Conclusion and Prospects: Communication and Capitalism in the 21st Century

Abstract

The idea of competition and disputes is deeply ingrained in the ideological mindset projected by the Culture Industry, which stimulates the ostentatious display of symbols of wealth and differentiated individual consumption. Differentiation is the necessary assumption of homogeneity fabricated by mass culture, whereas individualism is the opposite of massification. In short, it is the relationship between these opposing concepts (differentiation/homogeneity, masses/individuals), under the primacy of technical progress and efficiency (instead of ideology) on which the Culture Industry is based. This industry is destined to serve as a general competitive space for wide-ranging monopolistic business sectors (differentiated consumer goods, commerce, banks, companies producing manufactured goods and running certain services, etc.).