Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

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All of this reminded me sort of getting back to the individual as entrepreneur.

Naomi Klein in Doppelganger, I think this is at least the third or fourth week in a row.

We're going to bring her up.

She talks about this article that

was written in 1997. It was the cover story in Fast Company titled The Brand Called You. She describes

him as a management guru, Tom Peters, laid out the new rules, saying, quote, regardless of age, regardless of position,

regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding.

We are CEOs of our own companies, me incorporated.

To be in business today, our most important job is to be the head marketer for the brand called you.

And Klein.

Well, right, exactly.

Klein points out that, interestingly, Peters was roundly mocked for this at the time.

The magazine even published a Miaculpa disavowing the article and its dystopic vision

of a world in which office mates compete with one another over brand name recognition.

Would it not be insufferable?

And then she kind of concludes saying, in short, the idea of personal branding began as a ruse,

a transparent SOP being pitched in lieu of actual jobs or a stable income by companies and

their management consultants, drunk on the cost savings and stock price inflation, born of

...