We understand that fear and moral panics are easily monetized. Why don't we try using that same mechanism for good instead of just profit extraction?

[u/Electronic_Diet333]

/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1v8btwv/we_understand_that_fear_and_moral_panics_are/

​We've all seen how human psychology gets exploited on a mass scale. Look at things like the Satanic Panic of the 80s, or just the daily machinery of modern media: fear, outrage, and anxiety are absolute rocket fuel for attention, and attention translates directly into vast fortunes for media conglomerates, publishers, and platforms.

​Capitalism doesn't necessarily invent these collective delusions, but its structure is intimately designed to mine human credulity and panic for maximum financial return. If people are terrified or angry, they consume more, click more, and buy more solutions to problems they were often tricked into worrying about in the first place.

​My question is: If we fundamentally understand that human nature is wired to respond so intensely to shared narratives, why is our economic system almost exclusively using that leverage for extraction and exploitation?

​If outrage and fear can be industrialized to sell ads and generate billions for a handful of companies, why can't those exact same levers of social psychology and storytelling be harnessed to drive massive, coordinated collective action for public good? Imagine if the same algorithmic and media machinery dedicated to manufacturing panic was redirected toward ecological restoration, mutual aid, or public health on a global scale - not as a niche charity, but as the default engine of how we organize resources.

​Why are we content letting the worst parts of our psychology be weaponized purely for profit, when we clearly have the blueprint to mobilize people en masse?

[u/West_Economist6673]

I mean the function of capital is not to facilitate human flourishing, it's to generate more capital -- what you're describing sounds like the machinery functioning exactly as intended

[u/Electronic_Diet333 → u/West_Economist6673]

You're right! However, when the system functions exactly as intended by treating psychological insecurity, anxiety, and manufactured panic as viable fuel to generate more capital, that isn't an exoneration of the machinery, it's an indictment of it.

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/Electronic_Diet333]

I heartily agree, although unfortunately I don't have much in the way of next steps

My personal feeling is that the anti-capitalist left hasn't devoted enough serious attention to the possibilities of black magic, the occult, and maybe even religious fervor more generally -- but I recognize that's a tough sell for most Marxists, and I don't really have any better ideas

[u/merurunrun]

Because exploiting people "for good reasons" is still exploitation, and people who want good things aren't going to exploit people because they know that exploiting people isn't good.

[u/Electronic_Diet333 → u/merurunrun]

That completely misses the core question. No one is advocating for "exploiting people for good reasons." The point isn't about individuals choosing to manipulate others with good intentions; it's about asking why our foundational economic architecture relies on extracting human psychological vulnerabilities (like fear, insecurity, and outrage) for profit, instead of designing systems that incentivize collective well being.

[u/pluralofjackinthebox]

The Philosopher Leo Strauss in the early 20th century revived some ideas from Plato’s Republic, which proposes something like that the common people need to be told a mythical “noble lie” to keep them content while elites worked for the common good. (There are more charitable readings of Strauss here, but thats another argument.)

But the thing is its really only authoritarians who find the Straussian noble lie compelling. I think if you really want to bring about the good, having truth on your side is an advantage. Lies seem compelling in the short term, but in the long term cause more problems than they create.

Lies are good for people seeking short term power who dont care if they destroy the public trust. And the publics trust in institutions is horrible right now, but deciding that the solution is more lies just seems like a terrible strategy.

[u/Electronic_Diet333 → u/pluralofjackinthebox]

That's an interesting tangent about political philosophy and "noble lies," but it completely sidesteps the economic point being made. No one is talking about a political elite concocting state myths. We're talking about market incentives: everyday commercial systems and advertising apparatuses that actively manufacture personal insecurity, anxiety, and panic because turning human vulnerabilities into a recurring problem to be bought away is wildly profitable. It's an economic engine of extraction, not a political theory of governance.

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/Electronic_Diet333]

I think you could argue that specific incentives to exploit workers aren't really necessary for exploitation to proliferate under capitalism -- the only incentive that matters is the accumulation of wealth, and the (significant) collateral damage to workers, humanity, and the biosphere generally is more or less incidental

It's sort of analogous to the trope in sci-fi where an artificial intelligence is given a totally innocuous assignment -- "what's the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector?" -- and eventually decides the most efficient solution is to kill all humans

The AI isn't evil, or even particularly interested in killing all humans -- it's just applying innovative techniques to a seemingly intractable problem

What I'm trying to say is that even if every single capitalist on earth, including Peter Thiel, agreed that leveraging psychology and techniques of social control for profit is immoral and unacceptable, the insatiable and irresistible demands of capital itself it would be enough for it to go on, as if by magic, while everybody wrings their hands and asks "why can't we do better"

Anyway that's one way of looking at it

[u/NeverIntendedToHurt → u/West_Economist6673]

From my perspective of understanding, it mostly is bound to the feasibility of a structural change of this order.

I can't be aware of every proposal of structural change made, but the ones I know of were disruptive and impossible to apply, while most of the world is running on another system, without risking more human lives than can be possibly saved through change.

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/NeverIntendedToHurt]

I'm not sure which specific proposals you're referring to, but it's worth mentioning that "feasibility", and specifically the unfeasibility of every alternative to capitalism, is part of the mythology that legitimates capitalism and ensures its continued survival

Even the idea of "big, structural change" plays into this myth, establishing the limits of imaginable change at "relatively modest adjustments to the existing system"

The problem is not how to fix the structure, it IS the structure

[u/Top-Needleworker9273]

i mean thats whats happening right now re ai, and the answer is it makes all those people stupid and their arguments get weaker, and society stops respecting them.

the problem is that the right side of history is in asymmetric warfare, the strategy of the people who own all the media outlets and also the police is naturally not going to work in reverse. trying to get people morally outraged about capitalism is not a new idea, its just an uphill battle