenting views, and portraying non-capitalist perspectives and countries as comparatively incompetent and inferior, thus reinforcing capitalism as the dominant ideology.

A purpose of capitalist propaganda is to maintain ideological hegemony, or the capacity for any ruling class to have their interests be reflected "as the common interest of all members of society, put in an ideal form," so that their interests are universalized as the only valid ones. Philosopher Antonio Gramsci argued that "it is necessary to establish ideological hegemony in order to maintain the continuity of capitalism" and that this is the role of capitalist propaganda. The ruling political and private elite, who control institutions like education and the mass media, exclude and eliminate opposing views, which allows for capitalist propaganda to operate on an almost invisible level in capitalist countries while being enforced at all levels, often going completely unnoticed and unchecked.

In media throughout capitalist countries, such as the United States, "socialist views are excluded from American public discourse," and capitalism is portrayed as an economic system that is simply "equated by definition with political democracy, freedom, and patriotism," writes media studies scholar Donald Lazare. Capitalist propaganda is "reinforced by the mantra that there is no alternative, [which] ensures that any questions concerning (alternative) economic realities are considered as secondary, incidental, indulgent, and ultimately redundant." As scholar Jason Lee describes, "the propaganda of capitalism has worked so well that most people, of the left and the right, find it inconceivable that any other system should exist, and this is the aim of the ideology."

Capitalist propaganda has been determined to be carried out by the private and political elite with the purpose of maintaining their own wealth and power in society. As Guinevere Liberty Nell writes in her analysis of capitalist propaganda and the public discourse, "in a private property economy, the powerful elite are in the private sector; and when it is the private sector that sustains the powerful, it is in their own interest to promote the private property system." Nell describes that capitalist propaganda is "used to support the ideals and norms that are required for, or at least to help bolster, the private property system and the elite's place in it" and that even those who do not intend to engage in the spread of capitalist propaganda may do so because of their conditioning in modern capitalist society.

Capitalist propaganda has been identified as promoting individualism through idealizing the conditions of social mobility under the liberal free market or laissez-faire capitalism. Phrases such as "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps" and having the "frontier mentality" promote the idea that going from "rags to riches" through rugged individualism is available to all who work hard enough, or what has otherwise been referred to as the myth of meritocracy. For example, Businessman and television personality Kevin O'Leary described the abject poverty of over 3.5 billion people being equal to the wealth of 85 of the richest people as "fantastic news" since it was "motivation" to become one of "the 1%."

Capitalist propaganda commonly adopts the technique of portraying non-capitalist ideologies negatively. Scholars have identified that capitalist propaganda in Western countries most commonly takes the form of anti-communist or anti-socialist propaganda. Political journalist Anthony Westell identifies a "relentless [campaign of] anti-socialist propaganda by capitalists who feared for their own wealth and power and, conveniently, controlled most of the mass media" in capitalist countries.