Scarcity’s conquest has been organized throughout civilization to serve domination, generating surplus repression

Evidence

Marcuse’s analysis of the dialectic of civilization' was as follows. The whole course of previous culture was marked by the fact that acquiring the necessities of life was organized not according to the goal of satisfying the needs of individuals in the best possible manner, but in such a way that the gradual conquest of scarcity was inextricably bound up with and shaped by the interest of domination’. In addition to basic repression, the "modifications" of the instincts necessary for the perpetuation of the human race in civilization', 119 there was also surplus repression’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 526

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the key Marcusean distinction between basic repression and surplus repression, essential to Eros and Civilization’s argument.
• SEED: Article angle: ‘surplus repression’ as an analytical tool for diagnosing contemporary wellness and productivity culture as regimentation rather than liberation.