By Ron Horn.
So far I have found two articles which offer some insights on this question: iDolatry — obituary for a capitalist revolutionary and Let's Talk About Steve Jobs Because Everyone Else Is (Written in August shortly after his resignation.) The first focuses on his performance as a capitalist driving force in the ongoing creation of new products to pump up markets, the second offers some insights on Jobs as a cultural icon. I would like to develop the individualist theme further.
A social system under a class rule always puts the stamp of the latter's interests on all parts of the system. Both articles show how Jobs has served the interests of the ruling class and why he has been idolized by mainstream media. Mainstream media is directly controlled by this class and at all times reflects their values and points of view.
The same idolatry with which mainstream media portrays Jobs also, of course, pertains to their extravagant praise of Microsoft's Bill Gates. Both are seen as individual heroes who almost single-handedly created the products of their respective corporations, when in fact they were created and accomplished by the efforts of so many thousands of people engaged in their enterprises.
Under capitalism there are basically two types of people: winners and losers. To be sure their are gradations of each; and people are constantly encouraged to compare their individual achievements with those of their peers to motivate them to compete ever harder to become a winner, and by doing so, to enrich those who "own" the enterprises in which people do their productive work.
The idolatrous recognition given to successful individuals of capitalist enterprises serves to justify the enormous material rewards that all winners of this system produces. Thus, the same idolatry is given to investor Warren Buffet who only knows how to enrich himself off the productivity of others. Capitalist cultural operatives constantly use this theme to hammer home their thesis that all people who thrive under capitalism do so because of their individual efforts, and thus, are deserving of so much wealth. People who fail to succeed in this system are "losers" and likewise deserve nothing.
On the other hand, all the adverse social and environment damage caused by the heroes of capitalism and their enterprises is completely ignored by media propagandists. The exploitation of working people, the destruction of whole communities through the exporting of enterprises to cheap labor areas of the world, and the spoliation of the environment are all often hidden or denied.
