A captivating book that reveals how corporations have come to dominate all aspects of life—including our inner lives—and what to do about it

Something has gone terribly wrong. Unquestionably, but seemingly inexplicably, we now live in a world where the market has infiltrated every area of our lives.

In Life Incorporated, brilliant and charismatic cultural theorist Douglas Rushkoff argues that we no longer know who we are, or what we want. Everything, especially authenticity, is branded. Real community and real intimacy have broken down, replaced by market-tested cures for everything from weight, to conception, to poverty, to food, to finding a mate. The market, and its operating system, Corporatism, is no longer something people build and control. Rather, it builds and controls us.

Rushkoff, in tracing the roots of corporatism from the Renaissance to today, reveals the way it supplanted social interaction and local commerce and came to be regarded as a preexisting condition of our world, from the history of public relations to the relentless gentrification of America’s urban neighborhoods. And he shows us how to fight back: how to de-corporatize ourselves, disengage from branded expectations, think locally, and return to the real world of human activity. As Rushkoff puts it, “Micro-decisions are what matter.”


From the Hardcover edition.

Introduction


Your Money or Your Life
A Lesson on the Front Stoop

I got mugged on Christmas Eve.

 I was in front of my Brooklyn apartment house taking out the trash when a man pulled a gun and told me to empty my pockets. I gave him my money, wallet, and cell phone. But then--remembering something I'd seen in a movie about a hostage negotiator--I begged him to let me keep my medical-insurance card. If I could humanize myself in his perception, I figured, he'd be less likely to kill me. He accepted my argument about how hard it would be for me to get "care" without it, and handed me back the card. Now it was us two against the establishment, and we made something of a deal: in exchange for his mercy, I wasn't to report him--even though I had plainly seen his face. I agreed, and he ran off down the street. I foolishly but steadfastly stood by my side of the bargain, however coerced it may have been, for a few hours. As if I could have actually entered into a binding contract at gunpoint.

 In the meantime, I posted a note about my strange and frightening experience to the Park Slope Parents list--a rather crunchy Internet community of moms, food co-op members, and other leftie types dedicated to the health and well-being of their families and their decid- edly progressive, gentrifying neighborhood. It seemed the responsible thing to do, and I suppose I also expected some expression of sympathy and support. 

Amazingly, the very first two emails I received were from people angry that I had posted the name of the street on which the crime had occurred. Didn't I realize that this publicity could adversely affect all of our property values? The "sellers' market" was already difficult enough! With a famous actor reportedly leaving the area for Manhattan, does Brooklyn's real-estate market need more bad press? And this was before the real-estate crash. 

I was stunned. Had it really come to this? Did people care more about the market value of their neighborhood than what was actually taking place within it? Besides, it didn't even make good business sense to bury the issue. In the long run, an open and honest conversation about crime and how to prevent it should make the neighborhood safer. Property values would go up in the end, not down. So these homeowners were more concerned about the immediate liquidity of their town houses than their long-term asset value--not to mention the actual experience of living in them. And these were among the wealthiest people in New York, who shouldn't have to be worrying about such things. What had happened to make them behave this way? It stopped me cold, and forced me to reassess my own long-held desire to elevate myself from renter to owner. I stopped to think-- which, in the midst of an irrational real-estate craze, may not have been the safest thing to do. Why, I wondered aloud on my blog, was I struggling to make $4,500-per-month rent on a two-bedroom, fourth- floor walk-up in this supposedly "hip" section of Brooklyn, when I could just as easily get mugged somewhere else for a lot less per month? Was my willingness to participate in this runaway market part of the problem?  

The detectives who took my report drove the point home. One of them drew a circle on a map of Brooklyn. "Inside this circle is where the rich white people from Manhattan are moving. That's the target area. Hunting ground. Think about it from your...

 

"Read this book if you want to understand how the current economic meltdown started 400 years ago, how so much of what you consider to be a natural evolution of daily life was carefully designed to profit a few, and how corporatism has so colonized every part of life that most of us don't even recognize how our lives and fortunes are channeled and manipulated by it. I love that Rushkoff isn't afraid to think big--very big."

 

"Ever get the feeling that you're trapped on a hamster wheel of predatory "Corporatism"? An unwitting participant in a system that you didn't sign up for in the first place? What happens when the operating system of this corporate Moloch runs amok? Life Inc is a hopeful, timely call to arms to wrest control of our lives, our sanity and our children's futures back from the corporate agenda. Douglas Rushkoff's best book yet."

 

"Hand wringing over the state of the global economy? Think again. Douglas Rushkoff explains why this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to remember what matters, and to rethink our economic system so it reinforces our human values. A profound and important call to action."

 

"This is a provocative and controversial look at the dark side of corporatist effects on our economy. Douglas Rushkoff explores the various ways, some you may never have considered, that innovation and commerce can be stunted by corporations. Whether or not you agree, you will find this book challenges some of our basic assumptions about how our economy works."

 

"There are few more important subjects in the West today than the corporatization of public and personal space and few writers as well-suited to the subject as the always insightful and provocative Doug Rushkoff.  A terrific contribution to an urgent debate."

 

Life Inc. by Douglas Rushkoff
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