Quality-of-life discourse masks the profitability motive underneath.

Evidence

One has never said better how much “humanism,” “normality,” “quality of life” were nothing but the vicissitudes of profitability. The parallel between these animals sick from surplus value and humans sick from industrial concentration, from the scientific organization of work and assembly - line factories is illuminating. In the latter case as well, the capitalist “breeders” were led to a revision that was destructive of the mode of exploitation, innovating and reinventing the “quality of work,” the “enrichment of tasks,” discovering the “human” sciences and the “psycho-sociological” dimension of the factory. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 427

Categorization

• XREF: Classic Jameson-adjacent Marxist line: humanism as ideology of capital — directly relevant to the reader’s Jameson study of culture following economic modes. — connects to: The profit motive becomes invisible second nature through its universalization — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 754; The system’s usefulness claim masks that production serves profit not need; Received moral imperatives often mask what we actually care about. — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide…, 64 (+2 more)
• ADDENDUM: Complements the ‘On Sacrifice’ essay’s treatment of how oppressive systems dress themselves in humane, quality-of-life rhetoric.

Broader Connections

• The system’s usefulness claim masks that production serves profit not need #corroborates (0.90)
• The profit motive becomes invisible second nature through its universalization #expands (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 754
• Received moral imperatives often mask what we actually care about. #corroborates (0.75) — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition, 64