The Economy of Denial: Addiction, Extortion, Deception
22nd March 2025
Even the most opinionated become circumspect when the discussion turns to The Addiction Economy, for the term The Addiction Economy calls things by their real name, which disrupts our protective shield of denial.
Yes, denial, for ours is an Economy of Denial, where the surface stability of normalcy demands we avoid calling things by their real name at all costs, for that lays bare the core mechanisms of the Economy of Denial: addiction, extortion, deception. This is a jarring, disturbing mirror, for we see our own reflection.
We become quiet when The Addiction Economy comes up, for the core concept here is that highly profitable addictions have been normalized to the degree that the majority of the populace is addicted but doesn’t identify their addiction as an addiction because the words addiction and extortion have such negative connotations that they threaten both our sense of normalcy (i.e. belonging to the safe, stable, acceptable majority) and our self-pride that we’re far above the poor lost souls who succumb to addiction.