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Psychology and Capitalism: The Manipulation of Mind
Psychology and Capitalism is a critical and accessible account of the ideological and material role of psychology in supporting capitalist enterprise and holding individuals entirely responsible for their fate through the promotion of individualism.
125 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 30, 2015
I enjoyed this book and learned quite a bit about the history of psychology and its relationship with capitalist systems. Roberts was not repetitive, as I often find philosophical works to be, and the book was structured concisely and progressively. In general, I think: (1) he wants psychologists to stop individualizing people's problems (e.g., the person should learn coping skills, the person should process these memories, etc.); (2) he wants psychologists to make protest and resistance forms of healing (e.g., "you have depression because you work for a capitalist, greedy system that doesn't recognize your humanity or individuality, if we overthrow this system, your problem wouldn't exist"); (3) he wants us to study SUBJECTIVE experience, and believe psychology should have a theory linking the nature of being a thinking, experiencing human-being to our behaviors, attitudes, etc.; and (4) he wants psychologists to study people holistically within a social and historical context and not compartmentally, such as how someone's attitude predicts a behavior, which predicts a maladaptive thought, which causes depression. I can appreciate all of these points. However, I disagree that this is the realm of psychology. 1- this is political science and sociology. 2 - this is activism and public policy. 3 - this is philosophy and humanism. 4 - this is anthropology and social psychology, and many psychologists DO take contextualist approaches. My general critique is that he expects a lot of out psychologists, and that he uses too strong of language to make his rhetorical points. For example, "[schizophrenia] has no greater scientific status than the zombie plauge." What an exhaggeration. Sure schizophrenia doesn't have a unified theory of etiology and treatment, but symptoms DO appear in clusters, we CAN make symptoms go away with medication, and these symptoms cause SIGNIFICANT DISTRESS to the patients/clients. I think that makes it much more valid than the "zombie plague," an idea constructed entirely of creative fiction.
September 25, 2024
DNF @ 18%
This book isn't what I thought it was. And yes, I'm giving this book a star rating because it is dangerously abelist and sanist.
Partial Reading Notes
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. I have been a psych patient for longer than I can remember, but I did not know this history: It was thus in the 18th century and the beginning of the industrial revolution that psychology got its modern impetus[...] through the help of another new discipline, then pushing out its first shoots above the soil of the new social order. That discipline was statistics[,] ...a science of the state –hence its name. The young science of the state initially concerned itself with collecting demographic and economic data....Here begins the numerical disci- plining of people and the social spaces they inhabit into various boxes, categories and packages. p5
2. I love that we're addressing the bureaucracy and politics of psychology here. Ifs do not lead to shoulds. These are arrived at outside the scientific arena and then imported into it by a system of smoke and mirrors to claim scientific backing for what are essentially political or moral judgments. p6
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. This book should be titled "The History of Psychology from a Capitalist Lens." I find the title of this book to be a misnomer, perhaps even misleading. The text doesn't cover any of what I thought it would, as it is not at all about the psychology of capitalism.
2. This writer just suggested that mental illnesses are imaginary, which is both ironic, and completely ableist and sanist.
3. Roberts writes about psychology like it's Big Psychology, and never recognizes that it's an important field of medicine. His position and work would be interesting if his hatred for mental illness and mental health care were not so evident in his approach.
I found a digital copy of PSYCHOLOGY AND CAPITALISM by Ron Roberts on Libby. All views are mine.
This book isn't what I thought it was. And yes, I'm giving this book a star rating because it is dangerously abelist and sanist.
Partial Reading Notes
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. I have been a psych patient for longer than I can remember, but I did not know this history: It was thus in the 18th century and the beginning of the industrial revolution that psychology got its modern impetus[...] through the help of another new discipline, then pushing out its first shoots above the soil of the new social order. That discipline was statistics[,] ...a science of the state –hence its name. The young science of the state initially concerned itself with collecting demographic and economic data....Here begins the numerical disci- plining of people and the social spaces they inhabit into various boxes, categories and packages. p5
2. I love that we're addressing the bureaucracy and politics of psychology here. Ifs do not lead to shoulds. These are arrived at outside the scientific arena and then imported into it by a system of smoke and mirrors to claim scientific backing for what are essentially political or moral judgments. p6
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. This book should be titled "The History of Psychology from a Capitalist Lens." I find the title of this book to be a misnomer, perhaps even misleading. The text doesn't cover any of what I thought it would, as it is not at all about the psychology of capitalism.
2. This writer just suggested that mental illnesses are imaginary, which is both ironic, and completely ableist and sanist.
3. Roberts writes about psychology like it's Big Psychology, and never recognizes that it's an important field of medicine. His position and work would be interesting if his hatred for mental illness and mental health care were not so evident in his approach.
I found a digital copy of PSYCHOLOGY AND CAPITALISM by Ron Roberts on Libby. All views are mine.
April 1, 2015
Extremely necessary reading, I've never seen psychology by the prism showed in this book. It was quite hard for me to embrace and accept those ideas brought by Ron Roberts in this book, first because we're so immerse in this culture of "psycholization" of everything especially our own desires and of course what the capitalist society think our needs are in life. This book talks also about the hype in institutionalization of poor people in the seventh century to our times, people who acted and didn't fit in the capitalization orders of the daily life, "subversive" people or people who couldn't really afford the goods; and what psychology thinks it's normal and what it is not.
October 21, 2015
A sort of Marxist Bad Pharma for psychology, though less well-evidenced, and with a tone that made me worry every chapter was going to end with the phrase 'Wake up, sheeple!' But these issues might be down to the book being too short - I'd like to read a fuller, more thorough version.
August 4, 2022
Oh my God. This is such a must-book to read for those studying psychology and for everyone to understand how psychology's history has been dictated to run under political power. The history of psychology itself is really susceptible as it emerged as a philosophy and not a science. The book speaks about the agenda of pharmaceutical drugs making a deal with psycharity boards in diagnosing mental illnesses to actually gain profit. When in reality, most some mental illnesses lacks any scientific evidence. The book addresses the fact that instead of addressing war and capitalism which affect humans to respond abnormally to these events, psychology addresses any abnormal behaviour as a malady that need to be treated, making the human being believe that he is "ill" and need "medicine".
Please read this book for your own sake and well-being!
Please read this book for your own sake and well-being!
December 31, 2024
The Temptation to be Ethical
In this review, I will apply the principles presented by Ron Roberts to reframe the recent 2019 college admission bribery scandal though I believe the general principles outlined are well, generally applicable. So, with the reader's indulgence and generosity, I shall proceed.
By way of background, If I may, taken from Wikipedia: “A number of parents of college applicants are accused of paying more than $25 million between 2011 and 2018 to William Rick Singer, a college admissions counselor and organizer of the scheme, who used part of the money to fraudulently inflate student test scores and to bribe college officials.” - disclosed on March 12, 2019, by United States federal prosecutors.
The immediate temptation is to blame the 2019 college admission bribery scandal on supposedly pathological individuals. Bad behavior by bad people trying to cheat or abuse the system seems to be the level of superficial analysis that we can never to get past. The standard analysis was provided by CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman: "What this shows is that people who feel that they have rank and privilege and money think that they can do anything, and that's what makes people so upset about this case,". This is shallow moralizing. How dare we try to imagine the live's of other people when our own seems scarcely conceivable? We never stop to look at the nature of the system itself. We are quick to be callous when we see others plunged into an impenetrable and unjustifiable system. We do not allow for people who get caught in a mess of desires and convictions superimposed on perceived reality like morbid structure. The absurdity leaps to my eyes, the basic logic of the system is never questioned. A self-reflexive closed system which has no outside itself so to speak. A system that is a constitutive act of self-relating; a system that fully emerges once it takes over the perpetuation of itself, to posit its own presuppositions in a closed loop. It is much easier to settle blame upon rogue people than a defective system. Maybe, it is not the people who are bad, maybe it is the system that is bad. Perhaps we have a case of rational actors caught up within a vast irrational system. In such cases, even rational actions lead to irrational outcomes. The rebranding of social, political, economic, historical and cultural ills as personal failings is the current modus operandi. The consequences of the current social, political and economic system and its historical legacy become interiorized and become the responsibility of the individual. This is an example of the false personalization of social ills (a symptom of mass ideological possession) as well as system defects and is an ethical regression that relieves the system of any culpability. Relieving the system of any culpability and transferring to the individual only produces an ethical inversion. These ethical inversion are caused by the social contraindications created by the neo-liberal economic paradigm that compels individuals to brand themselves as products for sale in the market place. We are so filled with self-assurance and contentment with the system they we instill a sinister confidence in the system that becomes the core of un-freedom in all things owing to its internal contradictions. The system status-quo becomes falsely refied as the Wheel of Ixion upon which human beings are placed. Individual actors sink into insignificance in the spectacle of what is taken to be reality.
However, the system itself defines the very conceptual categories we employ to understand the subjective behavior of individuals. That is, we cannot see outside the system while being trapped within the system paradigm. The system is the broader context within which individuals operate. The social operation of power and interest is far more dispositive when it comes to understanding and explaining human conduct than anything that may reside within individual or personal psychology. The system will often be invoked (either implicitly or openly) but only up to the point when there is a violation of the system. At this point, when there is the possibility of an individual being punished for violation of the system, the focus is redirected to the individual and away from the system. We think that it is only individuals that can be held ethically accountable. We overlook the possibility that the system itself could be unethical in some systematic way. We congratulate ourselves on our ability to control, regulate, modify and even punish behavior and recognize the downright criminal nature at the individual level, never considering this same possibility at the impersonal system level. It is easier to imagine the end of the world then reform of the 'system'.
The system itself creates the incentives to violate the system but after the violation, the only cause considered is that of human frailty; the system continues to operate unexamined. The injustice, caprice and randomness of the system are not incidental to the system, they are integral to the functionality of the system. Corruption of the system is part of the system, but the corruption is then blamed upon the individuals caught in its web. That is, we psychologize every human behavior designated as anomalous or diagnose it as abnormal, but this can only be done within the social-economic standards of the system that generated the behavior as well as the over psychologizing imperative in the first place. Political, social cultural and economic ills are converted into personal medical issues or character flaws. Again, system defects are drive down and into the individual and then characterized as personal flaws. We are so pleased with ourselves when apprehending and punishing the wrong doers that we never stop to consider that human agency has been diminished and replaced by the totality of system and institutional agency. Systems of power and money have imposed constraints on human choice, action and agency. Systems are dominated by an instrumental rationality that escapes human control. Max Horkheimer warned of this result in his ‘Critique of Instrumental Reason’. Human life has been colonized by the system. We have become one-dimensional beings as Herbert Marcuse wrote about in his ‘One-Dimensional Man'. We have become mere functionaries of our systems. Autonomy and self-mastery now seem like long dead but grand Enlightenment dreams. Psychology itself is used instrumentally to create ever more pervasive networks of administrative discipline and institution control. In the case of the college admissions scandal, we never consider the hyper-pressure for success that our insanely competitive culture (the system) places upon people. The imperative is to succeed every step of the way or perish in humiliation. The pressure comes from the social premium assigned to commercial success and to be of value in the omnipotent market place accepted by the omnipresent social construct. Any misstep, such as not being admitted to the ‘right’ school, for example, is amplified out of all proportion and alters one’s life trajectory in a way that cannot be later corrected within the confines of the system. This breeds considerable confusion as to how we are expected to live within the system. This type of systemic system level schizophrenic insanity is what is unethical. It compels otherwise not-bad, but perhaps vain and superficial, people to act in ways contrary to the system to meet the demanding imperatives and the incessant demand for success made by the same system. In short, the system creates the victims and then blames the victims. Not considered is that the subjective experiential behavioral propensities of human action are subject major influences from outside of the individual. They are instead analyzed as properties of the individual. The causal social relations are thus concealed, not revealed.
Rejoinder:
Am I just rehearsing the shopworn argument of “society made me do it”? Am I just relieving otherwise guilty rouges of responsibility for the facticity of their actions by giving them this easy excuse as a way out; to deflect blame for their own rational choices; to deny their own agency and transfer it to the system. One could say in rejoinder that I am just endorsing a narcissism of the elite that is not tolerated for most us; that I am justifying the cult of the movie star and the phony spell of personality that has become a new form commodity fetishism. In the name of their children, these people have permitted themselves the most atrocious form of egotism and self-regard where everything can be justified when it is done for the good of one’s child. This is nothing more than a personal vicarious project of transcendence for the guilty parents. However, let’s consider the alleged perpetrators, “A number of parents of college applicants…” is the stuff on wanton criminals? Are these people the creators of their circumstance or the victims of their circumstance, perhaps they are forced by the system to create the circumstance to which they cannot help but fall victim? This is the sign of a society that has become pathological.
I will thus stand by my original analysis and further assert that a society that pushes system faults onto the back of individuals is pathological. The concept of the individual is a historically constructed category suitable to a capitalist economic order where it is imperative to atomize society so as to easily push-down all responsibility for societal faults to the individual. Further examples of societal pathology include blaming the homeless for being homeless, blaming the poor for being poor etc; all this without realizing that the much vaunted 'equality of opportunity' is predicated on prior unequal system determined outcomes. The poor still huddle in the wholes and disposed still sleep in the cracks of our post humanist edifice.
In this review, I will apply the principles presented by Ron Roberts to reframe the recent 2019 college admission bribery scandal though I believe the general principles outlined are well, generally applicable. So, with the reader's indulgence and generosity, I shall proceed.
By way of background, If I may, taken from Wikipedia: “A number of parents of college applicants are accused of paying more than $25 million between 2011 and 2018 to William Rick Singer, a college admissions counselor and organizer of the scheme, who used part of the money to fraudulently inflate student test scores and to bribe college officials.” - disclosed on March 12, 2019, by United States federal prosecutors.
The immediate temptation is to blame the 2019 college admission bribery scandal on supposedly pathological individuals. Bad behavior by bad people trying to cheat or abuse the system seems to be the level of superficial analysis that we can never to get past. The standard analysis was provided by CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman: "What this shows is that people who feel that they have rank and privilege and money think that they can do anything, and that's what makes people so upset about this case,". This is shallow moralizing. How dare we try to imagine the live's of other people when our own seems scarcely conceivable? We never stop to look at the nature of the system itself. We are quick to be callous when we see others plunged into an impenetrable and unjustifiable system. We do not allow for people who get caught in a mess of desires and convictions superimposed on perceived reality like morbid structure. The absurdity leaps to my eyes, the basic logic of the system is never questioned. A self-reflexive closed system which has no outside itself so to speak. A system that is a constitutive act of self-relating; a system that fully emerges once it takes over the perpetuation of itself, to posit its own presuppositions in a closed loop. It is much easier to settle blame upon rogue people than a defective system. Maybe, it is not the people who are bad, maybe it is the system that is bad. Perhaps we have a case of rational actors caught up within a vast irrational system. In such cases, even rational actions lead to irrational outcomes. The rebranding of social, political, economic, historical and cultural ills as personal failings is the current modus operandi. The consequences of the current social, political and economic system and its historical legacy become interiorized and become the responsibility of the individual. This is an example of the false personalization of social ills (a symptom of mass ideological possession) as well as system defects and is an ethical regression that relieves the system of any culpability. Relieving the system of any culpability and transferring to the individual only produces an ethical inversion. These ethical inversion are caused by the social contraindications created by the neo-liberal economic paradigm that compels individuals to brand themselves as products for sale in the market place. We are so filled with self-assurance and contentment with the system they we instill a sinister confidence in the system that becomes the core of un-freedom in all things owing to its internal contradictions. The system status-quo becomes falsely refied as the Wheel of Ixion upon which human beings are placed. Individual actors sink into insignificance in the spectacle of what is taken to be reality.
However, the system itself defines the very conceptual categories we employ to understand the subjective behavior of individuals. That is, we cannot see outside the system while being trapped within the system paradigm. The system is the broader context within which individuals operate. The social operation of power and interest is far more dispositive when it comes to understanding and explaining human conduct than anything that may reside within individual or personal psychology. The system will often be invoked (either implicitly or openly) but only up to the point when there is a violation of the system. At this point, when there is the possibility of an individual being punished for violation of the system, the focus is redirected to the individual and away from the system. We think that it is only individuals that can be held ethically accountable. We overlook the possibility that the system itself could be unethical in some systematic way. We congratulate ourselves on our ability to control, regulate, modify and even punish behavior and recognize the downright criminal nature at the individual level, never considering this same possibility at the impersonal system level. It is easier to imagine the end of the world then reform of the 'system'.
The system itself creates the incentives to violate the system but after the violation, the only cause considered is that of human frailty; the system continues to operate unexamined. The injustice, caprice and randomness of the system are not incidental to the system, they are integral to the functionality of the system. Corruption of the system is part of the system, but the corruption is then blamed upon the individuals caught in its web. That is, we psychologize every human behavior designated as anomalous or diagnose it as abnormal, but this can only be done within the social-economic standards of the system that generated the behavior as well as the over psychologizing imperative in the first place. Political, social cultural and economic ills are converted into personal medical issues or character flaws. Again, system defects are drive down and into the individual and then characterized as personal flaws. We are so pleased with ourselves when apprehending and punishing the wrong doers that we never stop to consider that human agency has been diminished and replaced by the totality of system and institutional agency. Systems of power and money have imposed constraints on human choice, action and agency. Systems are dominated by an instrumental rationality that escapes human control. Max Horkheimer warned of this result in his ‘Critique of Instrumental Reason’. Human life has been colonized by the system. We have become one-dimensional beings as Herbert Marcuse wrote about in his ‘One-Dimensional Man'. We have become mere functionaries of our systems. Autonomy and self-mastery now seem like long dead but grand Enlightenment dreams. Psychology itself is used instrumentally to create ever more pervasive networks of administrative discipline and institution control. In the case of the college admissions scandal, we never consider the hyper-pressure for success that our insanely competitive culture (the system) places upon people. The imperative is to succeed every step of the way or perish in humiliation. The pressure comes from the social premium assigned to commercial success and to be of value in the omnipotent market place accepted by the omnipresent social construct. Any misstep, such as not being admitted to the ‘right’ school, for example, is amplified out of all proportion and alters one’s life trajectory in a way that cannot be later corrected within the confines of the system. This breeds considerable confusion as to how we are expected to live within the system. This type of systemic system level schizophrenic insanity is what is unethical. It compels otherwise not-bad, but perhaps vain and superficial, people to act in ways contrary to the system to meet the demanding imperatives and the incessant demand for success made by the same system. In short, the system creates the victims and then blames the victims. Not considered is that the subjective experiential behavioral propensities of human action are subject major influences from outside of the individual. They are instead analyzed as properties of the individual. The causal social relations are thus concealed, not revealed.
Rejoinder:
Am I just rehearsing the shopworn argument of “society made me do it”? Am I just relieving otherwise guilty rouges of responsibility for the facticity of their actions by giving them this easy excuse as a way out; to deflect blame for their own rational choices; to deny their own agency and transfer it to the system. One could say in rejoinder that I am just endorsing a narcissism of the elite that is not tolerated for most us; that I am justifying the cult of the movie star and the phony spell of personality that has become a new form commodity fetishism. In the name of their children, these people have permitted themselves the most atrocious form of egotism and self-regard where everything can be justified when it is done for the good of one’s child. This is nothing more than a personal vicarious project of transcendence for the guilty parents. However, let’s consider the alleged perpetrators, “A number of parents of college applicants…” is the stuff on wanton criminals? Are these people the creators of their circumstance or the victims of their circumstance, perhaps they are forced by the system to create the circumstance to which they cannot help but fall victim? This is the sign of a society that has become pathological.
I will thus stand by my original analysis and further assert that a society that pushes system faults onto the back of individuals is pathological. The concept of the individual is a historically constructed category suitable to a capitalist economic order where it is imperative to atomize society so as to easily push-down all responsibility for societal faults to the individual. Further examples of societal pathology include blaming the homeless for being homeless, blaming the poor for being poor etc; all this without realizing that the much vaunted 'equality of opportunity' is predicated on prior unequal system determined outcomes. The poor still huddle in the wholes and disposed still sleep in the cracks of our post humanist edifice.
November 25, 2025
Excellent read- definitely worth the wait. Roberts doesn't pull punches- his critique of the Capitalist influence on psychology is justifiably harsh and well-backed by evidence and research. The information is presented clearly, without pomp and circumstance and the flow of the book is logical and relevant to the material. I also ready this alongside a study of Communist Theory- which meshed well and gave more dimension to the study of the subject at large.
As a social worker (who picked that path instead of psychology for some of the very reasons stated in the book- mainly the alienisation of people and the decontextualisation of human behaviour, as well as the medical model- which social work aims to work against in a holistic and multi-dimensional approach), it was an educational experience to dive into the connections between all of these issues and capitalism. What truly resonated with me was the highlighting of the ethical implications of "careless" and "irresponsible" pursuit of knowledge- in that psychology as a profession, in its haste to discover- had handed dangerous information into the wrong hands and supported the development of antiethical and criminal practices. This brings to mind the Islamic principle of the duty of seeking beneficial knowledge- and that not all knowledge is beneficial or needed- especially if antiethical or underhanded behaviour is required to gain it (as with many if not most of the founding psychological experiments that form the foundation of the discipline).
The impacts of the founding instances of psychology's contribution to capitalism are rippling through the world until today. This book was published the year I was born- though 25 years later things have only taken a turn for the worse- with the capitalist machine coming closer and closer to its inevitable implosion as exploitations reach insane new heights. Given the current political climate of the assaults of the Zionist regime and its collaborators on the Middle East and further, and continued American involvement in foreign affairs, and the UAE's crimes in Sudan (and Duabi is the perfect example of marketing psychology being the crutch on which aggressive capitalism stands), everything in this book stands true and proven by time.
The explosion of the internet as an extention of our social world- but fully controlled by endless algorithms and psychological deceptions- has shown the true extent and horror of PSYOPs and militarism in realtion to psychology- as well as lifting the curtain on the formation and dissemination of propoganda (not well enough to save everyone, though). While one would have hope that reading a book from 2001 would mean looking around today to find that things have improved- the nature of capitalism is that it will exploit until there is nothing left- so inevitably these issues have only gotten worse.
It was also exceptionally thought-provoking in considering how the same capitalist systems and political pressures impact the social work space- which has it's own [infamous] failures in connection to capitalism, colonialism and imperialism (especially in the Australian context). While Australian social work now makes a point of naming "decolonisation" and moving to reposition itself away from the systems that birthed it- this is not possible under the current capitalist regime- much in the same way psychology has fared as described by Roberts. To fully decolonise would be completely disrupt the status quo, and to throw over political, social and historic systems that are far too powerful in today's world. Instead- many settle for the self-satisfaction of making the claim, and then bemoaning the "futility" of the movement as they are complicit and benefiting from the systems they claim to disown.
Understanding these entrenched limitations is the first step to breaking the status quo and being able to truly utilise the knowledge bases of social science for the benfit of at least self, if not society as a whole.
As a social worker (who picked that path instead of psychology for some of the very reasons stated in the book- mainly the alienisation of people and the decontextualisation of human behaviour, as well as the medical model- which social work aims to work against in a holistic and multi-dimensional approach), it was an educational experience to dive into the connections between all of these issues and capitalism. What truly resonated with me was the highlighting of the ethical implications of "careless" and "irresponsible" pursuit of knowledge- in that psychology as a profession, in its haste to discover- had handed dangerous information into the wrong hands and supported the development of antiethical and criminal practices. This brings to mind the Islamic principle of the duty of seeking beneficial knowledge- and that not all knowledge is beneficial or needed- especially if antiethical or underhanded behaviour is required to gain it (as with many if not most of the founding psychological experiments that form the foundation of the discipline).
The impacts of the founding instances of psychology's contribution to capitalism are rippling through the world until today. This book was published the year I was born- though 25 years later things have only taken a turn for the worse- with the capitalist machine coming closer and closer to its inevitable implosion as exploitations reach insane new heights. Given the current political climate of the assaults of the Zionist regime and its collaborators on the Middle East and further, and continued American involvement in foreign affairs, and the UAE's crimes in Sudan (and Duabi is the perfect example of marketing psychology being the crutch on which aggressive capitalism stands), everything in this book stands true and proven by time.
The explosion of the internet as an extention of our social world- but fully controlled by endless algorithms and psychological deceptions- has shown the true extent and horror of PSYOPs and militarism in realtion to psychology- as well as lifting the curtain on the formation and dissemination of propoganda (not well enough to save everyone, though). While one would have hope that reading a book from 2001 would mean looking around today to find that things have improved- the nature of capitalism is that it will exploit until there is nothing left- so inevitably these issues have only gotten worse.
It was also exceptionally thought-provoking in considering how the same capitalist systems and political pressures impact the social work space- which has it's own [infamous] failures in connection to capitalism, colonialism and imperialism (especially in the Australian context). While Australian social work now makes a point of naming "decolonisation" and moving to reposition itself away from the systems that birthed it- this is not possible under the current capitalist regime- much in the same way psychology has fared as described by Roberts. To fully decolonise would be completely disrupt the status quo, and to throw over political, social and historic systems that are far too powerful in today's world. Instead- many settle for the self-satisfaction of making the claim, and then bemoaning the "futility" of the movement as they are complicit and benefiting from the systems they claim to disown.
Understanding these entrenched limitations is the first step to breaking the status quo and being able to truly utilise the knowledge bases of social science for the benfit of at least self, if not society as a whole.
December 3, 2018
"Capitalism" is a word that's been around for a while that is experiencing a resurgence. Here Ron Roberts, a psychologist himself, presents a critique of his profession, the ideas it presents and its links with big business, corporations and government instrumentalities.
The connections between psychology as a profession and big business, particularly from the 1920s, is not really news, especially if you look at psychological testing. And there's also the armed forces of the USA in particular, so Roberts has plenty of material to choose from.
He writes in the style of a polemic, privileging the ideas of Marx, Fromm and Szasz in particular. By this I mean that he accepts these ideas without examination or critique, as opposed to ideas he doesn't like and conduct he finds abhorrent. This is a pity, particularly as the examples he provides of unethical behaviour are confronting, even if you already knew about them.
Behind all this is an idea of the natural human being as being collaborative and loving (whatever that means). False consciousness is a reason for the current state of affairs and it has an implication that at sometime in the future people will wake up to themselves. This is a bit difficult to justify (although many schools of thought have variants of this) if the people are easily manipulated or manipulated by particular experts and people in power.
Notions of personality in general are dismissed or unexamined, presumably because of a notion of a collective of sorts. This might have to do with a particular view of equality or inequality. It also implies that people are pretty mindless.
I liked parts of his argument, where he presented information about, for example, psychologists' involvement in state-sanctioned torture, and also his view of the Nudge, which I haven't investigated properly myself but find dubious as a method, or even ethically, from what little I know. There's a fine line between what's ethical and what's not: it changes over time and within and between groups and individuals.
I would have liked a better argument with more nuance anyway.
The connections between psychology as a profession and big business, particularly from the 1920s, is not really news, especially if you look at psychological testing. And there's also the armed forces of the USA in particular, so Roberts has plenty of material to choose from.
He writes in the style of a polemic, privileging the ideas of Marx, Fromm and Szasz in particular. By this I mean that he accepts these ideas without examination or critique, as opposed to ideas he doesn't like and conduct he finds abhorrent. This is a pity, particularly as the examples he provides of unethical behaviour are confronting, even if you already knew about them.
Behind all this is an idea of the natural human being as being collaborative and loving (whatever that means). False consciousness is a reason for the current state of affairs and it has an implication that at sometime in the future people will wake up to themselves. This is a bit difficult to justify (although many schools of thought have variants of this) if the people are easily manipulated or manipulated by particular experts and people in power.
Notions of personality in general are dismissed or unexamined, presumably because of a notion of a collective of sorts. This might have to do with a particular view of equality or inequality. It also implies that people are pretty mindless.
I liked parts of his argument, where he presented information about, for example, psychologists' involvement in state-sanctioned torture, and also his view of the Nudge, which I haven't investigated properly myself but find dubious as a method, or even ethically, from what little I know. There's a fine line between what's ethical and what's not: it changes over time and within and between groups and individuals.
I would have liked a better argument with more nuance anyway.
January 8, 2021
Comprehensive and stringent work about the mutual relationship between psychology and capitalism.
I was already familiar with most of the topics but Roberts found a good way to structure the many issues covered in this topic.
Personally, some of the more political and cultural commentaries between the lines or added to some phrases were a bit too much. Sometimes they left too much of an aftertaste of determinism and sullenness or frustration (which is understandable from a political POV). Also, I missed a non-eurocentric perspective or some outlook about possible non-eurocentric ways of doing psychology - but that's maybe too much to ask for.
However, this book is a must-read for people willing to engage with the dark side of the psy-complex, whether they have read some of the other thinkers mentioned in the book or not.
4,5/5.
I was already familiar with most of the topics but Roberts found a good way to structure the many issues covered in this topic.
Personally, some of the more political and cultural commentaries between the lines or added to some phrases were a bit too much. Sometimes they left too much of an aftertaste of determinism and sullenness or frustration (which is understandable from a political POV). Also, I missed a non-eurocentric perspective or some outlook about possible non-eurocentric ways of doing psychology - but that's maybe too much to ask for.
However, this book is a must-read for people willing to engage with the dark side of the psy-complex, whether they have read some of the other thinkers mentioned in the book or not.
4,5/5.
January 17, 2021
I enjoyed this read! It takes some background knowledge of psychology and Marxism to really understand these ideas but it is a good introduction. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on capitalism and mental health. Would have loved if the book had more in-depth explanations. Also the author is pretty heavy handed with the positions he takes but good information and feel free to draw your own conclusions.
October 11, 2024
This book was a rollercoaster. I think it had many incredibly good points but I felt a lot of the conclusions drawn from them were very generalising, simplified, and often not true (which could have been exaggeration of course, but left me with a bad taste). Still, good food for thought.
January 18, 2021
Nothing groundbreaking. Good summary of existing theory and pays tribute to Mark Fisher and Erich Fromm which is always nice. Overall a good read.
March 25, 2022
Very enjoyable polemic. Don't really feel dated at all despite the book being over 20 years old.
April 15, 2023
A wonderful summary of fundamental problems with modern psychology that are largely ignored within the field (of they are recognized at all). Thoroughly recommended.
May 7, 2023
crucial read for all good psych dropouts and sociology graduates
January 25, 2024
Eye-opening reading for all psychologists. Made me question my career choice.
September 13, 2016
This is a terrifying book if it's true, and I'm afraid that it is. Psychology in the U.S. (and the U.K) is in thrall to corporations. Corporations construct artificial persons who should be "engaged," and if they're not, it's their fault. The psychology establishment today is in thrall to capitalism, and no one questions, or is even allowed to raise questions, about the lack of morality and humanity in the system of Western capitalism that we live in. There is no desire for a better life, no desire of making the planet work for everyone; there is only the quarter-by-quarter mentality of quick success, and damn the long-term consequences. Use up the earth until it is no longer habitable, and kick the money up to the 1 percent, who will die last, but die nonetheless. Turn humans into cyborgs as much as can be done. Emotion is no longer a valid category for feeling or description. Use the surveillance state to collect data on everyone, and just as the Hollerith cards wiped out the Jews in the Third Reich.
They already know who you are, where you live, and what you like or participate in. It just depends on when capitalistic corporations decide you are "redundant" to how they want society to be, and you will be gone. Human consciousness is being replaced by the mechanized gadgets that are rapidly taking over psychology. Everything is recorded. We're just waiting for the boom to fall while people are playing games on their hand-held devices. We face a very depressing future in which humanity is programed out of business based on the fallacies that public relations agents have used to prove that everything is genetic and environment doesn't matter and all psychology is based on a perversion of neuro-speak.
I'm not a paranoid person, but I think dropping out of society may be the only answer: Timothy Leary without the drugs. It's already a juggernaut. Donald Trump is only the forward edge of the coming barbarism of hatred and radical selfishness.
This is not precisely what the book says, but it is my summary of what will happen. Read this book to have the scales fall from your eyes, or don't read it at the cost of ignorance of the future. This is the best book I've read in 10 years. And now I look at the world through doomed but wiser eyes. Capitalism cares not a whit about humanity; everything is monetized, people are ultimately unnecessary, and Western civilization is being led to its destruction while it entertains itself with social media and celebrity. It's a very scary book to read, and I fear it is predictive of the future.
They already know who you are, where you live, and what you like or participate in. It just depends on when capitalistic corporations decide you are "redundant" to how they want society to be, and you will be gone. Human consciousness is being replaced by the mechanized gadgets that are rapidly taking over psychology. Everything is recorded. We're just waiting for the boom to fall while people are playing games on their hand-held devices. We face a very depressing future in which humanity is programed out of business based on the fallacies that public relations agents have used to prove that everything is genetic and environment doesn't matter and all psychology is based on a perversion of neuro-speak.
I'm not a paranoid person, but I think dropping out of society may be the only answer: Timothy Leary without the drugs. It's already a juggernaut. Donald Trump is only the forward edge of the coming barbarism of hatred and radical selfishness.
This is not precisely what the book says, but it is my summary of what will happen. Read this book to have the scales fall from your eyes, or don't read it at the cost of ignorance of the future. This is the best book I've read in 10 years. And now I look at the world through doomed but wiser eyes. Capitalism cares not a whit about humanity; everything is monetized, people are ultimately unnecessary, and Western civilization is being led to its destruction while it entertains itself with social media and celebrity. It's a very scary book to read, and I fear it is predictive of the future.
December 17, 2020
I really enjoyed this book. It shows a really interesting outlook on how capitalism takes over all parts of our minds and manipulates everything we do.
May 13, 2017
Did not agree with the conclusions and in hindsight it lacks many proper references and uses overly cynical rhetoric (maybe academia as a field has always been a zone of rhetoric). Otherwise, it is probably the most important book right now for anyone who takes psychology seriously and passionately, and identifies as a humanist at the same time. Once again, I see that the premise that 'psychology has to die for good for the greater good' has not been founded on coherent reason, but it serves as one of the most important reminders for anyone involved in psychological research and practice that psychology can be one of the most dangerous invisible double edged sword in human history. The humanistic perspective of psychology has to rise and penetrate all other perspectives for psychology to ultimately be a meaningful field that helps us flourish as human beings. More of hard work to study the human condition and functioning, and less of trying to be accepted as a natural science through focusing solely on brain scans and reductionism.
January 28, 2017
This book challenges the psychology most of us knew today and paints it alongside the socio-economic and political realm it is tied into. It gives an interesting and provoking insight regarding this thesis. The only problem is that it could achieve its aim more effectively if it is somewhat more elaborate -- the book is successfully written to some extent yet still lacking in a stronger line of argument. I just got a feeling that there is more to be discussed and is disappointed not to get a full immersion of it (although for the reader's part, the references in this book can probably give additional satisfaction, insight and answers). Anyway, as someone interested in psychology, this book does give a terrifying revelation about a field most people regard in high-esteem. Despite some of its insufficiency, it gives an introduction and a dose of the terrible and almost hidden reality that will perhaps be more concrete and realized on further research regarding this such crude awakening between psychology and capitalism.
December 9, 2018
This stimulating book asks some key questions about the relationship between Psychology and capitalism. Why are levels of mental health increasing? Could it be related to politics and economics, rather than just being shoehorned into health?
March 20, 2020
From ‘political arithmetic’ to a call for widespread rebellion to the psy-industries hegemony, Robert’s traces a purposely unpopularised history of the concurrent development of late capitalism and contemporary psychology.
*more detailed notes will be following shortly*
*more detailed notes will be following shortly*
September 28, 2016
It's a good starting point for introducing readers to some lines of argument within critiques of mainstream scientific psychology. However, some of Roberts asser
February 19, 2016
Some of it made sense. A lot of it was too angsty for my taste, and ventured into the realm of ranting and rambling rather than making any sense. An okay read, overall.
November 28, 2017
Reflecting on what modern psychology is all about (and its foundations). Yes, a must-read.
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