What do philosophy and retail have in common? As this article from the Economist highlights, what a few French Marxists had to say about culture and authority might provide much insight into how modern capitalist markets behave. “Modern retailers are only just getting to grips with two of the consequences of the breakdown of authority and hierarchy that they hoped for half a century ago: the “fragmentation†of narratives and the individual’s ability to be “the artist of his own life.”
While I may not necessarily agree with the sentiment, my favorite quote from the article is this one by philosopher Jean-François Lyotard: “Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture; one listens to reggae, watches a Western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games.â€
