How Gambling Has Become America’s Premier Form of Entertainment and Escape (Video)
Professor Natasha Dow Schüll and Chris Hedges discuss how "casino capitalism" is designed to keep people away from "a position where they [can] act as decision-making subjects."
Professor Natasha Dow Schüll and Chris Hedges discuss how casino capitalism, present in everything from algorithms to today’s political rhetoric, tries to “sweep people away … from a position where they have clear lines of sight and can act as decision-making subjects.” Watch the latest episode of Hedges’ show “On Contact,” below, as the Truthdig columnist is joined by the author of “Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas.”
— Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata
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As economist Michael Yates points out throughout his new book, "The Great Inequality," capitalism is devoid of any sense of social responsibility and is driven by an unchecked desire to accumulate at all costs.
"We are live at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas!" So opened the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 electoral season -- that's right, in a Las Vegas casino.
We're talking about an ideology marked by the selling off of public goods to private interests; the attack on social provisions; the rise of the corporate state; the celebration of profit-making as the essence of democracy; and with the utterly reductionist notion that consumption is the only applicable form of citizenship.
When our inner worlds work under the death-haunted dictates of casino capitalism, the Apocalypse is embraced as if it functioned exclusively as a form of entertainment, rather than providing a warning about the rise of militarism, the killing of civilians, and religious and political fundamentalisms.
As the visibility of extreme violence is endlessly reproduced in various cultural apparatuses and screen cultures, it functions increasingly, alongside a range of other economic and political forces, to legitimate a culture of cruelty and disposability in everyday life.
Truthout and Truthdig contributor and revolutionary firebrand Henry Giroux appeared on "Moyers & Company" on Friday to play the role of cultural pathologist and make the crises of global capitalism and democracy blindingly clear.
