Economist magazine to potential subscribers: "never lose your place in the world"

The catchy phrase comes to me on an Economist advertisement on a bookmark included in a recent shipment from Amazon. Thus the pun/analogy is supposed to be that, like a bookmark, which keeps you from losing your place in the book, The Economist keeps you from losing your place in terms of understanding what is going on in the world. In terms of the homology between these terms, the pun is meant to be about orienting yourself within a given space (that of the book or of the news of the world). Still, I find it sort of telling that they use this phrase because it also has multiple other meanings in this context, primarily because it is obviously focused on a certain clientele.

I am sure that the reporting done by the Economist is very good. And I am sure, in terms of the global coverage, it is much better than a popular weekly newsmagazine like Newsweek or Time. But the cost of a subscription to the Economist is far above any of these, on par with some minor academic journals. (Newsstand cost is US$254.49 and the discount of 61% makes the magazine about $100 a year.) But it is still basically just a news magazine, just focused towards people who have more of a concern with international politics, economics, trade and finance than with the basic news peppered with occasional celebrity profile or info-mercials about the must have products of the season.

Thus when I see the phrase, "Never lose your place in the world" I can't help but think of it in political/ideological terms as well. In this way, the Economist is basically just he messenger to the global upper middle class, delivering a warning/reminder that one's place (and the larger space of one's class) is never completely secure, that it must be renewed constantly. This is an important signifier, therefore, of the signified of the class conflict on a global scale and, in particular, of the especially important ideological component, of which the Economist is positioned as a key resource. Not only is it important and good to keep one's place (and the general order of places) but reading the Economist, with its neo-liberal economic, Political Realist, common sense is one practise that will help you shore this up for yourself on a weekly basis. For that, $100 seems like small potatoes (assuming of course that you already have plenty of potatoes to eat and aren't counting on using the burlap from the sack to cloth your children or provide some kind of shelter.)