3/ Now if you're asked "what does media produce" you might answer something like content or information or messages or entertainment.

This is understandable. This is what it looks like they do. You're forgiven if you thought that's how it worked

This is the trad, orthodox, "idealist" POV.

This is held by everyone from #Galbraith to #Marx to #veblen to #mcluhan

So there's a lot of press on this idea.

Smythe's argument is that it misses the point.

@HeavenlyPossum

I am not an economist but as far as I know, Marx already distinguished "industrial capitalism" from "finance capitalism". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finance_capitalism

#Veblen seems to have developed this distrinction further.

Gottfried Feder, the original Nazi party's chief economist, also liked to distinguish between "schaffendes Kapital" and "raffendes Kapital", creating a basis for #Strasserism and #Hitlerism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism

I wonder how we can use this distinction now without falling into the abyss that is antisemitism.