The shopper, the student, the worker, and the voter are all seen by consumerism and behaviorism the same way: passive, conditionable objects.
What a fascinating thing! Total control of a living organism! — psychologist B.F. Skinner
The corporatization of society requires a population that accepts
control by authorities, and so when psychologists and psychiatrists
began providing techniques that could control people, the corporatocracy
embraced mental health professionals.
In psychologist B.F. Skinner’s best-selling book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971),
he argued that freedom and dignity are illusions that hinder the
science of behavior modification, which he claimed could create a
better-organized and happier society.
During the height of Skinner’s fame in the 1970s, it was obvious to anti-authoritarians such as Noam Chomsky (“ The Case Against B.F. Skinner” )
and Lewis Mumord that Skinner’s worldview—a society ruled by benevolent
control freaks—was antithetical to democracy. In Skinner’s novel Walden
Two (1948), his behaviorist hero states, “We do not take history
seriously”; to which Lewis Mumford retorted, “And no wonder: if man knew
no history, the Skinners would govern the world, as Skinner himself has
modestly proposed in his behaviorist utopia.”