The Illusion of Choice in Profit-Making
The narrative presented by Harriet Baskas in the article, “This small Missouri city could cash in on the eclipse. It’s trying hard not to,” ostensibly tells a story of communal spirit in Perryville, Missouri, triumphing over the urge to capitalize financially on a rare celestial event. Yet, beneath this heartwarming veneer lies a subtler endorsement of capitalist norms. The article sets the stage by illustrating how businesses “large and small” are poised to “cash in” on the eclipse, using Delta Air Lines and hotel price surges as examples. This depiction acts as an implicit affirmation that prioritizing profit is the natural and expected course of action in any business scenario.
The Exceptionalism of Community Ethics: Profit Maximization as Default
Contrasting sharply with the broader narrative of profit-seeking is the portrayal of Perryville and businesses like Luna’s Shaved Ice, which are celebrated for their refusal to exploit the event for financial gain. By framing this choice as exceptional and newsworthy, the article subtly reinforces the notion that such ethical considerations are deviations from the norm, thereby emphasizing the supposed rarity of prioritizing community over profit.
The detailed account of businesses choosing not to raise prices or exploit the event for maximum profit is framed as an admirable, yet quaint departure from standard business practices. This framing not only magnifies the presumed normalcy of profit maximization but also positions ethical business decisions as outliers. The implication is clear: the natural state of business is to exploit opportunities for profit, and any deviation from this path is notable for its rarity.
Undermining the Potential for Systemic Critique
This narrative technique does more than just celebrate Perryville’s communal ethos; it effectively sidelines any deeper interrogation of the systemic forces that compel businesses towards relentless profit maximization. By presenting the pursuit of profit as a default and the communal ethos of Perryville as an exception, the article neglects to explore why this dichotomy exists and how it might be challenged. The result is a reinforcement of capitalist norms that overlooks the potential for imagining alternative economic systems that balance profit with communal well-being.
Manufacturing Consent Through Media Narratives
Spotlight on Capital: The Media’s Role
The prominent positioning of “This small Missouri city could cash in on the eclipse. It’s trying hard not to” on the homepage of CBS News is not just a matter of editorial choice; it is a subtle yet powerful act of shaping societal norms and expectations around capitalism. Mainstream media outlets, by virtue of their reach and influence, play a pivotal role in what Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman describe as “manufacturing consent.” The stories these outlets choose to highlight, and how they frame them, effectively guide public attention and discourse, reinforcing existing power dynamics and economic relations.
The Commodification of Community Spirit
In this context, the story of Perryville becomes more than a local human interest piece; it transforms into a vehicle for reinforcing the acceptability and inevitability of the profit motive in every aspect of society, including communal and ostensibly non-commercial events like a solar eclipse. By celebrating Perryville’s decision not to “cash in” on the eclipse as exceptional, the article inadvertently commodifies community spirit itself, presenting it as a rare commodity in a market-driven world. This framing suggests that genuine community-mindedness is so unusual in our capitalist society that it becomes newsworthy, further entrenching the notion that the default state of human interactions is transactional.
Consent to Be Commodified
Moreover, the article’s presence on a major news platform serves as a granular example of how media narratives contribute to the broader process of manufacturing consent for the power relations of capital owners over the rest of society. By presenting the story in this way, CBS News subtly endorses the existing economic order, in which the pursuit of profit is considered natural and inevitable, while deviations from this norm are both celebrated and marginalized. This dual message not only reinforces the legitimacy of profit-seeking behaviors but also conditions the audience to accept their own commodification and the commodification of communal events as inevitable.
The Subtle Endorsement of Capitalist Norms
Implicit in this narrative is a tacit endorsement of capitalist norms that prioritize individual gain over collective well-being. The media’s choice to highlight such stories, and the manner in which they are told, plays a crucial role in shaping public perception and acceptance of these norms. By framing the community’s resistance to the profit motive as a quaint anomaly, the article not only commodifies this resistance but also reinforces the idea that such resistance is futile or, at best, a temporary deviation from the norm. This not only perpetuates the power dynamics favoring capital owners but also undermines the potential for envisioning alternative economic models that prioritize communal welfare and sustainability over profit.