The Transparence of Hypercapitalism

Hypercapitalism, in its all-pervasiveness must seep into every aspect of global culture so that it may saturate its markets to maximize its productive potential. Jean Baudrillard, in The Transparence of Evil, (2) posited that in a society inundated with media, cultural attributes of different genres expand to ubiquity throughout that given milieu. In a media saturated society, sports become politics, politics become pornography, art becomes war, war becomes a video game, and capitalism becomes sport, ad infinitum. This is not to say that all aspects of culture within the mediated society cannot become one another, as they do. However, it is the way that the cultural aspects combine which is of interest. The transparence of culture is evident from American television ads, which tout the excitement of day trading on Ameritrade, the tribal identity sold by Nike and The Gap (EVERYONE in vests), and the remote control titillation of the CNN coverage of the Gulf War and all subsequent events. And it should be no different that after the end of the Cold War, that Western society would bask in its victory by allowing capitalism to pervade all aspects of life through the culture of consumerism.