We don't describe it as totalitarian or oppression because, by looking around the world, we've seen real oppression and totalitarianism, and they weren't just an economic system. I mean, look at the Uighurs in China. That's oppression.
Note well: I am not saying that the economic system does not have its oppressive aspects. I am not saying that those aspects should not be improved. But I am saying that calling it totalitarian is cheapening the word "totalitarian". There's real things that the word applies to, and stretching it to apply to the economic system may help make your point, but it also hides the difference between the economic system and real totalitarianism. And there is a real, massive difference, which needs to not be swept under the rug of rhetoric.
(Also, positivism is dead as the dominant means of making sense of the world.)
>by looking around the world, we've seen real oppression and totalitarianism, and they weren't just an economic system
This just dances around the core question, though: you say we've seen "real" totalitarianism, but by what do you judge that standard other than the uncritical ideological framework that's most common? Of course the treatment of the Uighurs is totalitarian, but that says little about what is and isn't totalitarian. Marcuse's claim isn't that "economic system" totalitarianism is the only kind, he's saying that the limiting of the concept in today's world is a result of technological and instrumental rationality, just as is the limiting of various other concepts - we conceive of totality, freedom, peace etc. within our rationalities, but Marcuse is saying that our very conception of what is rational changes in the advanced industrial age just as it changed in past ages more obviously (e.g the early Rennaisance moral opposition to a tradesman collecting profit other than by remuneration for his work of doing the transport).
>But I am saying that calling it totalitarian is cheapening the word "totalitarian".
Why couldn't it be the opposite - that the limited construction of the folk (generally uncritical) concept of totalitarianism is a restriction which works well to serve the interests of advanced industrial society?
>And there is a real, massive difference, which needs to not be swept under the rug of rhetoric.
Marcuse (nor any of his followers) argue that the forms of totalitarianism are qualitatively the same - in fact to do so would be self-defeating, because they want to draw a distinction between folk concepts of totalitarianism and critical concepts - and that is only possibly by accepting there is a difference between, for instance, the treatment of the Uighurs and economic totalitarianism.
>Also, positivism is dead as the dominant means of making sense of the world
Marcuse is not strictly referring to philosophical logical positivism, since even by the time he was writing this application of the concept was waning - he is reacting against the "positivist" sociology which was dominant at the time (and some scholars would argue still is). The dispute (the "Positivism Dispute") refers to the debate over the notion of "historicism" and in particular revolves around Karl Popper's criticisms of critical theory methodology.
Note well: I am not saying that the economic system does not have its oppressive aspects. I am not saying that those aspects should not be improved. But I am saying that calling it totalitarian is cheapening the word "totalitarian". There's real things that the word applies to, and stretching it to apply to the economic system may help make your point, but it also hides the difference between the economic system and real totalitarianism. And there is a real, massive difference, which needs to not be swept under the rug of rhetoric.
(Also, positivism is dead as the dominant means of making sense of the world.)