[Dominic White]

I’ve been fascinated by Adam Curtis’ documentaries since I was a teenager, and his latest set of six is focused really tightly on how the social understanding of power has changed from the early parts of the 20th century to today. His style is to be sweeping, emotional and unerringly narrative rather than precise and empirical, so take it all with a grain of salt. Still, fascinating to see power as a political-economic central force being discussed in the broad media.

It’s available for free on the BBC iPlayer for UK residents (and on thoughtmaybe for everyone else, along with his other films).

[Dominic White]

Blair Fix wrote:

That said, I think we both agree that we shouldn’t dismiss ‘skills’ as a pathway to hierarchical advancement. I would love to see research about how the beliefs and attitudes of corporate brass affect the traits that are (or are not) rewarded in the corporate hierarchy. We need a modern-day Veblen to write a ‘Theory of the corporate class’.

Moral Mazes is quite an illustrative example of the basically feudal relations between lower- and higher-ranked corporate workers. Aged a little now and certainly would be curious to see how the dynamics have changed in (e.g.) Amazon, Apple, etc. contrasted with the financial and chemical corporations profiled in the book.

[Author]

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