Public Communication and Power: Talking Capitalism, Theory and Critique with John McMurtry

  • Jeffery Klaehn Writer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8322-9024
  • Daniel Broudy Professor of Rhetoric and Applied Linguistics at Okinawa Christian University, Japan
  • John McMurtry Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, University Professor and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada
Keywords: public communication, media, international political economy, power, social power, economic power, ideological power, public sphere, capitalism, slavery, corporate hegemony, democracy, everyday life, life value, economics, health, public knowledge, education, sociology of intellectuals, social theory, ideas, values, common good, civil commons, money, captial, social class, meaning, technology, intellectual culture, academia, social agency, global problems, social change, labour

Abstract

This interview with globally distinguished Canadian philosopher and author, John McMurtry, presents dialogue discussing capitalism, asymmetrical power relations, life capital, social theory, common life interest, life value, global problems, market theology, media, values of the market and free market ideology today in relation to public education, academia, intellectual fads and the broader intellectual culture in relation to enabling public understanding of meaning-making and power, totalising market culture, climate, dispossession, health, influence, energy, labour, income, slavery, corporate welfare, neo-liberalism, the global ecosystem, and inequalities of class and power.

Author Biographies

Jeffery Klaehn, Writer

Jeffery Klaehn holds a PhD in Communication from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Strathclyde. His fields of interest are many and include social theory, media, power, communication, comics, art, popular culture, and the creative industries. He has edited and co-edited seven books. His research has been published with the European Journal of Communication, International Communication Gazette, Sociology Compass, Journalism Studies, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, Media Theory, the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, and other journals. He resides in Canada.

Daniel Broudy, Professor of Rhetoric and Applied Linguistics at Okinawa Christian University, Japan

Daniel Broudy is Professor of Rhetoric and Applied Linguistics at Okinawa Christian University. His research includes analysis of prevailing signs and symbols in media and culture that serve to support contemporary political mythologies. He is Co-director of the Working Group on Propaganda and the 9/11 Global “War on Terror”; Associate Researcher in the Organisation for Propaganda Studies; and Associate Editor for Frontiers in Communication. His latest book is the co-authored Okinawa Under Occupation: McDonaldization and Resistance to Neoliberal Propaganda (Palgrave 2017).

John McMurtry, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, University Professor and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada

John McMurtry earned his PhD in Philosophy at University College London from which developed his definitive The Structure of Marx’s World-View (Princeton University Press, 1978). During this period, he began his wide spectrum of post-Marxian articles and books for which he was later elected to the Royal Society of Canada as a “pioneer of social philosophy in ground-breaking articles into unexamined normative infrastructures which oppress human and environmental life.” After continuing his life-grounding world travel begun before his PhD, he spent the next decade writing the trio of books beginning with Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System (1998), The Cancer Stage of Capitalism (1999, revised and expanded 2013) and Value Wars (2002). He was soon after invited by the UNESCO Secretariat to edit and write Philosophy and World Problems in three volumes now available on the web. Active as a public intellectual throughout, McMurty’s many articles on public affairs are available on the Internet under author and topic search. This Triple-C interview continues the deep-structural exploration of everyday life, knowledge and the cultural realm, the planetary  environment and the ruling money power with ultimate concern about how health, happiness and the common good can be understood and advanced from within our current global disorder.

Published
2020-10-13
Section
Reflections (Non Peer-Reviewed)