Overrated, homophobic (see: "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider", in which it is apparently acceptable for a straight white male to complain "you're just some faggy girl",) Of Montreal singer Kevin Barnes just wants everyone to know that he loves capitalism beacuse it punishes the "lazy" in a rant that not only displays a shocking misunderstanding of capitalism, anarchism, and global economics. A commenter over at Idolator points out that Barnes' rant is eerily reminiscent of the works of Ayn Rand, which is a pretty astute observation.
The thing is, I like capitalism. I think it's an interesting challenge. It's a system that rewards the imaginative and ambitious adults and punishes the lazy adults. Our generation is insanely lazy. We're just as smart as our parents but we are overwhelmed by contradicting ideas that confuse us into paralysis. Maybe the punk rock ethos made sense for the "no future" generation but it doesn't make sense for me. I like producing and purchasing things. I'd much rather go to IKEA than to stand in some bread line. That's because I don't have to stand in a bread line. Most people who throw around terms like "sellout" don't have to stand in one either. They don't have to stand in one because they are gainfully employed. The term "sellout" only exists in the lexicon of the over-privileged. Almost every non-homeless person in America is over-privileged, at least in a global sense.
The people in the third world toiling for ungodly hours to make that IKEA furniture Barnes loves so much? Lazy and unimaginative, clearly.
Anyway, get yr blood boiling here: http://www.stereogum.com/archives/commercial-appeal/of-montreal-art-brut...
And as a sidenote, are "uncritical capitalist booster" and "parody of anarchist" the only two choices we get now in this debate? Most of the commenters in the Stereogum thread seem to accept that ridiculous either-or formulation without question.
number of defenses of what can be reduced to an embracement of capitalism lately coming from strident (and supposed) anti-capitalists. As if the inevitability of it all means, fuck it, buy buy buy? But it's a position that essentially bores me. If you genuinely believe that the only and best defense against capitalism is you *deciding you've evolved beyond it in your mind,* ahhh, there's not a helluva lot I can do for you.
And in Barne's case, if he's going to conflate the dictums of the market with moral correctitude "in a global sense" or what have you, then, you know. We're idiots for giving him the power to say this stuff.