applying Marxism to the coursework topic of music

• ·        Market liberalists highlight the limitless choices and freedoms which capitalism brings.
• ·        Marxists believe that, in a capitalist society, consumption is expected and demanded.
• ·        John Fiske suggests that ‘signs of resistance’ are ‘quickly incorporated into the dominant system, thereby robbing them of any oppositional meaning.’
• ·        Marxists suggests that false needs are imposed upon us through such agents of socialisation as the media and peer groups.
• ·        Consumer goods become identity signifiers, cultural products which say things about who we are. Market liberalists see this choice as allowing people to choose how they present themselves and their identity to the world, whilst Marxists see this as a distraction from more important aspects of self.
• ·        Zygmut Bauman argues that ‘consumer society thrives as long as it manages to render the non-satisfaction of its members perpetual.’ Slawomir Mrozeki wrtites, ‘Let’s go on searching for our real selves. It’s smashing fun. On condition that the real self will never be found. Because if it were, the fun would end.’
• ·        Dominic Strinati believes that traditional sources of identity – class, family, community, religion and nationhood are in decline’. He sees consumerism as being ‘the only available source for construction of identity.’
• ·        Paul Moore suggests that ‘capitalism requires us to act in ways which we know are unethical’.