Abstract
This paper has as theoretical reference the contributions of the authors of the first generation of the Frankfurt School. It aims to present the changes occurred in capitalism in the XIX and XX centuries and their impact in individual’s formation - still noticed nowadays. Therefore, characteristics of the liberal and monopoly capitalism are presented, as well as the ideology produced by such configurations of the production system. From this, it is highlighted as these elements affect the formation of the individual and how there are changes in its social function: opposition to adhesion. In order to do so, it has been analyzed some psychosocial phenomena that occurred in the last presidential elections in the USA and Brazil. If some propositions of the first generation of the Frankfurt School become anachronistic, as to the means, the contributions regarding mass manipulation become extremely actual. The reduction of individuals to algorithms demonstrates the bankruptcy of the model of bourgeois individuality. Far from being a nostalgic reference to the liberal model of individual, the article aims to demonstrate its contradictions in the contemporary world.
Keywords:
liberal capitalism; monopoly capitalism; ideology; individual’s formation; Frankfurt School