Anything and Everything Sells: A dialectic of the Creator and the Consumer

Abstract

This critical paper examines the persuasive effect of capitalism in the culture industry and critique production in all domains of the 21st century. Central to the analysis is the seminal work of Adorno and Horkheimer’s “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” putting forth the argument that capitalist imperatives are easily traced in the commodification of culture, using Jazz as a case study. This paper also examines Barthes’ “The Death of the Author” to highlight how it becomes a capitalist incentive in the literary domain concomitantly reducing the authorial authority and pertaining it to the consumers. These critiques, emanating from Poststructuralism and Postmodernism paradigms, illuminate capitalism's deep-seated impact on cultural and intellectual spheres, influencing the dialect of creator and consumer’s discourse. Despite deconstructing and resisting established norms, these movements often inadvertently reinforce capitalist paradigms by framing cultural consumption within commercial contexts. This paper underscores the complex interplay between capitalism and cultural production, highlighting the ongoing debate over how economic imperatives shape artistic expression and societal values in contemporary discourse.

Keywords: Capitalism, Consumerism, Cultural Industry, Commodification, Postmodernism.