The Capitalist Advertising and Marketing Complex and the US Social Order: A Political-Materialist Analysis

Abstract

In this article, we explore the complex interconnections between monopoly power and commercial promotion and explain their role in maintaining the United States (US) social order in the twenty-first century. Our focus is the Capitalist Advertising and Marketing Complex (CAMC), or the range of corporate and state institutions that support and empower advertising and marketing in politics, culture, and the economy. Synthesizing and advancing early Frankfurt School Critical Theory and the Monopoly Capital School of political economy, we examine how the CAMC has degraded the Internet communications, the news media, and the pharmaceutical industry, in the process emerging as a formidable support mechanism for neoliberal capitalism. Our political-materialist approach illustrates how critical perspectives on political economy and cultural production at the intellectual forefront when the Caucus for a New Political Science (CNPS) was founded can motivate contemporary work that supports the “struggle for a better world” central to the Caucus’ mission.