False-need satisfaction reinforces the rat race and profitable domination.

Evidence

It is repressive precisely to the degree to which it promotes the satisfaction of needs which require continuing the rat race of catching up with one’s peers and with planned obsolescence, enjoying freedom from using the brain, working with and for the means of destruction. The obvious comforts generated by this sort of productivity, and even more, the support which it gives to a system of profitable domination, facilitate its importation in less advanced areas of the world where the introduction of such a system still means tremendous progress in technical and human terms. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 841

Categorization

• DEFINE: Yields Marcuse’s operative definition of ‘false needs’: needs whose satisfaction perpetuates peer-catching-up, planned obsolescence, and brainless enjoyment.
• XREF: connects to: Apparent collectivism can conceal pure domination through delegated labor; Competition reverses empathy so rivals’ suffering becomes pleasing. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 646; Repressed unhappiness can be mobilized as political support for domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 337 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Repressed unhappiness can be mobilized as political support for domination #expands (0.82) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 337
• Apparent collectivism can conceal pure domination through delegated labor #expands (0.75)
• Competition reverses empathy so rivals’ suffering becomes pleasing. #complicates (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 646
• Addiction to competitive victory can override monetary and moral motivation #complicates (0.70)